How to Build OKRs That Actually Drive Change from Day One with Natasha Redman

Speaker A: Welcome to Strategy Candy, the podcast that's all about doing better work with a great strategy, achieving audacious goals with okr, uh, and building products that people love. Today is a bit of a different style podcast. It's actually a recording of a podcast I did with another person. Natasha. Today's episode is a little bit different. It's actually a crossover with a friend's podcast. The podcast is Casa de Cambio, and it's all about change management. And this is something that I think a lot of people hear that and they switch off. Unfortunately, it is one of the most powerful things that you can do in an organization is understand how to influence and lead change. And so I had a really great chat with Natasha about what are OKRs, particularly in the context of change management,

Speaker B: and how should you be applying it

Speaker A: in a business and actually make it effective using some really powerful change management practices? I also go a little bit into why I got into okrs and basically nearly failed at a career in technology and product. Coming from and working in a bit of a waterfall world, I just did not fit into. My way of working was much more

Speaker B: around outcomes and impact.

Speaker A: And this podcast takes us through. How do we do change? Why are some of the ways that we do things today not so effective, particularly around product delivery and how does okrs help that? So if you want to be able

Speaker B: to get very clear on what is

Speaker A: change and why should we be changing, if you want to clear on how to build better products and how okrs

Speaker B: can help you do that, this is the podcast episode for you.

Speaker A: On with the show.

Speaker C: Welcome, Tim.

Speaker B: G', day, Natasha. How's it going? So excited to be here.

Speaker C: It's going really well. It's going really well. How's your week been?

Speaker B: Fantastic. It's Friday today, so I'm pretty, pretty happy about that. Big week that's all happening. Nice to be coming into the weekend.

Speaker C: Yeah. And this weekend we're allowed to have outdoor picnics, so a little tiny taste of freedom, which is very exciting for us in Melbourne.

Speaker B: This is what we've got to hang on to. I see these little moments of these times we had to get out, enjoy the sun and, yeah, it's like sunshiny outside. So it's all happening.

Speaker C: Yeah, it is. And speaking of all happening, we're going to talk about OKRs today, which I'm super excited to have you on as an expert on this topic. Before we get into that topic, though, uh, there's a couple of questions I ask every guest who comes onto the podcast. And the first one is, what are you currently watching, reading, or listening to?

Speaker A: Oh, these.

Speaker B: These are good questions. So watching. I. So, because we can't travel, I'm obsessed with Japanese travel at the moment. There's like, Japan abroad, and I think it's another one, Pablo in Japan or something. But basically it's like literally YouTube videos of people traveling Japan. So I know you're probably hoping for some really insightful. Oh, this powerful TED speaker or something.

Speaker C: No, that's what I love is that people in the Sea Suite like Shit's Creek and just people like. Because everybody. Or people like Kardashians. So, no, there's no shame in liking Japanese travel. I've been watching a few, yeah. YouTube videos of like, European locations. M.

Speaker B: You got to have your little escapes.

Speaker C: Right here's me walking around a town in the French Riviera. I'm, uh, like, oh, this is so good.

Speaker A: 100%.

Speaker B: I feel safe enough now to share with you that I do have a thing for videos of people walking around in Japan in the rain. So I do have that in the background sometimes. Just don't tell anyone. Okay?

Speaker C: Okay. We'll just keep it between us and the Casa Kambio podcast listeners. Um, um, and also, what was the best piece of career advice you ever received?

Speaker B: Ah, so that's a really good one. Look, I'm going to give you two, two pieces. One was from. And I know this is a little bit daggy, but one was from my mother, so my mother passed away when I was 18. I was very lucky, though. She invested a, uh, wealth of knowledge and learning in me. She was a very entrepreneurial type of person. So Carol Newbold was her name. She really helped me understand the need to really focus on effort. So I've always been pretty, pretty keen to make things happen, but she really taught tenacity in me and so really helped me really. When something needs to happen, when things get gritty, just push forward and keep going. I think that's been a big thing. I think that's something we've probably all learned a little bit about over the past year. But yeah, that was something that I'm incredibly grateful for. There was actually someone else that later in my early career helped me out with as well. So that kind of set me up with the sort of the energy to drive forward and push force through things. The other side was someone I worked with in my early career was Marcia. She shared a book with me called the Four Hour Workweek. Yeah, bet a bunch of your listeners have heard it again. It's probably a little bit daggy, so everyone's probably going to go, it's not daggy.

