October Theory: Gen-Z Discovers Quarterly Planning (and the Olds can learn a thing or two)

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Welcome to Thinkydoer Shorts, where we embrace anti-perfection

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and dive straight into the messy middle of strategy, leadership,

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and personal and career growth.

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I'm your host, Sara Lobkovich, creator of No-BS Objectives and Key Results,

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host of the Thinkydoers podcast,

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and I'm a strategy coach, big time goal nerd, and board certified

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health and wellness coach with a focus on work life well-being.

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And in the next few minutes, we'll explore a current topic or insight to

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spark your curiosity and provide you a pragmatic starting place to take action.

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Let's dive in.

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Hey friends, I thought I would experiment with a new format because we keep

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getting really bogged down in edit.

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So I've been completely loving our interview shows that we're putting

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together and there's so much work that I haven't been doing my solo shows.

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But this weekend something came up that I couldn't really wait

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to put an episode together for.

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So this is an experiment in doing a quick off the cuff episode on a

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culturally relevant topic in I don't know, 15 or so minutes or less.

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So I'm literally setting a timer so I can see it, so I don't go on too long.

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On Friday night I was up late and, you know, on the phone, which is not good

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for sleep hygiene, But it had been a while since I looked at calls for story

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support on Quoted, which is a source that I use to find media appearances

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and to look for journalists who cover topics that I am a specialist in.

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And there were a couple of calls for sources on something

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called October Theory.

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And

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when I saw TikTok October Theory goal setting, I had to know more.

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so I caught up really quickly with a couple of news articles.

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Of course, I got on TikTok to go straight to the source and I

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completely missed the debut of this topic because I've been so head down

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working on my books and everything else

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that I'm a little late to the party.

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at this point, there's something like 36 million posts about

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October Theory on TikTok alone.

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So first, what is October Theory?

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October Theory is the idea that October is a great time to do your

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assessment of where you are, think retrospective, and take stock and

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decide what you want to set your goals around in advance of the new year.

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So some influencers talk about it like it's a mini January.

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Like a mini set of New Year's resolutions.

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And some of the youths have this idea because we're going into

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what they call cuffing season.

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So people are taking stock of their relationship status and wanting

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to make changes before we get into the hunker down for winter.

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There's also an astrological element, Which I find fascinating

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as a Libra Sun sign, but I'll leave that to the TikTok experts.

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We're going to talk about goal setting.

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So while I was reading up and watching some of the TikToks on the topic, I

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felt like I was watching Gen Z discover quarterly planning for the first time.

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Which I'm not throwing shade, I think that's really exciting.

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So much of Gen Z, if my stepkids and their friends are any indication,

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are so mobilized for change naturally that the thought of them starting with

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quarterly goal setting personally or professionally early on just makes

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me think they could take over the world even faster, in a good way.

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So this is a quick two-fer short.

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I'm going to be talking to my business listeners about what the youths are

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getting right about October Theory.

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And then I also want to introduce Gen Z to the concept of a key result, because

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it's going to help you make change even faster than you're naturally wired for.

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And yes, I'm talking about objectives and key results or OKRs, But these are

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not your parents or grandparents OKRs.

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So for my business listeners, many organizations plan on an annual

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cycle starting the year in January.

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A lot of my clients begin their annual planning in, November, or

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sometimes even as late as December.

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The other phenomenon I tend to observe in my business clients is we start out the

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year really strong with our focus on OKRs.

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We might do a solid Q2 reset

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at the end of Q1, because we've learned a lot about how we might

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improve our OKRs for the year.

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And then a lot of organizations do that big mid year.

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So they take stock at mid year, see what they've learned.

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And see what to let go of, and then create their OKRs for Q3.

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But what tends to happen with that quarterly cycle is the Q3 reset

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kind of gets eaten by the strategic planning that's about to start.

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So there's this overlapping of our working toward our current year, year

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end goals, and planning for next year.

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And that overlap can mean that the goal setting and goal pursuit toward the

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end of the year can get pretty muddled.

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I love the idea of this October theory, that October is a great time for a

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retrospective to look back on what we've learned this year, where we are in our

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current state, and then say, where do we want to be when we wake up on January 1st?

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that's no different from doing an OKR reset at the end of Q3.

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I just find a lot of organizations just kind of stop with their

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OKR rhythm at the end of Q3.

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I saw clients even in the last couple weeks, some of them, their quarterly

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reviews are on my calendar, and I saw cancellations of the quarterly

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review because people are so busy trying to get ready for budget

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season and strategic planning.

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So let's listen to the next generation on this one and

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prioritize the end of Q3 reset.

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Because the sand in the hourglass is really running out on 2024, and you most

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likely have some really important progress to be made on your goals before year end,

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even while we're planning for next year.

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All right, now I want to introduce our Gen Z folks who are excited about October

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theory to the concept of a key result, and key results come from a collaborative

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goal setting model and practice called Objectives and Key Results or OKRs.

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OKRs have been used in big companies and by startups for a long, long time.

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But I can completely understand how younger people entering the workforce

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or earlier in their career might encounter OKRs in the workplace and

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think, Oh my gosh, this is not for me.

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Like the, the way that OKRs get implemented doesn't always make

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a great sales pitch for them.

