Strategy Comes Closer to Execution with OKR Framework

It is, indeed, hard to execute strategies, and time is the biggest reason behind that. Leaders typically say they lack time for the strategic planning process and implementation cadence. They are quite busy working in the business. But you must understand that strategy, goals, and agile execution helps cascade priorities throughout your organization. Organizations must have clarity on what they must focus on, or else their employees risk burnout. As a leader, you must have strategy management and delivery at the top of your mind.

OKRs – The Game Changer

Besides, the most critical skill of a learning leader is his ability to align his workforce with the right organizational vision and business strategy. Leaders must figure out the best means to bring this alignment and use it to achieve their organizational goals. You must have a framework, training, and a rhythm or cadence to excel at strategic planning and execution.

Objectives and key results (OKRs) constitute an ideal goal-setting framework that helps to align individual OKRs with those of the organization, implement the right strategy, and thus improve business results. With a shared set of goals, functional managers and their teams thus focus on the company’s priorities. Besides, adopting the OKR methodology in your organization aids you in setting effective long-term goals and increasing business performance by achieving them. Unify everyone across your organization while clearly defining their objectives (Os) and key results (KRs) in sync with your organization’s mission, vision, purpose, and values. Individuals and teams, therefore, meet the set targets in a pre-defined timeframe. As your employees try to attain the company’s goals, the gap between strategy and execution lessens.

This blog takes you through a few key steps that enable organizations to put the right strategy in effect using OKRs.

Establish Priorities

The very first step you take to lessen the gap between strategy and execution is to set clear priorities annually or quarterly. Keeping in mind your organization’s mission, vision, purpose, values, and goals, business leaders establish the overarching organizational objectives for different teams. Let’s take an example to understand this better. If one of the topmost goals of your company is customer orientation, a key objective for the sales team would be to boost sales and hone customer retention. If you miss this step, there will be a big gap between the strategy and execution at the end of the OKR cycle.

Define Objectives and Key Results

Once you have established your business priorities and communicated them well to the entire organization, funnel down objectives to both teams and individuals. Team members should discuss their quarterly objectives with their manager and their role in achieving organizational goals. After the objectives are laid down, analyze the KRs you want to be achieved by your employees. Departments and teams set their key results against the objectives, thus driving business results and ROIs.

Plan for Initiatives

Your work doesn’t end, even after clarifying business priorities, setting objectives, and measuring KRs. Teams must plan on the tasks and initiatives to attain the goals aligned with the organization’s goals. To ensure this, managers of these teams conduct monthly or weekly review meetings. During these meetings, they measure individual performance and plan for activities that must take place immediately to boost workforce productivity and performance. The aim here is to deliver desired business results. As an OKR cycle ends, teams look at the outcomes against the proposed goals, thus reflecting on their OKR journey.

Work Bottom-Up and Top-Down

To become a well-aligned and dynamic organization, you must work bottom-up and top-down. While the top management works at a strategic level, teams below the C-level define the supporting goals. They are the best at knowing their areas of expertise and determining opportunities. Your employees can identify well what can and should be done to achieve the organization’s strategic goals. Due to your employees’ active involvement in the process, they are strategically mindful and possess a sense of ownership and accountability. The OKR methodology considers bottom-up and top-down approaches, improving cross-functional collaboration at the same time.

Key Takeaways

• Determine OKRs before a new quarter kicks off.
• Set exact planning timelines to keep teams focused on their objectives and key results.
• Streamline strategic planning by conducting meetings with an agenda and a purpose to boost focus.
• Be attentive to executing OKRs, besides strategic planning and setting OKRs.
• Reflect on the past quarter, celebrate your wins, and address challenges in goal accomplishment.

How UnlockTalent Helps

We at UnlockWorks help organizations define, share, manage, report on, and implement their strategy employing the OKR framework. Our OKR experts guide for best practices, systemize organizational alignment and operationalize performance. Remember, the relevance of OKRs lies in creating shared goals, centering on priorities, and measuring performance impact through key results. To see how OKRs work for your business, get started for free.