What are OKRs
OKRs stand for “Objectives and Key results’, Google’s collaborative goal setting system which is now used by companies across all industries. The tool helps teams and individuals set ambitious goals with measurable results and track progress towards them.
The concept was first developed by Andy Grove in the 70s and became popular when John Doerr introduced it to Google in the 90s.
John Doerr’s OKR formula is the following:
I will (Objective) as measured by (set of Key Results).
The Objective (“What”) is a strategic, qualitative theme with multiple Key Results (“Hows”), metrics or measurable milestones that ultimately lead to achieving the overarching goal. OKRs are usually…
From Founder to CEO — Evolving your role while scaling up.
Once a company achieves product-market fit and reaches scale, founders have to go through an important transition — from functioning as a (co-)founder to becoming a professional CEO.
As the venture marks 50+ employees, raises a Series A, or recruits the full executive team, founders must transform their role in order to keep up with the growth challenges. They need to think about their “baby” as a business with a life of its own. Their focus must go from building a great product to building a thriving, sustainable company.
Many founders struggle to make the personal changes necessary to survive…
I recently did a full-day workshop with a tech company to help align their leadership team and thought I’d share the agenda and exercises with those of you who are looking to do the same.
It’s fairly common that C-suites don’t function too well as a team. As high-performing individual contributors and managers, executives tend to dedicate little effort to strengthening the relationship with their peers.
As founding team members and experts in their domain, they might have grown apart whilst getting the company off the ground. …
This article was written by Daniel Marcos and published through the Growth Institute.
The faster my company grows and the more team members we add, the more problems I see pop up around communication and alignment. If you’re running a fast-growing company, I’m positive that you can relate.
And at this point you’re probably asking yourself what I used to ask all the time early on in my career: how do I get everyone on the same page and execute smoothly?
Well, there’s literally a page that can help you achieve that called the One-Page Strategic Plan (OPSP). The OPSP…
Authored by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Klemp. Summarized by Alex MacCaw, Founder and CEO of Clearbit)
Conscious Leadership is about being more interested in learning than being right. When our egos make us afraid to be wrong, that fear leads us to defend our ideas at all costs, and to work hard to convince others that we are right — often with anger.
Conscious Leadership is about recognizing when these emotions (fear, anger, sadness) have gripped our thought processes, releasing these emotions, and shifting back to a state of curiosity where we are receptive to all ideas and…
Can you manage your entire company in one day per week? I know, this sounds impossible but it isn’t. Establishing a meeting rhythm that allows you to align your organization while reducing 80% of communication throughout the day seems like the dream. Consistent communication creates transparency and moves information quickly through an organization.
The CEOs who work with me often get a complete schedule makeover so they can spend most of their time on the important (not urgent) things such as strategic thinking, execution planning, and building big relationships. Rather than people chasing each other to find a time to…
When it comes to the best framework to execute your company’s strategy, I proudly stand by our Rockefeller Habits Checklist. This simple set of habits has already helped over 70,000 companies scale up while reducing the time needed to run the business — many of which scaled to $10million, $100million, and a few, to a billion and beyond. That’s the dream, isn’t it? The 10 habits that make this checklist have not changed for over 100 years since John D. …
Every month at least one of my clients complains to me about a wrong hire. Usually, within the first few weeks of onboarding, it becomes clear that a big mistake has been made. The amount of energy, time, and money that goes into getting rid of a wrong hire is painful to digest. Most people are not able to comprehend that they’ve been laid off so quickly and become angry and frustrated that they couldn’t meet the expectations. …
Working with leaders ranging from first time CEOs to seasoned executives, it’s incredible to see the differences in people’s executive presence and how it influences their careers and the success of their organizations. Confident and charismatic leaders who draw others to them, engage people, and possess a motivating presence are critical to building strong relationships with the team, investors, customers, and the public. A measured , straight forward, and emotionally intelligent CEO has the potential to change the way people work together and improve the culture within an organization. …
Do you ever feel like you’re spending way too much time meeting with your team, potential clients or investors — time that you cannot get back and easily could have used to finalize an important project or even just spent with your loved ones? Do you walk away from meetings and know that exactly nothing got accomplished and there’s even more confusion than before?
Indeed, meetings are a necessary component of doing business today. Yet, often, they have no tangible outcome, take up a lot of time and are hard to organize. …