Speaker C: I am, um, such a super fan of Tim Ferriss and that was the first book of his that I read.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And even though I don't think either of us work a four hour work week because we were just talking about how much we're working before we hit record. That is a game. It's a total game changer of book.

Speaker B: A hundred percent.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Look, I think that was really powerful for me was that kind of book, which I think my takeaway from that was, and the real game changer because, yeah, to your point, I've failed at the four hour work part. But the book really reinforces learning and experimentation. I think that to me was really big and these have been some foundational pillars I think I've come across. But so it's. Speaking of books, got to share one more book with you. I've actually got it here with me. I'm loving this. It's called Creative Selection. I don't know if you can see it on the camera.

Speaker C: Yeah, I can see it.

Speaker B: I know for the podcast listeners I won't be able to see it. So it's by Ken and I'm going to mess this up. But anyway, Ken.

Speaker A: Cosienda.

Speaker B: I totally messed that up. But anyway, Creative Selection, it's a really interesting book about someone who's been part of Apple since quite the early days, building their early web browsers, working on even the iPhone keyboard when it was first released. And so it really talks a lot about experimentation and learning. And to me it's nothing to do with OKRs, but you can see a lot of what they're talking about, how it ties into an OKR type world where you've got this sort of outcome focus, experimentation and learning along the way. And yeah, it's a really cool little book. I actually don't think okrs, uh, is mentioned once in there. Apple is known to do a form of okrs, but yeah, yeah, interesting.

Speaker C: That's great. And, um, I'll make sure both of those recommendations are included in the show notes so listeners can learn more about those books. But that's one I haven't heard enough of.

Speaker B: My pronunciation.

Speaker C: I'm definitely going to check it out though, because I remember like the first, when I met you a few years ago, you recommended me to read New Power. You probably don't remember this, but I went and bought it and then it sat on my shelf for ages because, um, I've Always got so many books to read and then I finally read it and it was amazing.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker C: And now that's probably one of the books that I tell the most people about. So if it's coming from you, I'm gonna probably buy that book and read it straight away.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah, wow. Look, it's an easy read. It's something where you're not going to have a light bulb m moment. I don't think in. I don't know, maybe you will. But it is just a nice sort of cruisy easy read. So, yeah, check it out.

Speaker C: I'm totally here for an easy read as well because I'm finding reading hard. I was saying to a mate called me last night and I was. He was like, I'm reading this book and I'm like, I'm actually scheduling time to read and it's mostly business books that I need to. And I've not enough fiction. Uh, yeah, I'm finding it tough because when I go on holidays, I smash books.

Speaker B: Yep. Oh, uh, me too. I always try and smash through a couple of books while I'm on holidays, but I do the exact same thing. 9pm, my calendar dings and that's my time to read.

Speaker C: Yeah. Anyway, onto objectives and key results. So starting at the very beginning, what are they?

Speaker A: It's such a.

Speaker B: It's such a good question. I'm going to step it back a little bit and go, what are some of the things that we see in business that people struggle with that kind of get the conversation started about okr? Uh, I think so often you see. And you'd see this in change management as well. Right. One of the key parts of change is helping connect people with the why, why are we doing this? Why are we going through this kind of journey? The same applies to the work that do. Why is this important? Why does this fit into something bigger right now? So this sort of strategic disconnect that occurs is a really common thing. The other part is this sort of disconnect around what should I be focusing on day to day and how do I prioritize my work and make sure that I'm working on the right kind of things and then ultimately, what does success look like off the back of that? So those are like some really common things that you hear people struggling with. Not even at the executive level. Right. It's kind of like at the team level. That's a big question that sort of pops up depth. And so this is where OKR can come in and we can talk a little bit. More about why at the executive level in a moment. But uh, okr really it's a goal setting framework. It's nothing too fancy and new. So hopefully the listeners are going to be still interested in that. It's something that's actually been around since the 60s. It was started in intel by someone called Andy Grove. And yeah, they really have it built into the core of their DNA so they still do it to this day. It's something that was taken from intel and shared with a bunch of organizations with someone called John Doer. He's probably another authority. If people are googling okrs, they'll probably find one of his videos on TED about it. Really interesting video. You know, there's mixed views around some of the concepts that he talks about, but either way it's a really good gateway drug. I encourage people to check it out.

