Measure What Matters, by John Doerr, TURBOMIND Book Summary by Tylor Jones
How Google, Bono and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs
You can visit John Here: https://www.whatmatters.com/
You can see his TED talks here: https://www.ted.com/speakers/john_doerr
and get the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Measure-What-Matters-Google-Foundation/dp/0525536221

Tylor Jones, Master Coach at turbomind.com.
Contact me Through WhatsApp or Telegram for a 45-Minute Free Coaching Session. I love helping people and Businesses become Exceptional. +507-6426-9450. keep updating this list regularly….

Awesome book, by legendary venture capitalist John Doerr, shows us the goal-setting system of “Objectives and Key Results” (OKRs) that has helped giants like Google achieve explosive growth through the years, and how it can help any organization that uses this system.

In 1999 John invested in a small startup called Google. The investment was the largest he ever made for 12.5 million for 12.5% of the company. Some years later, this investment turned into billions.

This is not a summary, it’s more like a deep essay about Objectives and key results.

I am studying this system for my own businesses and be able to share it with my teams. I am a High Performance Coach but I am always learning and improving my own systems.
This is a superior book any one can learn from it, but you won’t gain much from reading it like a novel. In order to get the best results from this awesome book as well as my personal take on OKRs you will have to study it and put it in practice with your team.

You can get the book and visit his site here, https://www.whatmatters.com/

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Here are some interesting ideas from the book….as my interpretation on them..
The reality is, people tend to be more fulfilled and perform better when they have clear aligned targets so they are not wandering and losing time, energy and other resources.

This whole book is like a deep essay on OKRs, which are objective and key results, basically this is a methodology developed by master Andy Grove to help to ensure a company, or organization focuses on the same important objectives and key results.

OKRs can have a huge positive impact in society, schools, university and about any organization, profit or nonprofit. The future is very promising. They can help you become a better person every day, and also build a better business every day.

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OBJECTIVES AND KEY RESULTS THE ESSENCE OF EXPONENTIAL GROWTH:

An OBJECTIVE is something to be achieved, a specific outcome, something precise ad measureable. Objectives are important, specific and action oriented.

The beauty about objectives is that when they are properly developed, tend to eliminate fuzzy thinking and execution. They help eliminate on non-important stuff and projects and focus on what’s truly essential.

A “KEY RESULTS” are benchmarks on the road to that objectives, they are like stepping stones. Effective results tend to be realistic and challenging at the same time. They are also measurable, and verifiable. It’s not a key result unless it has a number, as Marissa Mayer would say.
ey Results evolve as the work in progress. Once the key results are effectively completed, the objective is achieved. If not, its means the objective was poorly designed.

OKRs channel effort, energy and time. They unify entire organizations. It´s key to learn to choose them correctly, as with everything, it can also work against you.

Probably, no other organization has scale OKRs better than google.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was a 20 billion start up that also uses effective OKRs to create exponential growth.

In the early days, Larry Page would spend 2 days each quarter to go over OKRs with every engineer in the company. It helped institutionalize the think big mind set.

OKRs have been the essence of Google home runs like Search, Chrome, YouTube, Google Play, Android, Maps and Gmail. All with over a billion or more users each.

In October 2018, Google´s CEO lead the entire company, for the 75th time, to evaluate progress against the most important objectives and key results.
Eric Schmidt credits OKRs for changing Google forever.

The 4 powers of OKRs:
-Focus and commit to priorities
-Align and connect for teamwork.
-Track for accountability.
-Stretch for Amazing.

The failing of annual performances reviews and given birth to CFRs, which stand for
-Conversations
-Feedback
-Recognition

Continuous Improvement
The Importance of culture
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THE IMPORTANCE OF WELL DEFINED, SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:

Hard and challenging goals drive performance more effective than easy goals. Specific hard goals tend to produce higher level of output. Than the ones that are vaguely worded.
Productivity is enhanced by well-defined, challenging goals.

A 2-year Deloitte study found that there is no single factor that has more impact in an organization than clearly well-defined goals that are written down and share with others.

However, is not only about writing goals, a successful OKRs system CONNECTS goals to a broader MISSION. It respects targets and deadlines while adjusting to circumstances. It promotes feedback.

They answer to the question,
What do we need to get done, and fast? Who will get the job done?

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SUPERPOWER #1, Focus and commit to top-priorities:

What is the MOST important for the Next 3, 6 or 12 months?
What are our Main priorities for the coming period?
Where should people concentrate their efforts?

