We are all startups now. Don’t you think so? After enduring all the hardships, we’re back to square one, developing strategies to grow in the new working environment and also the future of work, whatever it may be. What we need now is not an innovation in developing software or providing services, but a novelty in finding a way to bring back business in 2020 i.e., identifying the damages and recapturing the brand position and market. One of the powerful ways to rebound from adversity is to set new goals that seem important in this current situation.  

Yes, you cannot set a goal that has no deadline and about which you will forget later. In this unprecedented situation, as a CXO or HR, you will have a vision for your company. If you don’t determine the steps to achieve your vision, then it will become a mere dream. There is a robust management tool and goal-setting methodology to prevent your goals from vanishing as wishes. It is nothing other than the Objectives and Key Results (OKR). Objectives tell your team what to do and key results reveal your team’s progress toward the objective. OKRs can be set and revised frequently.  

Key Benefits of Objectives and Key Results (OKR) 

OKR Spell to your Team – Examples  

If you are in the marketing team, your OKRs should be as the following.  

Objective: Generate leads through social media  

Key Results:   

• Increase engagement by 5% through LinkedIn  

• Increase signups to 10% from 5% in Twitter  
• Churn quality content to increase traffic by 15% to your page.  

If you belong to the sales team, your OKRs resemble the following.  

Objective: Become the leading PMS software seller in New York  

Key Results:   

• Make up 52% of the PMS sales in New York  
• Increase customer retention by 70%  
• Generate more than 150 leads a month and follow up  

PS: Do not set more than 3 key results. That will make you either forget them or lethargic about progress.  

Best Practices in Implementing OKRs in Your Team  

Motivating OKRs  

Motivating OKRs will have clearly challengeable key results that inspire a team to move forward and achieve them. If the OKRs are not ambitious, then the team will reach them easily and eventually lose interest in the work. There will also be no learning in the process of achieving the goals. Learning is the new mindset of the workforce, so make sure your team learns something new while working for a goal. Talents are your weapons to thrive in this global crisis and beyond. Never forget that!  

Note to Remember: Do not set too aspirational goals. That will develop a defensive attitude in your team members.  

HANDPICKED RELATED LINKS: 

• OKR – Your Savior in Crisis Time 
• OKR playbook – A guide to ‘How to Implement OKR in your Team?’ 
• A Glimpse into The World’s Best Guide to OKR 

Measurable Key results  

OKRs can help you achieve even your stretch goals. The one thing that you should ensure is, your key results are challenging your team. If your team or an employee scores 0.7, that can also be considered a success. Because that indicates he tried his best and halfway in reaching the stretch aim. Key results are the milestones that measure the progress of your team toward the objective. (Of course, 0.7 is not a success when it is a simple committed goal, which you should have achieved). Your team members must achieve a score of 1 if it is a committed goal.  

Note to Remember: Key results are not tasks or outputs, they are outcomes.  

Regular Check-ins 

LinkedIn made a breakthrough by becoming a 20 billion company. The dream was brought into action through an OKR. The organization conducted frequent check-ins to track the progress of OKRs and to guide the employees if they were off the road. This reduced the chance of failure and mostly ensures that the objective is reached by the team.  

Every team’s input  

How will you make your employees believe in what you believe and follow you? Take their inputs. For a larger organization, it is difficult to get the opinion of every employee. In that case, you can cascade the OKRs and the individuals can discuss for their teams’ OKRs and also set their personal OKRs accordingly. This approach engages every employee and increases the teams’ commitment toward the work.  

Relevant OKRs  

It is high time to revise your existing Objectives and Key Results or other SMART goals. As many irrevocable changes happened in the business sphere, your present existing goals may not be relevant anymore. Analyze the situation and set new goals to bring back your business and reach new heights.   

Own the Objectives and Key results  

Accountability is one of the key benefits of OKRs. The employees and managers should be held accountable for their OKRs. If there is no person responsible for an objective, the goal can never be achieved as no one feels the urge to take steps and attain them. Eventually, the morale of the workforce will decrease.   

Time-bound OKRs  

If the OKRs have no deadline, the employees will procrastinate, and they will be unable to figure out their priorities. Timelines can motivate the workforce to complete a project on time without delay, and this will take them a step forward toward the objective.  

Transparent OKRs  

Create a transparent culture by implementing OKRs in your organization. Objectives and Key Results is not an opaque process; each employee can view his/her peers’ OKRs and set the personal OKRs correspondingly.   

Follow these best practices to win 2020 and all the years to come. Keep upgrading your workplace with techniques like OKR, which has gained popularity with technology advancement.