Speaker C: I'll put that in the show notes too.

Speaker B: Yeah, and he started, he really started proliferating it when he spoke to Google and was an investor there. And basically they're in the garage and he's saying, how do you guys set goals? And they go, uh, we don't. And he goes, okay, check out this OKR thing. And so that went through popularity from there. And really it's quite a simple sort of concept. Really hard to master. Like a lot of things. Right. So you start with the objective. It's the what we want to achieve. It's like a big exciting sort of statement. It's engaging. Generally it'll last for about a quarter. So you'll say we want to achieve this big audacious goal this quarter. Then you go, okay, how do we measure our success against that? And that's where you have generally three to five key results which underpin that. And that's basically metrics that tell you you're being successful. And yeah, that's it in a nutshell. It's pretty simple in theory. You can imagine. Then when you go, okay, how do you apply that at the executive team and then have teams to align to that? It's a little bit harder, but it's the sort of thing where it's, the concept's not too hard once you start getting a bit of a go.

Speaker C: Yeah, and so you've explained what they are, but why do you think they're important and why do you think they bring value to organizations?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a really good question. I uh, touched on that at the beginning. But I think then if you think about more at the enterprise level and how it really helps big businesses go through this kind of stuff that really the biggest challenge I see is this lack of clarity around that sort of strategy. So we have these long term plans. The strategies can sometimes be really good or they can be really unclear, but there's none of that really connection day to day from what the executive team is focusing on and how they're driving the right outcomes. And what you find is the executive team members tend to operate as heads of state. So if I'm the cfo, I'm really worried about what's happening in finance, not so worried about anything else. If I'm the chief operating officer, ops is my domain. What we really want to do is shift that kind of thinking and go, uh, the executive team is a team. And this applies at any level too. Right. If you're a product team, it's the same kind of thing, right. You're all working towards a similar sort of outcome. You're mission aligned and you're there to solve a problem. And so by having an okr, uh, literally you have a shared goal with that team. So what you might see in some of your reading on this, and this is where we take quite a different type of approach to what a lot of the more popular kind of things talk about. Yeah it's because we've seen it through practice. So I've been doing this myself for about 10 years now and I can tell you I've cocked it up enough times to know what not to do. And through my learnings, one thing is have a singular uh, OKR if you can. Google for example has four or five at the company level, different okrs at a quarter. But they've got, and sorry, that's Alphabet now, but they've got Google under that. They've got, I think it's Waymo the car. They've got all these different kind of things that all the self driving car. They're all these different sort of businesses. So for them it makes sense. But for most organizations you want to have a singular goal at the top and that way the executive team can work together and focus on driving that as an outcome. So that's really a big part of the why is that alignment as a team. And the cadence which underpins that is you want to be checking on this kind of stuff weekly. So even again back to change management, I think really good lean change management, you're setting that clarity in the why, but you're also constantly getting at that sort of pulse. Check on how are people going with the change, how are they experiencing this kind of journey Are you really keeping that tight sort of loop? OKRs the same thing. It's. You're not setting that goal on an annual basis. That's probably the next sort of challenge that you see quite a lot of businesses face into those annual goals. You set them at the start of the year, you forget them, and then at the end of the year, someone pulls them back out and they go, oh, how'd you go on your goals? And you go, uh, oh, geez, I've got to retrofit this and work out how did everything I do this year fit into the goal that I set at the start of the year versus okay, ah, uh, you're checking on it on a weekly basis. Right. So that cadence and working together as a team is really powerful. So that's that executive lens. The other benefit then that comes is the sort of teams within the business can look at that okr. Uh, generally the exec team will share it as a draft once they've written it up. And hey, this is what we're thinking. It is an organic process too. So normally they would have talked to the teams before setting the okr. So it has this sort of alignment that sort of gets drawn in from the business. The teams can then align, uh, to that company okr, but then also align with each other. So let's say my team is focusing on. Maybe I'm part of a sales team and I need to be generating a whole bunch of sales. And I know one of the big issues with generating sales is how, uh, maybe our website's really dodgy or our product's really dodgy. Yeah, I might actually go and talk to the product team and say, hey, gang, we need to do some work on the app to really, uh, try and close, help us close some of these sales. The onboarding's a bit clunky. Can we please fix that up? And so you might actually share a key result between two teams. And so you don't only get this vertical alignment, which is really powerful.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: The entire business moving m in the same direction in lockstep, but also different teams supporting each other in different ways to drive outcomes. It's a pretty powerful kind of thing once you see it in motion.