Successful organizations focus on a few objectives that can make a big difference, deferring not so important ones. The key is to commit to these in word and deed.
The ideal number is between 3-5.

It takes discipline to think about the right objectives and then key results to focus on. It takes discipline to keep repeating your mission, and most important goals.
Clear-cut time frames to achieve those goals intensify focus and commitment and produces excitement.

This makes you have to get close to your mission statement. You need to understand how your top goal relates to your mission. Top goals must be clearly understood and communicated.

Andy Grove wrote,

“The art of management lies in the capacity to select from the many activities of seemingly comparable significance the one or two or three that provide leverage well beyond the others and concentrate on them”

So the question here would be in reverse,
What few activities can I focus on will provide maximum leverage?

The key to any entrepreneur success are; solve a problem, build a simple product, talk to your users.

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NUNA STORY:

This is a fascinating story about Jini kim´s mission to deliver better health care and building a new Medicaid data platform. She bootstrapped through years of rejection. After 4 years of founding the company, and one huge Medicaid contract, Nuna took off.

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SUPERPOWER #2, Align and Connect:

At any specific point, there is a percentage of people working on the wrong things or at least not on the company’s top objectives.

RESEARCH SHOWS THAT PUBLIC GOALS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE ATTAIN THAN PRIVATE GOALS. Just making them public makes you work harder and be accountable.
In a company transparency helps and improves collaboration.

Micromanagement is mismanagement. A healthy company has a balance between alignment and autonomy. An optimal OKRs leaves some space for people to choose their own OKRs.

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SUCCESS STORY; MyFitnessPall

MyFitnessPal is another fascinating story of two brothers, Mike and Amy Lee who developed the idea for this app at a wedding in 2008.

For years they invested their savings, self-funding the app, mostly with credit cards. In 2013, when the app had 45 million users, and about 5-years in operation, Kleiner Perkins invested in the app.

In 2015, after 8 years it took off, at the crus of health movement when the company was sold to Under Armour for 475 million dollars.

Today It has 120 million users, collectively have lost 300 million pounds, and has a database of 14 million foods.

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SUPERPOWER #3: Track for Accountability:

There is an opportunity for software that allows company to scale their OKRs, I mean big companies with 1000s of employees which also serves as a home, as a way to connect with people on a daily basis.

People love to know how they are progressing in their objectives and love seeing it visually represented, down the percentage point. Research suggest that seeing progress is more important than recognition, even monetary incentives.
The single greatest motivator is making progress”, says Daniel Pink, author of Drive.
The simple act of writing down a goal increases the probabilities of reaching it. Your chances increase if you monitor it, record progress and share it with other people.

GOLDEN RULE OF GOAL ACHIEVEMENT:

1. Put it in writing, be specific, with a date for its accomplishment.
2. Record progress
3. Share it with the world. Create pressure, become accountable.

In a study, people who record their goals and sent weekly reports to a friend attained a 43% more of their objectives than those who just thought about goals without sharing them.

Your Goals MUST be servant to your purpose, not the other way around.
Until you set a really BIG GOAL, like the 1 billion hours to be watch in a day by YouTube, you can´t find out which smaller goals need more attention. So, ask yourself, what is the Objective here?

You need to see those results align to your everyday activities and over time you keep moving them to be even more ambitious against your really BIG GOAL.

Many times, setting the really BIG goal is not has hard as breaking it down into smaller key results.

As in Remind´s school messaging platform, they need to solve a clear problem. Event driven system.

A real time dashboard quantifies progress against a target and flags what needs attention.

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Great Questions when closing a Cycle:

-Did I accomplish all my objectives?, If so, what contributed to my Success?
-If not, what obstacles did I encountered?

-If I were to rewrite my goals in full, what would I change?
-What have I learned that might alter my approach to the next OKRs cycle?

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SUPERPOWER #4, Stretch for Amazing;

Stretching for Amazing is about creating impossible goals, big huge goals.
It´s about 10X thinking and action. However, they can be crushing if people don’t believe they can be achieved.

Aspirational goals can prompt a reset in the entire organization.
Stretch goals are invigorating. By committing to radical, qualitative improvement you can review your sense of urgency and create extraordinary results.

