How to Set Your Organization up for Successful OKR Adoption | Felipe Castro, Speaker, Author and OKR Evangelist

[00:02:44] A quick hello to this episode’s guest, OKR expert Felipe Castro.
[00:03:59] Why OKR? Customers give lots of reasons – ranging from weak (the boss read a book or everyone’s doing it) to borderline vague (accountability or transparency).
[00:04:36] The Tinkerbell Approach: The common misperception (or delusion!) that a little bit of fairy dust is all it takes to take a traditional enterprise to Google-level OKR success.
[00:05:34] Adopting OKR is not a goal in and of itself. It’s a transformational tool to help organizations be more competitive, adaptive and normative in the 21st century.
[00:06:19] Successful OKR implementations require that organizations do three key things:
- Demonstrate commitment and consistency over time.
- Learn how to execute the system in practice.
- Accept that old models and experience will have to be unlearned.
[00:07:36] Three components necessary to set teams up for success:
- Access to the data (liberate it from the silos!).
- Clarity about the core business metrics and strategy.
- Knowledge of data analytics and statistics.
[00:09:44] Felipe shares some of the common organizational problems that OKRs quickly uncover and highlight:
- Lack of clarity about goals.
- Lack of grounding in the strategy behind projects.
- Managers who don’t provide clear context.
[00:11:04] Elements to develop and instill for better (not more) management:
- Leadership (based on new rather than old business models)
- Problem-solving skills.
- An ability to both offer and communicate trust.
- Permission to get inspired and inspire others.
[00:14:32] Felipe explains why part of the beauty in OKRs is that they don’t take a one-size-fits all approach. Rather, it’s a flexible philosophy that can be tailored and tweaked based on a huge range of factors across industries and organizational cultures.
[00:18:44] OKRs may vary, but there remain common foundational building blocks.
[00:19:44] Felipe shares his take on cascading management:
- 100% top-down.
- Lacks agility.
- Creates silos.
- Discourages inter-departmental collaboration.
- Fails to provide clearly defined, measurable goals.
[00:24:44] It’s a journey! Felipe explains the (necessarily imperfect) process of establishing OKRs and bringing everyone along.
[00:27:52] Stumbling Blocks: Felipe shares one OKR scenario that commonly occurs at large companies (overattachment to a business case or spreadsheet) and another that often besets smaller companies (data availability bias).
[00:31:02] Better tools create better outcomes. But not without a holistic approach that includes a commitment to educating and enabling teams.
[00:33:44] Don’t leave talent on the table! Give teams the tools they need!
[00:35:06] Elements that set the stage for successful OKR implementation:
- Ensure that teams understand the metrics and data fundamentals.
- Establish weekly one-to-ones for continuous feedback.
- Ongoing coaching and development.
- Adoption of advanced engineering technologies to improve processes.
- Regular customer feedback interviews.
- Established systems to test, experiment and collect data for nimble decision-making.
[00:39:30] Felipe shares his evolving thoughts on what capabilities are critical to successful OKR implementation at traditional organizations, including the need for a bridge between old and new business models (in spite of inevitable hiccups and cultural challenges).
[00:43:30] The Finer Points of Performance: Standards for evaluation are as variable as team and individual roles, responsibilities and contributions. Beware tying bonus structures and compensation to measures that are inefficient, inaccurate or illogical.
[00:49:59] Why individual goals can be a huge liability and disincentive.
[00:51:22] Defining calibration and how it level sets performance reviews.
[00:52:44] Quick Fire Questions for Felipe:
- What do you appreciate most about your team? Passion and commitment.
- What is your greatest dream and its associated deadline? To facilitate a second edition (with new contributions/examples) of the classic John Doerr book, "Measure What Matters: The revolutionary movement behind the explosive growth of Intel, Google, Amazon and Uber." No deadline since it’s up to the author!
- Can you describe an experience or situation that made you proud? It’s a feeling that arises whenever organizations adopt, evangelize for and continue to use OKR tools in the long term – which fortunately for Felipe has been a common occurrence!
- What’s the most important word of advice you can give people who want to try OKRs but feel wary? They are not a “to do” list. It’s about the outcomes you want to achieve and creating data-driven, measurable benefits for your customers, your company and your employees.

Relevant links

"Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility," by Patty McCord, former head of people at Netflix.
Simon Senek's Website
Felipe's Interview with Itamar Gilad.
Intuit Founder Scott Cook @Khan Academy.
"High Output Management," by Andy Grove, former CEO at Intel.
YouTube: Tom Chi on "Rapid Prototyping and Product Management."
"Measure What Matters: The revolutionary movement behind the explosive growth of Intel, Google, Amazon and Uber," by John Doerr.

About Our Guest:

Felipe Castro is an OKR Trainer. He helps organizations transform how they use goals by adopting OKR, the Silicon Valley framework for goal setting. He created the OKR Cycle, a simple method to avoid OKR’s most common pitfalls.

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