Speaker C: Absolutely. Like, I know when I've worked in organizations or teams where it's very clear how the work I'm doing as an individual is contributing and, um, relating to the overall organizational goal and vision, I feel a lot more engaged and happy about what I'm doing. But when I feel like I'm over here doing this and the company is this. And I just don't understand. It's really hard to work hard on that when you have no idea why you're doing what you're doing.

Speaker B: And, um, I'm curious your thoughts on this, because so many businesses really struggle with this kind of concept though, right? They say, we're just, here's the project, go do it. Don't worry about the why. What's your take on that? Like, why is that so important?

Speaker C: I think, funny story, like, every time I start on a project, the first thing that people ask, oh, we need some comms. I haven't done some comms. And I'm like, okay, it's my first day, so tell me, why are we doing this project? And it's. And I'm like, okay, all right. And often when you come on as a change practitioner or a comms person, you're the one who has to actually sit down and work with the stakeholders and the sponsors to nut out the why and put it into a message that's really clear and easy to understand. And a lot of the time, if we think about why resistance to change happens, uh, or why changes fall over, a lot of the time it's because people didn't understand the why. So if people don't understand why they're doing it, they're not going to do it. They're going to be like, this is dumb. I don't get it yet. Nailing the why and tying what the project is doing back to an overall vision or strategy is so key to success in change and getting people on board and getting people to adopt new ways of working. Because a lot of changes are bad, they're not great, and people have something to lose. But if they go, okay, we're being disrupted by this, and so we have to do make these hard decisions and do this hard work, because if we don't, this is going to happen. I don't like it, but I understand it. We'll get through this. But so if you don't explain that, because a lot of changes, people can be. There can be restructures, people can be losing their jobs. Of course people are going to hate that if they don't understand why it's happening and they can't clearly understand the reasoning behind it. So, yeah, I think a lot of people fail to understand that not all change is good. It's not always good for everyone. There are always groups of people who will lose something. In any transformation or change piece. It's. Yeah, I would say the amount of projects I've worked on where it's a hundred percent good news story is like one or two out of infinity. Yeah. Because there's always negatives for someone, maybe for the sponsor, it's great for them or there's the people who are usually doing the project, they see the benefit. But yeah, I think understanding that is a uh, It's a common trap that people fall into that they haven't clearly like ah, articulated why we're doing what we're doing.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's such a good example and it's something, I'm sure I've picked it up from some of your material somewhere where you talk about change. Like people don't people hate being changed or having change forced upon them. But if they're, if, but if they're actually leading the change, it's a very

Speaker C: different kind of story manages itself. Yeah. Because if people have change done to them and it's surprise change, they take on a victim mentality which is fair. But if you actually involve them up front and say look, this is what we're doing, tell us what you think, get involved. I had a guest on who ran an organizational redesign using human centered design and everyone was involved and that was a massive thing because usually restructures are all harsh secret and then the new org structure comes out. Who came up with this? How is this going to work? Because they didn't consult anyone because it's all done secretly and people still know

Speaker B: what's going on 100%. Yeah. And that's where like you see this kind of stuff. I think that's where OKRs really come in too.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Because you're going, here's why we're focusing on these certain things and people as well then ah, are willing to, if you need to shift focus. Right. The reality is particularly like today, look at last year, right. There was a few month period where you had to rapidly change everything you're working on and there'd be some things that might have been priorities where possibly like you're setting up things that were going to be for in person events or maybe products that were for in person consumption. That's all straight out the door, right?

Speaker A: That's gone.

Speaker B: And so businesses had to quickly adapt. So as long as people get the why behind this kind of stuff, it's okay. And that's where OKR is a really powerful sort of platform for that because it's not about shifting focus all the time but it does give you that ability to change direction quickly and pivot if you need to. With good context to the why.

