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Only grandiose endeavors can lift a man out of the quagmire of everyday life.

Only a challenge to the dragon can produce a truly heroic adventure.

The most successful people didn’t waste time on trivialities. They were unafraid to think outside the box and break the rules. They kept going even when they faced a thousand defeats, and in the end, they won. The founders of the most successful companies set themselves the task of inventing impossible technologies, conquering Mars, or organizing all the information on the planet into one search engine. They aimed to be the best and conquer the world.

And they certainly didn’t waste it on goals like “increase profits by 20% next year.”

Better aim at the moon and hit the stump than aim at the stump and miss!

Doesn’t this sound familiar? We often hear motivational speeches from the top, but rarely do we hear the opposite view from those who believe in experience and pragmatism. They say things like:

Setting big objectives can get you into trouble.

Judging tactics for achieving goals by a tiny number of the most successful is a “survivor’s error”.

Ever wondered where unbridled motivation and romantic goals can lead? You could ask the men who died on the slopes of Everest. There are hundreds of them. They were all highly motivated individuals with an ambitious goal.

Success stories are about people who kept going after a thousand setbacks and came out on top. But they don’t talk about those who didn’t give up after a thousand defeats and lost. And there are many more of them, but they don’t make the headlines. They’re the nameless heroes of sad statistics.

In the gym, we build up the load gradually and carefully to avoid hurting our backs. We don’t put all our weight on the bar at once; we use common sense and not just ambition to get the job done.

We should take a similar approach in our work, business and personal lives. We should make gradual progress, taking small but confident steps, and making sure we’re in a position to handle the workload with our own strengths and abilities. This is the only way we can work for a long time and achieve real results over a long distance.

If you’re aiming at the moon or a tree stump, the first thing to remember is to avoid hitting yourself in the eye.

I will achieve the OBJECTIVE as measured by the following KEY RESULTS.

The OKR (Objectives and Key Results) system reconciles these two seemingly irreconcilable positions. It allows the benefits of each worldview to flourish within a unified system that incorporates the best of both approaches.

The OKR system was created by Andrew Grove. A legendary Intel executive who led the company out of the deepest crisis in its history. This system can be used for goal setting and coordinated action planning in organizations of all sizes.

Andrew Grove’s objective-setting formula is so simple that it fits into one sentence:

For example:

OKR allows long-term Objectives to float among the castles of the wildest dreams. But at the same time, you need to make sure that your key results are based on what you can realistically achieve.

Objectives and key results are set horizontally

This means that they do not come down from the top, from the high offices, but are first and foremost determined by those who will later have to work on them. Not in an atmosphere of strict secrecy, of course, but together with colleagues and managers.

OKR are set for a quarter, less often for six months or a year

But the analysis of the achievement of objectives and key results is much more frequent – every two to three weeks, and sometimes even weekly.

These OKR meetings are called check-ins. At these check-ins, key results can be revisited, their value adjusted upwards or downwards. Sometimes some KRs are abandoned completely if it becomes clear in the course of the work that they are unattainable or do not really serve the objective as it seemed at the beginning.

The great thing about OKR is that you can change the objective as you work on it. It’s really flexible and mobile, which is one of its best features.

This is how Anthony Grove's OKR system works, step by step

Step one: Set an objective

At the start of each quarter, managers get together to set objectives and make plans for the next quarter. Each one sets a challenging objective for the team and shares it with the rest of the team. Everyone checks that the objectives don’t clash with each other or with the company’s overall objectives.

The objective can be ambitious, even a little abstract, or expressed in a humorous way. Even in the form of a meme. The main thing is that it should be cool and inspire a feat.

And more or less real.

You don’t get paid for objectives

In a KPI system, employees get a bonus for exceeding their performance targets and a penalty for not doing so. It seems like a fair approach at first, but there are a lot of problems with it. Instead of trying to improve efficiency, the employee starts thinking about how to cheat the system more cleverly and “fudge” the numbers they have to meet. This motivates the most cunning to choose the most manipulated and falsifiable indicators. And in the end, they get a higher salary than those who work honestly.

If you want to get new ideas and bold objectives from your managers at ORK, you’ll have to switch to a different financial incentive system.

Step two: Identify key results

Key Result (KR) is the answer to the key question “What do I need to do to get closer to my objective?”.

KR must be specific, measurable, achievable.

Unlike the Objective, the Key Result must be quantitative. Achieving measurability of results is one of our main tasks, otherwise the system will not work.

When we’re defining key results, we have to stop thinking in the clouds. Instead, we try to estimate as precisely as possible how far we can move in the chosen direction in three months. To do this, we have to use our brains to analyze all of our resources, abilities, experience, and results.

Simply put, when defining KR, we need to ask ourselves:

1. How will we measure progress toward the key result?

2. What is the maximum progress we can realistically achieve with our people and resources in today’s environment?

How many key results should there be?

Key results will be a priority for the entire team. That means there shouldn’t be more than six of them (and that’s critical). Better yet, three or four to maximize focus.

Step three: Working towards the objective and analyzing the results

OKR require regular updates, usually every two weeks or so. These meetings are not like the classic morning briefing, where everyone sleeps through while one person explains what went wrong the night before to a hungover boss.

OKR check-ins look like a series of short, informative reports

Each presenter goes through a list of their key results and answers the questions:

1. What progress has been made on this KR since the last meeting?

2. How confident are we that we will meet the target

3. What challenges did the team face?

4. What is the plan to overcome these challenges?

The time allotted for the presentation is 15 minutes. To meet this time limit, the manager should come to the meeting with answers to questions, not questions.

When he encounters difficulties, he doesn’t come back with “we didn’t get it, lol”. But with a short description of the problems found and a list of suggested solutions. Well, or with one solution if he is sure it will be enough.

Check-in is not a concilium or a debate club. It is a place for fast exchange of the most important information.

But when a manager is stuck on a problem and doesn’t know how to fix it, he’ll usually turn to their boss or other managers for help.

But he does it before the meeting so as not to stir up controversy, arguments, and disputes at check-in. For the same reason, any issues not directly related to the OKR should be discussed in other meetings.

In a nutshell, a check-in isn’t a Concilium or a debate club. It’s a quick way to share the most important info. It’s a short meeting where managers report on their progress, learn about the progress of other departments, and, most importantly, discuss changes to their colleagues’ OKRs.

The OKR system allows you to throw off the shackles of thinking

For all their advantages, the commonly used Key Performance Indicator (KPI) systems can trap employees and managers in a narrow “plus or minus ten percent” mindset. Is there much room for improvement in such framework conditions? True reform with new tools and revolutionary approaches simply won’t fit into such a backlash.

Implementing OKR allows you to think more freely, dream more boldly, and desire more.

But OKR requires a responsible approach and constant self-reflection

At the same time, in the pursuit of a revolutionary breakthrough, it is important not to lose one’s head and make a mess of things. To this end, it is absolutely necessary to match the goals set with the opportunities available and to regularly monitor the achievement of key results.

The OKR system allows you to consistently and effectively master goal setting, constantly practicing to accurately formulate goals and achieve increasingly significant and ambitious goals.