This content is locked. Please login or become a member.
I use a system called OKRs, Objectives and Key Results. There are many tools that people may use. KPIs are another version of things like this, Key Performance Indicators. The key thing about OKRs that I like is that you set for the year what your measurable key objectives are: what you need the organization to accomplish. Then each leader turns that into their objectives and what the key results are that achieve those objectives.
That has generally meant that somewhere around half of the objectives are represented in the next level’s OKRs, but that they’re also setting goals for themselves and for their teams that might be a modification of what’s required for them to get to their particular goals. The critical thing is once I’ve asked a leader to tell me their outcomes and key results they’re aiming to produce, and we’ve agreed on them, then every week, our conversation is about, “How’s that going? What’s going well? What’s not going well? How can I help you to achieve them?”
It’s allowed me to get out of the dictating mode that a surgeon can tend to get into and instead approach with curiosity. And it requires some vulnerability on the part of my leaders working with me to be able to own what’s going well, what’s not going well. I have to create an expectation that if every target is in the green, that means they’ve not stretched themselves very far. I’ve set the discipline — which people in the OKR world will recognize — that that we should, at the end of the year, be able to achieve 70 percent of our goals that we’ve set. If we’re achieving 90 or a 100 percent, they weren’t ambitious enough. If we’re achieving 50 percent, they probably were too ambitious and not realistic.