Sometimes, it feels like no matter how hard your employees or sales teams push, how hard they grind, or how much they work, the result you wanted doesn’t happen, and the company doesn’t grow.
This is often the result of misunderstood or miscommunicated goals. The sales team isn’t unified toward easily understood objectives. When you begin to notice this, you’ll be able to identify the companies that do have unified and understood goals, versus those that don’t.
When it comes to creating goals that will meaningfully impact your company, there’s no better book to read than Measure What Matters by John Doerr.
How to Communicate Goals Effectively with Objectives and Key Results
Planning effectively and leading a team towards a singular goal is the difference between a company that will keep growing and one that will struggle. But keeping a team on track towards such a goal is easier said than done. Measure What Matters describes a system of creating and communicating goals that will revolutionize the way you work and lead. This system is called Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).
What Are Objectives and Key Results?
OKRs are a collaborative goal-setting methodology that creates ambitious business goals and uses measurable results to prove when those goals have been achieved.
Here’s the formula for an OKR. You can easily make one by writing out your goal in this format:
I will (put your objective here) as measured by (put your key result here).
An example of the formula put to use is given on the Measure What Matters website: “I will fix the website for the vast majority of people as measured by 7 out of 10 people being able to get through, a 1 second response time, and a 1% error rate.”
Edge Factor Found a Game Changing OKR Book
On the Company Growth Podcast’s new limited series, Books To Help You Grow, we review books that unlocked the most ideas for Tangible Words and our clients. For this episode, we talked about Measure What Matters with the Founder and CEO of Edge Factor, Jeremy Bout.
Jeremy Bout has a lot to say about this book because OKRs completely changed the way he and his team approached their business, which led to a noticeable and measurable change in growth and success.
Jeremy also has an interesting idea to get his team to understand OKRs. He bought each member of his team a copy of Measure What Matters and then held book clubs to discuss the content and how they can apply it to their work. A similar approach could work for your company to help get your team on the same page.
Listen to the Company Growth Podcast's Books to Help You Grow Series
And find the book that will change your life and business. If you’ve been looking for an OKR book that explains the concept thoroughly, listen to the Measure What Matters episode of the Company Growth Podcast today and see what we think are the pros and cons of Measure What Matters.
To browse more episodes by topic, visit the Company Growth Podcast webpage.
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References: https://www.whatmatters.com/series_entries/s1-1-why-okrs
https://www.whatmatters.com/faqs/okr-meaning-definition-example