Speaker C: Yeah. Because I have downloaded your high impact planner and I'm using it to do personal okrs. And I've actually found. Cause you talked about what's been happening in the last year. I found having a weekly check in. Yeah, Done my check in this week. It was supposed to be on Wednesday night. I will do it tonight. But I sit there and look at them. M. And because during lockdown and during this kind of every day is Groundhog Day, I'm doing the same, like, literally the same thing every day. It's so easy to lose track of time and weeks and months. And so I think I'm halfway through my third six months week and going every Wednesday, I went, oh, yeah. I said I wanted to do this. And I. Okay. And it actually reminds me on the weekend you're going to do X, Y, Z. And I also set like a, uh, I think I did a financial year, uh, yearly goals. And I went, oh, yeah. Like it's. I'm already three months into the financial year. So if I want to get these revenue targets for my business and these are the things that I've got to do. And I found it to be really motivating having that weekly check in. And even though, like, I don't always meet every single. I don't get every activity done because it's stretch.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: But I do get most of them done. And that makes me feel good. I'm like, okay, I can see now how I'm moving towards the goals that I set because I have a tendency to go, yeah, I'm gonna save up a deposit and buy an apartment. And then it just never happens because I'm, oh, look, holiday. So, yeah, I've personally been finding them really helpful and they're really helpful at work as well.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's really cool. I love it. And I'm so glad to hear too, you're getting value out of it. Normally I'd be able to show because again, we're talking on camera right now.

Speaker A: Of course.

Speaker B: So for the podcast is that I have to worry about this, but normally I'd hold it up and actually show you mine, but it's, um. I'm ending the reaching the end of the six weeks and it's got like, coffee stains. It looks a bit gross, so I'm not gonna. Not gonna do that. But yeah, there's something really valuable in seeing, like, how we progressing towards that. And so you can imagine as a team. Right. It gives you that really powerful point to get together and have that conversation. So when you're doing individually, it's amazing, but the power that comes when you're doing that with a team, it' really good. But I think to your point, you just called it out. And this to me is like a really big thing about okr. You said you don't always nail it, you don't always achieve what you're expecting to, but it's really valuable and engaging and it's helpful and it's motivating and that's. I think that's something where traditional goal setting is a little bit depressing. It's like you must hit all these marks, you must hit all these numbers or you've failed, like the big F and it's, oh, shit. So if I miss one thing, yeah, you, sorry, mate, you're a failure and

Speaker C: it's a big goal. Whereas if you say, actually you just have to do this tiny thing, which is a step on the way to the big goal, it's achievable and it doesn't feel so daunting. And I've also changed my okrs based on what's realistic because I think when I started gyms were open because I had a number of fitness gains that I wanted to make because I lost so much fitness last year and I'm struggling to get it back. So one of them was around. One of my goals was I think I wanted to deadlift more than 80 kilos. But now that gyms are closed again, I can't deadlift because I don't have any like, of those. Like, I don't have barbells with big weights on them. So yeah, I'm like, okay, now there's

Speaker B: only so many like milk jugs you stuck together.

Speaker C: I've got a couple of dumbbells and a kettlebell, but I'm like, okay, so that, that's off the table for now. But I've also actually just got different activities to get to that goal. Like it's now you have to do so many 45 minute weights workouts and you have to go for a walk every day and like stuff like that. That's more around. But yeah, like, I think after that during the first six weeks I went, oh, gyms are closed, so I can't go and do these types of heavy weightlifting workouts. So that's just. I'm going to have to pivot and come up with something that's more achievable for the next six weeks.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And that's where even with this sort of structure of it, you have A roughly a 70% is the average level you want to hit. And this is. Some people are going to be okay. What the hell are you talking about? So if you imagine I'm going to go. Just a simple example. Let's say you want to generate a hundred leads for your business, right?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: That should be the stretch. But your measure of success is actually 70%. And the reason we do that is one, and I love this, it normalizes failure. Yeah, it's okay to not hit the mark every time.

Speaker C: Yep.

