15. Transparency and Visibility

Transcript

When we talk about OKRs, which stands for objectives and key results, it’s important to understand our starting point is that the objective is what you want to achieve, and the key result is how we will measure the achievement. Adopting OKRs is a very effective way that an organization can identify and manage short-term and long-term goals around the execution and the delivery of strategy.

A whole wide range of organizations have adopted OKRs from Google to LinkedIn, and various big pharma organizations, but a fundamental is to understand that to implement OKRs within an organization leaders must start with clear company or organizational objectives. You’ve got to define your big objective at the top of the organization and then departments and teams work around that, and they set up their OKRs to empower and to determine how each team or individual can have an impact on the overall organizational objective. It is very important that OKRs are transparent. Transparency must allow all departments and functional teams, even individuals within the company, from the CEO to the intern to see each other’s goals and objectives. The outcome should result in all individuals within the organization aligning their goals to a singular overall organizational OKR.

We will sometimes have committed or aspirational OKRs. The ultimate aim of OKRs is that all individuals in the organization ‘pulling their oar’ in synergy to ensure they are propelling the organization forward to its desired future state.