Summary ofMeasure What Matters

High performance and the importance of goals

John Doerr is the author of "Measure What matters". He believes that goals are crucial for those who want to achieve high performance at work. Doerr explains a system of goal-setting that he developed at Intel in his book. Later, he taught the system to Google's 30-person team. Google employs this system every day.

This goal-setting system is credited with the survival of startups like MyFitnessPal, Zoom and others. Bono, a rock star who became a humanitarian, calls it 'a frame on which to hang your passion. The OKR System (Objective & Key Results) is a powerful tool for setting goals. The objective is what you want to achieve, while the key results define how you're going to achieve it.

The Magic of OKRs

Larry Page, the co-founder and CEO of Google, said:

"As much as I hate process, good ideas with great execution are how you make magic. And that's where OKRs come in."

Three main ingredients are responsible for the magic of OKRs. We'll explore how these three components combine to create the OKR system, which you can use for your most ambitious ideas.

OKR Ingredient #1: An Audacious Objective

James Cameron, the director of two of Hollywood's highest-grossing movies, Avatar & Titanic says:

"If you set your goals ridiculously high and it's a failure, you will fail above everyone else's success."

Imagine that you are an engineer with a goal of developing a battery which doubles its life span and reduces its weight. You think you're going to succeed, but your battery only lasts 10% longer than a standard battery and is 10% lighter. You technically failed, but you gained valuable knowledge about battery technology. Tesla is now interested in hiring you.

In order to implement the OKR system, you must first set an OKR with the same spirit as JFK did when he decided to go to the Moon in the 1960s. JFK did not choose the audacious goal of going to the Moon because it was easy. He chose it because it's hard and would measure the best of American people.

Start by being idealistic and not realistic. Ask yourself questions like:

• What would you change in the world if I was free from all constraints and had unlimited funds?

• What would I do if I were given the opportunity to be the very best at something in the entire world?

After you have a clear idea of what your goal is, reduce it until it's just one step away from being impossible. Your goal should be ambitious but realistic.

When the Gates Foundation was founded, its goal was to eradicate malaria in 2015. They soon realized this was an unattainable goal, and it demotivated their team. The team changed their goal to eliminate malaria by 2040, which was still a big one but more attainable and motivating.

OKR ingredient #2: Quality & Quantity Key Results

John Doerr says:

"Objectives are the stuff of inspiration and far horizons. Key results are more earthbound and metric-driven."

You can use your key results to show that you are getting closer to your goal. Key results are measurable elements such as revenue growth, active users and customer satisfaction scores.

This is an example of a weak, average, and strong key result from the book:

• Weak key results: Increase the lap speed and decrease pit stop times.

• Average Key Results: Increase the average speed by 2%, and reduce the average pit stop time of one second.

• Strong key results: Increase the average lap time by 2%; reduce the average pit stop by one second; reduce pit stop mistakes by 50% and practice pit stops for one hour per day.

The key to achieving strong results is not just to be specific and measurable, but also to include quantity and quality. This will ensure that the team doesn't cut corners in order to achieve their goal.

It may be that you are building a software program and developing three new features is a great quantity key result. However, the application might end up with sloppy coding, resulting in more work down the road. It's important to have a quality result in the quality assurance test, like having less than five defects per feature.

Imagine key results like the gauges of a dashboard. You can check these gauges to see if you are on the right track. You want to accelerate while keeping an eye on your oil temperature and RPM to make sure your engine does not break down.

OKR Ingredient #3: Color-Coding Check-Ins

Bono, the lead singer of U2 as well as founder of One Foundation, has said:

"The OKR traffic lights, the color-coding system, have transformed the One Foundation's board meetings. They've sharpened our strategy, our execution, our results. They've made us a more effective weapon in the fight against extreme poverty."

The OKR color-coding system works as follows:

• Green : You're 70% to 100% in the right direction. Continue doing what you are doing.

• Yellow : You're 30% to 70% of the way there. Create a plan for recovery.

• Red : You are between 0% and 30% off target. Develop a recovery strategy or change the key result.

If, for example, one of your goals is to double the number of YouTube subscribers in three months, but your first month's increase was only 5%, then you should adjust your strategy. You might want to create new videos or collaborate with other YouTube creators.

The color-coding system has a surprising feature: If your results are always green, and you are approaching 100% completion you have done something wrong. At Intel, Doerr says that when a department approached 100% completion, it was assumed that they had set their sights too low and that there would be consequences.

If you are able to achieve all of your results in green, then adjust the difficulty so that they are a mixture of green and yellow. This system holds you accountable for setting challenging goals as well as making progress towards them.

Conclusion

If you want to accomplish something significant, something that matters, turn your goal into an audacious objective that inspires you. Next, choose three to five key results you can quantify that are a mixture of quality and quantity. Finally, apply colors periodically to these key results in order to challenge yourself and keep yourself accountable.