Speaker B: The other benefit is, and you would have seen this, sometimes you'll smash some of your goals. So you'll set a target and you'll just absolutely blow it out of the water. And others, you'll fall really well short.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: The thing is, on average, as long as you're at that sort of 70% mark, and even then, you won't beat yourself up if you're not. But as long as you're on average about that 70% mark, it means you haven't been sandbagging, you haven't been setting the goal too low. So you're just smashing them all out of the park. But you're also not failing across the board. So it's this really cool feedback loop and acceptance of failure and feeling successful, even with a bit of failure in there. I actually. Some people don't like the F word like that. I'm m quite comfortable with it. Like, I'm actually quite happy to fail. But it means that you're basically successful even at that 70% hit.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And there are some that I'm smashing out of the park. There's always ones about. You have to record and release this many podcast episodes and. Cause I'm in hardcore podcasting mode. I'm like, dude, um, because once you start a season, everything just flows. So I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna hit that one. But I also can't set more episodes because it's like there's only so many you can do. But yeah, there's some around clients and leads that sometimes you just have a slow few weeks and sometimes all these people come out of the blue. So, yeah, you go, okay, I did the work to try and get that and it didn't happen. And that's okay. I'm gonna ask another question if that's okay. So, yeah, uh, we. That was a really good chat, though. So, Tog, if somebody wants to start on their OKR journey, whether it's with their project or their business, what tips do you have for beginners?

Speaker B: Yeah, look, it's a really good question. Look, I think first and foremost, don't overthink it. You're actually doing okrs for a long time and really it's almost the reverse advice, like you do want to think really hard about it, but in the beginning, just get started. You think about make sure that the goal is within a near term timeframe. So don't set it for 12 months out. That's okay. If you want to do that and think of having financial goals and objectives of the year, go for it. But specifically on okr, just for the first little while, set it for a quarter out or if it's for you personally even set it out for six weeks out, whatever sort of makes sense to you, make sure it's near term and make sure it's an objective that is something that you could pick it up and hold it. Maybe, maybe the. If I think about you with your deadlifting just I'm trying to think of a good thing but maybe it's become super strong or something like that within the quarter and you can go, uh, yeah, okay, I can see what that is. And how do you measure the success of that? Okay, there's key results and it's about deadlifting this much. And you could literally every week you can see that you're getting stronger and stronger. Right. So that's really cool. But maybe there's other things that are important to you as well. Maybe there's things like a balance or maybe you want to be strong in other parts of your body as well. I know as a bloke plenty of blokes with chicken legs walking around that are sparked out up here. Maybe that's what you're going to go for. There's all these kinds of things where you know you've got these other key results that you're going to hit as well. So you just work out what sort of makes sense to you if you're doing it. So that's like really personal project or personal improvement kind of stuff. If you think about doing it with a team and maybe you're actually doing something for, you've got a product you're working on or something like that, or you've got a launch coming up. Same kind of sick concept. You set an objective that's meaningful and engaging, something you can pick up and hold and try and use key results that are going to tell you making progress. Now where okr, uh, really comes into its own is not when you know you're starting, you're starting to build the product at the start of the quarter and then you're dropping it at the end of the quarter. You really want to have it. So you're actually doing small releases, small tests and launches along the way. So you can actually see are, uh, we making improvements? You set your objective and if you think about, okay, we're launching a new version of the mobile app, okay, can we break that down into smaller chunks over the quarter so we can test and learn in the market, maybe do a bit of a beta program and what does success look like? So if we were to launch that app and it was going to go really well, don't be like, oh, it's got a new design or something, go, maybe, you know, the customer complete a certain activity on there a little bit faster, maybe they're going to be happier with the experience. There's going to be all these kind of measures that you can have and so you just work that out. But definitely it's a team based activity. So you can literally sit down, write your objectives up on a wall, have a chat about it. Which one seems to land the best? Pick it and then go, okay, let's come up with some ideas around how can we measure that. And again, same process, choose the ones which seem to be the best measures and you're often running at that point.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, great. Okay. And then what are some traps for new players? Any advice on what people need to be wary of or avoid when starting out?