Focus and commitment are a must for targeting goals that make a difference.
Innovation is like oxygen; you cannot live without it.
As Jim Collins´s wrote in his great book Good to Great,

“a Big Hairy Audacious Goal is a daunting goal-like a big mountain to climb.
It´s clear, compelling, and people get it right away. A BHAG serves as a unifying focal point of effort, galvanizing people and creating team spirit as people strive towards a finish line. Like the 1960 NASA moon mission, a BHAG captures the imagination and grabs people in the gut”

As Edwin Locked, says, “The harder the goal, the higher the level of performance…although subjects with very hard goals reached their goals far less than subjects with very easy goals, the former consistently performed at a higher level than the later”.

The idea is to SET CHALLENGING SPECIFIC GOALS.

Those who do more than anyone thinks possible….with less than anyone thinks possible.

If you go for a 10% improvement, it means you are doing the same thing as everyone else.

You probably will not fail spectacularly, and also, you won’t succeed wildly. This is why you NEED to create products and services that are 10X better than the competition, or whatever is available.

Going for 10X won´t make you 100% successful every time, but it will allow you to create moonshots with exponential improvements.

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MOONSHOT QUESTIONS:

This are some great Moonshot questions people ask at Google:

WHAT RADICAL CHANGE, HIGH RISK ACTION NEEDS TO BE CONSIDERED?
What do we need to stop doing?
Where can we move resources or find new partners?

And another great questions……
HOW CAN WE CREATE MAXIMUM VALUE?
What would AMAZING look like?
How can we scale it into a billion?

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As John says, “If you seek to achieve greatness, stretching for amazing is a great place to start”.

The great benefit of OKRs is they give you a clear, quantitative targets on the road to those exponential leaps.

As it did in the YouTube story, when they created the huge objective or having 1 billion hours of viewed time in a single day (in a 4-year time frame). This meant to grow at a factor of 10.

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CONTINUOUS PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT:

Like OKRs, CFRs champion transparency. They are mutually reinforced.
Conversations: Authentic conversations aimed to drive performance.
feedback: Bidirectional communication to evaluate progress.
Recognition: Expressions of appreciation

Great questions on this….

-How are you doing; how are your OKRs coming along?
-Is there anything impeding your work?
– What would you need from me to be more successful?
.How do you need to grow to achieve your career goals?

POWERFUL CONVERSATIONS:

It´s critical to have one on one meetings between managers and their direct reports. Conversations about,
.Goal setting and reflection
-Lightweight performance reviews. A mechanism to gather inputs.

Here are somethings you can do to improve:
-Institute peer to peer recognition
-Establish clear criteria.
-Share recognition stories
-Make recognition frequent and attainable.
-Tie recognition to company goals and strategies.

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The power of a powerful culture.

A behavior defines a company more meaningfully than a product or a service. It´s one of the few things can´t be copied.

In a company with a powerful culture people not just work together, they are inspired together.

Andy Grove had qualities as-collective accountability, fearless risk taking, measurable achievement, which are also high on Google.
GOOGLE´S SYSTEM FOR OKRs:

It’s amazing how, as we saw in Google, a small team of people, acting in concrete towards an ambitious common goal, can change an entire mature industry in less than 2 years. That was the case for Chrome.

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WRITING EFFECTIVE OKRs:

-Express goals and intents
-Are aggressive yet realistic
-Must be tangible, objective and unambiguous (should be obvious to an outsider)
-The successful achievement must provide clear value for you and your company.

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KEY RESULTS are the how’s:

-express measurable milestones
-MUST describe outcomes,
-Must include evidence of completion.

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COMMITTED vs ASPIRATIONAL OKRs;

There are 2 types of OKRs, one is the committed ones, which are the ones that we agree will be achieved, and we are willing to adapt schedules and resources to make sure they are delivered.

The other ones are the aspirational OKRs, they express how we would like the world to look, even though we don’t know how to get the resources and make them happen.

An organization needs the two of them.

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CLASSIC MISTAKES IN WRITING OKRs:

1. Failing to differentiate between a committed and aspirational OKRs.

2. Business as usual OKRs. Chosen as what the team is actually doing instead of what the customers really want.

3. Timid aspirational OKRs. They often from the position of, “what could we do if we had extra staff and got a little lucky?” instead from a whole different mind-set, one that asks questions like “What would my world look like in several years if we were free from most constrains?

By definition you are not going to know how to make it happen in aspirational OKRs, this is why they are aspirational. They are way beyond your present possibilities, and this exactly is what makes them challenging and amazing at the same time.

You NEED TO ARTICULATE THE DESIRE END STATE, THE WORLD YOU WANT TO CREATE, THE DESTINY YOU WANT TO BUILD.

