Bridging the Gap Between Strategy and Execution

If you’re going to set OKRs, you need to know the FACTS

Business is changing at a faster rate than ever before, forcing companies to find ways to adapt and pivot. Keeping the entire organization aligned with current goals can be a daunting task, but surviving and thriving depends on it.

One popular method to ensure enterprisewide alignment of assets is to develop objectives and key results (OKR). OKRs are popular enough that industry leaders such as Google and Netflix use them to close the gap between their strategy and execution.

If a company’s OKRs are not well defined and highly visible, front-line workers—and management as well—can often shift energy and resources in a direction misaligned with company goals. And when company goals change, OKRs change to reflect the new direction. When OKRs are front and center, manpower can be spent more efficaciously.

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Stretch Goals

Stretch goals. I hate that term. In my experience they're usually set impossibly high by upper management who then does not provide the leadership and resources necessary to achieve them. Later, often at review time, someone has to answer why the goals were not achieved.

I believe Dr. Deming's point #10 had a few things to say about the subject.

Stretch goals vs poor management

I appreciate your sentiment, Steve. However, to fully appreciate that sentiment, we must take care to avoid conflating separate issues. Namely: • Poorly worded slogans; jingles focusing on outcome rather than process • Numerical goals; again, goals focusing on production numbers rather than production process These issues are based on two of Deming’s points: 10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the workforce. 11. Eliminate numerical quotas. But, as Deming put it, “Without data, you're just another person with an opinion.” Combine that with Drucker’s idiom about measurement and improvement, and it seems that WHAT you measure—and with whom you share the data—is more relevant than not having goals at all. One of the measures of manufacturing process efficacy is defect rates. Unless you’re at zero, or an acceptable level, you must determine to reduce the defect rates. Even if that is a trend rather than an arbitrary numerical value, it IS a target and it SHOULD be shared with the workforce. Now, whether management provides said workforce with tools to meet desired improvements is entirely separate from whether there should be improvement targets at all.