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, that's a really good question. So look, I think we talked about this a bit already on this call and it's back to change management. It's being very clear on the why so often people. And this is also the other risk, to be honest. Like, I've literally talked to organizations, I'm like, why are you exploring okr? And they go, oh, uh, cause Google do it. And I'm like, okay. And why else? Yeah, anyway, and they're like, oh, uh, execution something. I'm like, uh, okay, we need to have a talk. So setting that context why is for your team. What's the real benefit for them? Is it about that? Clarity is about moving towards something where they can actually see progress on what they're trying to achieve or clarity on the why behind their work. Whatever it is, make sure there's that why before you get started. That's probably the number one thing where I see it go wrong is that you don't actually have clarity on the why. People just start doing it for any given reason. The next thing I'd have to say is be really clear on for your team. What, let me think about that. Be really clear for your team on how are you going to track progress, how do we make sure each step along the way that we're moving towards that sort of outcome. So too often we see teams set a goal at the start of a quarter, they forget about it. They get to the end of the quarter and wonder why didn't they hit that goal? So that weekly check in, literally getting together as a team and if you really want to supercharge it, literally give a confidence score on each key result. I'm highly confident we're going to smash this one. Key result two, not a chance. We need to talk to someone and get some help with that. This really drives some great sort of discussion. So, yeah, make sure you don't just set it and forget it. Check on it regularly. I think that's the other key one and probably the last one that I think people get a little bit confused with is they use the key results as a to do list. So maybe you've got. Really. There might be a great objective that talks about get customers to know all about our offering. Right. Uh, maybe that's. You might get that from a marketing team. And then step one is consider marketing plan. Step two is draft marketing plan. That literally those are key results. And. And the fifth key result is launch the marketing plan or launch or launch the campaign. Those are, uh, the activities. That's not what you want to capture as your key result. The key results would be what's the measure of success? Maybe it's about so many leads. Maybe, you know, again, whatever it might be, and you have the initiatives which underpin each. Key results don't capture your to do list as your key results. It's not going to help you out. You can already do that. It's called a to do list.

Speaker C: Yeah, that happens all the time in change, actually. Because one of the ones that I see all the time is we're implementing a new system or we're bringing in new ways of working. We're going agile, uh, whatever the change is. Okay.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So we need people to have the capability because currently there's a capability gap. So people don't know how to do Agile or they don't know how to use whatever system it is that we're implementing. So how are we going to. So the objective is they need the capability and understanding to do X, Y, Z. Yeah. And so people go, okay. Then the key result is they go to training. No Training is something that we do on the way to getting the key result. But you can't say like, people like, oh, if they attend, if they do a shitty E learn with a quiz at the end, tick the box, they get it, they've done their training. And then I have to have the conversation of, okay, how do we know that the training has been effective? How do we check in to make sure that the understanding is there and the capability lifts that we're looking for, uh, are, uh, being achieved? It's like they went to their training.

Speaker B: I feel like that is such a good example though. That is amazing.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Because they just, it's training is one of the activities that you're going to do on the way to achieving that objective. But it doesn't like if the training is terrible, the capability is not going to be there if people don't show up or they multitask while they're attending the training. If the E learn is bad, there's so many things that can actually mean that training isn't the golden ticket to capability. And how are we checking in. Yeah. To make sure that's what they're doing and are we checking that they're adapting and all of that stuff?

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, and you see this example all the time. Like, particularly in quite bureaucratic type environments. Like my go to example on that one is early in the pandemic in Melbourne, we kept on having medical professionals that were getting sick and we couldn't work out why. Why were they catching COVID when they've got all the right equipment and so they've been through all the training, they're all certified. My wife's a medical professional, so she's been through, she went through all that same sort of training. But the problem that they found, and luckily we weren't one of the victims of this, they found that what these people were doing is the training wasn't effective, it hadn't shifted their behavior. So, yes, the tick box had been done in the same kind of thing you're talking about here. Train 100 people. Great. The behavior shift hadn't occurred though. And so what it meant people were contaminating themselves after it. So it wasn't until they actually came back and monitored, okay, here's what's going on. Okay. Here's how we need to change the training that it actually became effective. So, yeah, to your point, like, it's so dangerous working with key results like that. Think about the outcome.

Speaker C: Yeah, good, good. So where can the listeners get more. Tim?

Speaker B: Oh, uh, Tim's everywhere. Now look, I uh, this is something I'm really passionate about. It's like the high impact planner that you're talking about. For me, that's something that if it helps people like it just makes my day. Like that's, that's why I create it. It's not something used in the professional setting that is like for personal goal setting. For me, this is something where it's helped me immensely through my personal life. I think again, I've been doing it for probably a pinch over 10 years now and it's one of those kind of things where it's like a little bit like time to pay it back. So you know, I'm always happy to help people out. They can hit me up on LinkedIn. That's a nice easy way I'll generally connect to anyone if you reach out to me. Always keen to have a chat and yeah, I think that's really cool. And if they want to keep across all of our tools and stuff like that that we've got again jump on the newsletter, they'll get all the updates on there.