4. SANDBAGGING: A team committed OKRs should consume most of their available resources, but not all. Their committed plus aspirational OKRs should consume more than their available resources, otherwise they are not aspirational.

5. LOW VALUE OBJECTIVES: OKRs must provide clear value, otherwise there is no reason to go after them.

6. INSUFFICIENT KRs for committed objectives. A common error is choosing key results that are necessary but not sufficient to collectively complete the objective. The error is tempting because it allows a person or team to avoid the difficult commitments needed to deliver hard results.

Make sure the metrics are specific, for example, “1 million users”, is that all time users or 7-day actives.

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FASCINATING QUESTIONS:

-WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO DO NOW? (or in this period, month, year)
– What do we need to get done, and fast? Who will get the job done?
– What is the MOST important for the Next 3, 6 or 12 months?
What are our Main priorities for the coming period?

Where should people concentrate their efforts?
-What is MOST important NOW?
– What is the Objective here?

-What didn´t I learn and what didn’t I foresee at the beginning of the quarter?
How will I apply this lesson in the future?

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Questions when closing a Cycle:

-Did I accomplish all my objectives?, If so, what contributed to my Success?
-If not, what obstacles did I encountered?

-If I were to rewrite my goals in full, what would I change?
-What have I learned that might alter my approach to the next OKRs cycle?

This are some great Moonshot questions people ask at Google:
WHAT RADICAL CHANGE, HIGH RISK ACTION NEEDS TO BE CONSIDERED?
What do we need to stop doing?

Where can we move resources or find new partners?

Who do we want to be as an organization?
WHO ARE WE WORKING FOR?

Are you moving forward? Are you breaking ties?
-WHAT WOULD DO YOU WANT TO CREATE? HOW WOULD IT LOOK LIKE? WHAT DESTINY DO YOU WANT TO BUILD?

-What OKRs we can focus on, will deliver the greatest value for the organization?

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TOP IDEAS:

-Ideas are easy, Execution is everything.
– Hard and challenging goals drive performance more effective than easy goals
Productivity is enhanced by well-defined, challenging goals.

– A 2-year Deloitte study found that there is NO single factor that has more impact in an organization than HAVING clearly, well-defined GOALS that are written down and share with others.

-People love to know how they are progressing in their objectives and love seeing it visually represented, down the percentage point. Research suggest that seeing progress is more important than recognition, even monetary incentives.

– In a study, people who record their goals and sent weekly reports to a friend attained a 43% more of their objectives than those who just thought about goals without sharing them.

-Learn when you fall short of the Goals, constant evaluation.
– Until you set a really BIG GOAL, like 1 billion hours watch in a day by YouTube, you can´t find out which smaller goals need more attention. So, ask yourself, What is the Objective here?

-You need to see those results align to your everyday activities and over time you keep moving them to be even more ambitious against your really BIG GOAL.

– If you go for a 10% improvement, it means you are doing the same thing as everyone else. You probably will not fail spectacularly, and also, you won’t succeed wildly. This is why you NEED to create products and services that are 10X better than the competition, or whatever is available.

-It´s challenging t narrow to 3 or 4 key results for a big objective, but it makes a huge difference.

– You NEED TO ARTICULATE THE DESIRE END STATE, THE WORLD YOU WANT TO CREATE, THE DESTINY YOU WANT TO BUILD.

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GREAT QUOTES:

“We want to be the Best ban in the world”
-Bono

“What keeps me going is goals”
-Muhammad Ali

Let’s Keep Rolling
Just Make a Decision

-In a world where computing power is nearly limitless, the true scarce commodity is increasing human attention.
Satya Nadella

– A computer on every desk and in every home
Bill Gates

-Driven to Succeed.

-The BIGGEST Risk of all is NOT taking one.
Mellody Hobson

-There are so many people working so hard and achieving so little
Andy Grove

-Lack of achievement orientation
-Quantum leap

-Create an environment that values and emphasizes output
Andy Grove

-Bad companies are destroyed by crisis. Good companies survive them. Great companies are improved y them.
Andy Grove.

-Avoid the activity Trap
Peter Drucker

For the feedback to be effective must be received very soon after the activity occurs.

“To develop the Next-generation client platform for web applications”
(chrome mission)

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Tylor Jones, Master Coach at turbomind.com.
Contact me Through WhatsApp or Telegram for a 45-Minute Free Coaching Session. I love helping people and Businesses become Exceptional. +507-6426-9450. keep updating this list regularly….