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The experiences people have with them aren't always strong.

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So, Gen Zers, if you haven't yet encountered OKRs, let's start you

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off right, and Gen Zers who have had a bad experience with OKRs in the

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workplace, let's do a reboot here.

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The approach to OKRs that I work with, I call the No BS OKR model.

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We create goals very quickly.

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Based exactly on what you're doing with October Theory, based on taking

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stock of where we are and where we want to be, and then creating

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objectives and key results accordingly.

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Today, I'm going to focus on key results and encourage you to experiment

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with creating your key results as part of your October Theory planning.

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When people are setting goals, their natural tendency a lot of times is to

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create goals around what they plan to do.

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So if you have goals today, you might look at that list and let's inventory

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how many of them are you deciding to do something or to complete an activity

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or even a quantified activity to do an activity a certain number of times.

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It's probably a fair number of them.

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So key results are a different kind of goal.

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And the structure that I use for a textbook key result is increase,

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decrease, improve, reduce, some kind of directional verb.

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A metric by a percentage or point change from start value to finish value.

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Now, what's the difference between creating goals around

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activity and creating goals around empirically measurable outcomes?

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For one, you're probably signing yourself up for way too many activity

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goals than you can actually achieve.

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It's really common.

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For two, you might complete all those activities that you planned and check

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off all those boxes and still not actually achieve whatever outcome

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or result you really aspire to.

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OKRs define for us how we're going to actually quantify success and progress.

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And it sounds counterintuitive, but setting empirically measurable key results

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around what we hope to achieve in terms of progress and success can actually

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be super motivating compared to just setting goals around our activities.

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If we create goals around our activities, and we don't keep up with

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that plan, then we feel bad about not being able to check off those boxes.

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It also causes problems for our tendency toward all or nothing thinking.

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So if we miss one activity, and that interrupts our habit around the

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activity we're trying to complete.

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Then there's a risk that you're just going to backslide and feel bad and stop

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doing what you committed yourself to do.

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Where when we create key results, we think about those differently.

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So when we create key results, we're going to think about what would be really

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incredible to achieve in terms of impacts or quantifiable outcomes of our effort.

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And we're going to think about that in a stretch way because what

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you're doing there is thinking about a future that doesn't exist yet.

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So there's no way to accurately forecast what the result is

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going to be with certainty.

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We recognize we're going into the unknown.

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We're trying to change something.

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It's not a sure thing that you're going to achieve it, although you're going to

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try your best to, but just setting that measurable goal gives you something to

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work toward and then lean in to curiosity and learning about your progress.

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So instead of the risk of the all or nothing bad feelings that we get when

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we set just activity based goals, when we create key results, that's

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what we're If we're pursuing a key result, and even if we're not making

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progress, then the reaction we have isn't, there's something wrong with

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me that I'm not achieving my goal.

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I'm doing something wrong that I'm not achieving my goal.

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Instead, when we're working with key results, We get instantly curious,

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even if you're not having any progress.

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The question you can ask yourself is what's going on that I'm not making

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progress on this goal, get curious.

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And then that gives you flexibility to adapt your activity plan.

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So you can take stock, see what you might want to change in what you're

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doing that will be designed To advance your achievement of your key result

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with nimbleness and flexibility about the situation that you're operating in,

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which frankly changes from day to day.

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So those activity goals you're used to setting, you set at a certain time,

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that's your best guess at what needs to be done, and then you work toward

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them, but you're in a changing world and the circumstances and situation

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and you yourself are changing.

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it's really common for those activity based goals to get stale or to become no

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longer relevant before they're achieved.

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Because with key results, we're asking and answering the question,

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what would be really incredible to achieve if everything goes right?

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It lets you envision a future that doesn't exist yet, the

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future that you want to create.

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It enables you to work toward that future with clarity about

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what you're trying to achieve.

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And it lets you lean into curiosity, whether you are achieving

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progress on your key result.

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Whether you are not or whether it's not moving, no matter what's happening with

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that key result, you can check in with yourself, ask the question, what's going

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on that this isn't going well, or what's going on that this is going so well?

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Can I leverage that to accelerate my progress or to take what I've

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learned to improve my performance in some other area of my work or life?

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All right, so that's it.

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I'm going to wrap up for today.

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If you're curious about anything you've heard here, I would love to have you

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check out my upcoming book, You Are a Strategist, Using No-BS Objectives and

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Key Results to get big things done.

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You can join the book pre- launch list at youareastrategist.

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com.

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Now this book is a love letter to all of my listeners, but I would be

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so excited if this becomes the book that Gen Z learns about OKRs from.

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Because I can't wait to see what you do with Objectives and Key Results.

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Thank you for tuning into this Thinkydoer Short today.

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Remember, progress beats perfection every time, and let's practice

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building in public together.

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If you found value in today's episode, Share it with a fellow Thinkydoer.

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We love your reviews.

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And for more resources and insights, visit saralobkovich.com.

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Or if that's too hard to spell, there's a shortcut at findrc.co.

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We'll have our next full length episode out in just a couple

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days, continuing on the theme of mental health for Thinkydoers.

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So until next time, stay curious and stay focused on what might

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be incredible to achieve.