Speaker C: The newsletter is good and I've downloaded some stuff from the website as well and used it. I find it very helpful. But you also do some, the occasional free lunch and learn, don't you?

Speaker B: I do, yeah. And again, probably best way to hear about those is either connect with me on LinkedIn or jump on the newsletter. Yeah, we do like loads of webinars and that kind of stuff. So if people want to check that out and as well, anyone who's exploring the journey, happy to come in and do a bit of a brown bag as well for organizations. I know we started doing this and we want to get our teams across it. Happy to come in and do something like that too. Yeah. It's something where I think it's really cool seeing people do it and to me it's always purpose driven. People who want to make an impact are the ones that pick this up and want to make it happen. And Hal, I'd be mad not to help people like that out. Yeah. Always keen to chat.

Speaker C: Amazing. And have you got any final words of advice or wisdom before we wrap up the podcast?

Speaker B: Look, here's my take. I think okr, uh, like anything is a tool, right? So many things are a tool and you can get caught up in the how should I do it, how does it work, all this kind of stuff. I think if people really just start in their day to day work or even in their personal life, think about what's the Outcome you're trying to achieve. For me, that was the biggest change moment for me. The penny really dropped when I was, like, working on a mobile app when I was really young. I actually did my own personal one that was all about learning new ways of working. And I built it. We had got some help building it, launched it, and it totally flopped. And I realized I actually wasn't thinking about the outcome. It was cool. It was easy to understand, but I never did marketing or anything like that to actually get it out there. I think if everyone can start thinking about, don't even worry about the okr, what are you trying to achieve? If you're picking up a piece of work or you're doing something or even just thinking about how you're planning out your week, what's the outcome you're looking for? That, to me, is where the real game changer comes in.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And, like, I'm all for, let's put stuff out there and see how it goes. I'm a big fan of experimentation and mvp. So what I realized for myself and what I was doing with my own business is I did need to do a bit more planning and structure around it because I was just chucking stuff out. I'm like, that went well. Um, I'm podcaster now.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

Speaker C: I got some workshops and then I went, okay, what are we doing with this? What are we doing here?

Speaker B: The learning loop is key, right?

Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. I can't just keep being random and expect to get results. So I've had to do a lot of planning about who are, uh, my customers and what is my business and what am I offering and how is it different from what other people are doing and. Yeah, and then what, uh, are my goals for my business and how am I going to get there? Amazing.

Speaker B: So there you have it.

Speaker A: That's the end of the episode. And I gotta say, it was really revealing for me, talking to Natasha and actually understanding why I got into okrs in the beginning. I think it was really useful for me to unpack that journey. There's a few takeaways listening back on this that I took from this podcast, and I think I want to share those highlights with you now. The first, it's not about getting OKR perfect. I think a lot of organizations really stress out about getting it perfect. And my suggestion is, particularly in the beginning, just get started and give it a go. Try and get some good key results with some good metrics.

Speaker B: Don't do a to do list, because that's probably gonna send you down the wrong path.

Speaker A: But just set something simple. Set something that gets you started and go through the journey. Make sure you're clear on the why. Anytime we're talking about change management, we're wanting to create a clear message of why are we doing this, why now? And creating common goals across everyone. And that's what OKR is really powerful for, setting those common goals. So it definitely can be used for change management. One of the other key things I talked about in this podcast is just how critical it is to do those weekly check ins. If you're a team and you're working on something important, definitely weekly, you need to be talking, if not every second week, but checking in on your goal progress.

Speaker B: Now if that feels like it's too

Speaker A: much, your goals probably aren't that important or they're on the wrong things. If the goals are really the most critical thing you're working on, weekly should feel barely enough. Otherwise, team, that's the end of the podcast. If you're fired up and want to give something a bit of a go or you want to explore more about okrs, I'll leave Natasha's podcast in the description. You better grab a link there. You also find a link to our uh, website. You can go to okrquickstart uh.com podcast and that has everything that you need from resource kits, more podcast episodes, everything you want to get from there. You can check it out. I hope this was an incredible podcast for you. If it was useful, please leave a review.

Speaker B: I would be curious to hear what

Speaker A: was your highlight, what was your key takeaway, and otherwise have an amazing rest of your day.

Speaker B: Stay awesome.