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My TOP 10 ACTIONS:

1. Choose OKRs for a year. Choose no more than 5 main objectives and then choose 3 key results for each main objective. Chose quarterly OKRs, with 3 key results each. Then track both, the long term one (year) and the short term (quarter) simultaneously. Commit to 3 to 5 each.

Chose objectives with the most leverage and positive impact in the organization, the ones to add the maximum value.

When a result requires more attention, elevate it to an objective.
The single most important element for OKR success is conviction that is possible by the leaders of the organization.

2. Choose a Your TOP-One Objective for the Next 4 years. One massive challenging but doable objective that you will organize all smaller objectives and key results against this one. Choose 3 key result for this massive goal.

3. PUBLICLY COMMIT TO YOUR OBJECTIVES. This is a crucial part.

4. MyTotalSuccessPal: :
Every week have a one-hour, one to one conversation with a friend, success pal or whatever you want to call it.

Here you go over your goals, dreams and things you’re doing. You go over your big objectives as well as the ones for this week coming. This conversation needs to be authentic, real and open. It´s an encouragement conversation without criticism or negativity.

You can also ask questions like, what´s exciting in your life now? What are you most proud of? How are you progressing on your most important goals?

When you meet next week, you evaluate on the previous week.
There must be a commitment from both to show up on time, every week, at the same time, ideally in the same place.

5. MASSIVE VISION: people tend to spend most of their time on problems, on negative news, on what’s wrong. This only keeps feeding fear, negativity, and destruction.

So, instead starting asking,
“What would do I want to create?
How would this world look like?
What destiny do I want to build for me and for others?

Instead of talking about corruption, start asking,
“How we can start changing this now and forever?”,
Spending your time thinking and building the world you would like to live in. And commit yourself to be part of the solution.

MY FAVORITE BOOKS ON MENTAL TRAINING AND MENTAL TOUGHNESS:

If you are looking for other exceptional books on mental training as well as mental toughness here are my favorites, the ones I have personally read:

1. How Champions think by Dr Bob Rotella, https://www.turbomind.com/how-champions-think-by-dr-bob-rotella/
2. An IRON WILL, by Orison Swet Mardin, https://www.turbomind.com/an-iron-will-what-all-great-men-have-in-comon/
3. The Champion´s Mind, by Jim Afremov.
4. With winning in Mind, by Lanny Bassham, https://www.turbomind.com/with-winning-in-mind-by-lanny-bassham/
5. Chasing Excellence, by Ben Bergeron, https://www.turbomind.com/chasing-excellence-by-ben-bergeron/
6. Mind Gym, by Gary Mack, https://www.turbomind.com/mind-gym-gary-mack-turbomind-book-club/
7. Tom Coughlin, by him, https://www.turbomind.com/tom-coughlin-earn-the-right-to-win-best-ideas/
8. No Limits, by Michael Phelps, https://www.turbomind.com/no-limits-by-michael-phelps-the-will-to-succeed-turbomind-com-book-club/
9. Relentless by Tim Grover, https://www.turbomind.com/relentless-from-good-to-great-to-unstoppable-by-tim-s-grover-summary-by-miguel-de-la-fuente/
10. Unbeatable Mind, by Mark Divine, https://www.turbomind.com/unbeatable-mind-mark-divine-turbomind-com-bookclub/
11. Get the Life You Want, by Richard Bandler.
12. Can´t Hurt Me, by David Goggins, https://www.turbomind.com/cant-hurt-me-by-david-goggins-turbomind-book-club/
13. Make Your Bed, by Admiral William H- McRaven, https://www.turbomind.com/make-your-bed-by-admiral-william-h-mcraven-turbomind-bookclub/
14. The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone, https://www.turbomind.com/the-10x-rule-the-difference-between-success-and-failure-book-summary/
15. Discipline Equals Freedom. Jocko Willink, https://www.turbomind.com/discipline-equals-freedom-by-jocko-willink/
16. RAFA, by Rafael Nadal, https://www.turbomind.com/rafa-by-rafael-nadalbook-summary/

I keep updating this list regularly….

Tylor Jones, Master Coach at turbomind.com.
Contact me Through WhatsApp or Telegram for a 45-Minute Free Coaching Session. I love helping people and Businesses become Exceptional. +507-6426-9450. keep updating this list regularly….

This is an amazing world, let’s make it even more amazing and extraordinary.