“Then Patty Stonesifer brought in OKRs, the green-yellow- red approach, and it worked. When we used OKRs with our grant reviews, I felt good about what we were going after. I was still running Microsoft, and my time was limited, and Patty had to make things very efficient between us, to make sure we agreed. The goals process was a big part of that. There were two cases where I turned down a grant in the end because the goals weren’t clear enough. The OKR system made me confident I was making the right call.  

I’m a huge fan of goals, but they need to be handled correctly. At one point, the malaria team thought we’d eradicate the disease by 2015, which wasn’t realistic. When a goal is too aspirational, it’s bad for credibility. In philanthropy, I see people confusing objectives with missions all the time. A mission is directional. An objective has a set of concrete steps that you’re intentionally engaged in and actually trying to go for. It’s fine to have an ambitious objective, but how do you scale it? How do you measure it?  

I think it’s getting better, though. Philanthropy is bringing in more people from high-performance business environments, and they’re tilting the culture. Having a good mission is not enough. You need a concrete objective, and you need to know how you’re going to get there.” 

-Bill gates in Measure What Matters  

Not only Bill Gates, but many other global leaders have also experimented with Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and have driven their organizations toward success. Larry Page implemented OKRs in Google with John Doerr’s help and every individual in the organization took OKRs seriously and worked toward his/her goals. OKRs provide that motivation to achieve one’s goals. There are many companies and individuals who set goals for every quarter or new year and will forget them completely after the first month. These kinds of individuals or organizations will not see any growth or success.  

Here are the objective and key results of the Gates foundation.  

Objective: Eradicate malaria by 2040.  

Key Results:  

1. Prove to the world that regional elimination of malaria is possible with a radical cure-based approach.  
2. Prepare for scale-up by creating the necessary tools—SERCAP (Single Exposure Radical Cure and Prophylaxis) Diagnostic.  
3. Sustain current global progress to ensure the environment is conducive to eradication push.  

How to Achieve Stretch Goals?  

Stretch goals and long-term goals can be achieved only if the entire organization is motivated and committed to achieving the objective. If not, the OKRs are nothing more than the vision of the company that will never be achieved. Organizations should set Objectives and Key Results based on their working conditions, market research, company’s mission, and vision. The major benefit of OKRs is that they are agile and can adapt to changing business environments. OKRs can be quarterly or annual depending upon the business needs. These positive sides of OKRs made it highly suitable for companies to sustain and thrive in this COVID-hit business world.  

To achieve stretch goals, the time set can be exceeded. The commitment toward the goal decides the success of the goal. For example, the OKR of Google set by Sundar Pichai went on for three years before they could achieve it. They had stuck to the same objective and key results in an unwavering manner for three long years. Though others were skeptical about the goal set by Sundar Pichai, his team and he believed that it is a tangible goal and worked hard toward it strategically.   

Alignment is the Key   

One of the benefits of OKR is that it is easier to align the individual goals with the overall business objective. According to a study, only 7% of employees understand the company’s goals. According to Harvard Business Review (HBR), companies with employees, who are aligned to the overall business objective, tend to be the top performers. And according to the survey of top global CEOs, misalignment is one of the top-obstacles in the organization’s path toward success.  

“Our OKRs were well crafted, but implementation fell short. When departments counted on one another for crucial support, we failed to make the dependency explicit. Coordination was hit-and-miss, with deadlines blown on a regular basis. We had no shortage of objectives, but our teams kept wandering away from one another.  

The following year, we tried to fix the problem with periodic integration meetings for the executive team. Each quarter our department heads presented their goals and identified dependencies. No one left the room until we’d answered some basic questions: Are we meeting everyone’s needs for buy-in? Is a team overstretched? If so, how can we make their objectives more realistic?  

Alignment doesn’t mean redundancy. At MyFitnessPal, every OKR has a single owner, with other teams linking up as needed. As I see it, co-ownership weakens accountability. If an OKR  

fails, I don’t want two people blaming each other. Even when two or more teams have parallel  

objectives, their key results should be distinct.”  

-Mike Lee, Co-founder, and CEO, MyFitnessPal 

How to Align Individual Goals with Overall Business Objective?  

Cascading down the goals or bottom-up approach by knowing the demands of the customers are two ways of setting a business goal and taking it to the entire organization. The gap between strategy and execution needs to be filled to keep a step forward as a whole organization. When the top management sets a goal, they need to be discussed with the department heads, who in turn, should have frequent meetings with the team managers to reiterate the goals. And then, the managers should help every individual in the organization to set his/her personal goals.  

This is not micromanagement, but autonomy is given within a circle to keep the efforts focused toward one common direction. Continuous Check-ins is a must-have strategy to track whether the progress is in the intended direction or not. Even when a team goes off the track, they will be pulled back along the way and not after they reach the destination. OKRs and continuous check-ins should join forces to bring the desired result. 

Example of an OKR for a product company.  

Overall business Objective: Increase sales by 50% by 2021. (The objectives and key results should always be numerically defined to avoid procrastination.)  

Key Results  

1. Generate 20% more leads every month.  
2. The conversion rate of leads should be increased by 90%.  
3. The user experience of the product should be revamped by January 2021 to suit the current business needs.   

Objective of the digital marketing team of the company: Generate 20% more leads every month.  

Key Results  

1. Churn 20% more content in the form of blogs and ebooks to bring in more leads.  
2. Increase the number of leads through social media by 10% and retarget them.
3. Increase the open rate of emails by 60%  

Objective of a content writer in the Digital marketing team: Churn 20% more content in the form of blogs and ebooks  

Key Results  

1. Create quality blogs and bring in 10% more leads by creating 10 blogs a month. 
2. 2 ebooks a month to bring in 20% more leads
3. Create three case studies to use them as sales material and for email marketing campaigns  

These OKRs differ with each company and this is how the OKRs should be cascaded from the top management to the last individual in the company.