238. How to Set and Achieve Goals using the OKR Framework with Jessica Mah

238. How to Set and Achieve Goals using OKR Framework

Ever wonder how tech giants like Google and Intel stay ahead? It's all about OKR - Objectives and Key Results. In this video, we dive into how Jessica Mah used this powerful goal-setting tool to transform her startup, Indinero, into a multi-million dollar company. Jessica shares her journey of implementing OKRs, revealing how they: Aligned her growing team of 200+ employees Boosted revenue dramatically Maintained innovation as the company scaled Learn the nuts and bolts of OKRs, including: 1. Setting ambitious yet achievable objectives. 2. Creating measurable key results. 3. Avoiding common pitfalls Whether you're running a startup or small business. Jessica's story will inspire you to rethink your goal-setting approach. Ready to supercharge your business growth?

Links Mentioned:

• shortform.com/ash

Timestamp:

00:00 Introduction: The Power of OKRs

00:14 Jessica Ma's Journey with OKRs

00:42 Understanding OKRs: Objectives and Key Results

01:06 Implementing OKRs in Your Business

03:15 The Flexibility and Focus of OKRs

04:34 Achieving Success with OKRs

06:14 Conclusion: Mastering the OKR Process

07:42 Final Thoughts and Call to Action

Ash Roy and Jessica Mah's Video Transcript (This transcript has been auto-generated. Artificial Intelligence is still in the process of perfecting itself. There may be some errors in transcription):

Ash Roy:

Jessica Mah of Indinero transformed her startup into a multi-million dollar empire using a powerful strategy called

Jessica Mah:

Objectives and Key Results.

Ash Roy:

She used it to align her team, focus on what truly mattered and achieve remarkable growth. But here's the thing. OKRs aren't just for tech startups. They could be the key to unlocking your business's potential too.

Let's talk about how Jessica's experience with OKRs can help you to change the way you set and achieve your goals. OKRs is a collaborative goal setting method used by teams and individuals. To set challenging, ambitious, and measurable goals and see them through to achievable results.

Jessica Mah:

So now we've gone through this planning exercise where we have every single person in the company building a plan.

And I think the major misconception is planning is up to the CEO and to the management team to build.

Ash Roy:

Oh,

Jessica Mah:

I think that that's a real old school way of looking at things. Planning should be done by every single person in the company. So we're requiring every single person. I don't care if you're the janitor.

I don't care if you just started. You need to review the plan for your team and add comments to it.

Ash Roy:

So how do OKRs differ from traditional goal setting methods? Well, the thing is, unlike a lot of goal setting methods, they're not vague. And they're not overly complex. They're designed to be clear, focused, and measurable.

They typically consist of an objective, which is a goal you want to achieve, and the key results, which are the specific measurable outcomes that indicate whether or not you've reached your goal.

Jessica Mah:

One, you have to have really strict deadlines. First draft due on this day, second draft due a week and a half later, and then final draft due a week and a half after that.

Ash Roy:

First, you have the objective. This is your big, ambitious goal. The thing you are aiming for. It should be inspiring, challenging, and push your team beyond their comfort zone. Next, you have key results. They answer the question, how will we know if we've met our objective? What I found was that OKRs are particularly effective when it comes to driving alignment and focus within organizations by setting clear objectives at a company level and cascading them down to teams and individuals.

This framework helps everyone in the organization see how their work contributes to the bigger picture. Here's Jessica Mah talking about how she implemented this in her business. I have to confess, especially having come from the corporate. I've always thought so hierarchically and I was so wrong. You're absolutely right.

Planning can be done at an individual level.

Jessica Mah:

Yeah, it can be done and it gets so much more buy in, you get better ideas. Your plans are more likely to actually succeed if you get everyone to contribute.

Ash Roy: Another important aspect of OKRs is their flexibility. Unlike annual goals, which might become outdated pretty quickly.

These are set on a quarterly and sometimes even a six-weekly basis. This allows companies to adapt and pivot in a rapidly changing environment. One of the key benefits of OKRs is that they encourage organizations to focus on outcomes rather than tasks. And this was something Andy Grove felt very strongly about when he came up with this concept.

Instead of simply ticking items off a to do list, the OKR framework pushes the actual impact of your work. This outcome focused approach can lead to more innovative solutions. Now, OKRs aren't just about Success. They're also about learning. In fact, many organizations aim to achieve about 70 percent of their OKRs.

If you're consistently hitting 100 percent of your OKRs, maybe you're not aiming high enough. The idea is to push your team to strive for ambitious targets, even if you don't always reach them. These are often called stretch goals. Now setting OKRs and doing it well takes practice like anything else.

It's important to make them specific enough to be actionable but not so narrow that they limit flexibility and limit the use of creativity in achieving them. They should be challenging, but achievable, inspiring your team to reach for new heights without becoming discouraged. So now that we understand OKRs and what they are and how they work, let's explore Jessica's journey with OKRs and how she used it to build her business.

Her company was growing, but not at the pace she envisioned. She struggled with prioritizing tasks, aligning her team's efforts and measuring progress effectively. She started by setting clear, but ambitious objectives.

Jessica Mah:

You have some objectives, like you want customers to love us, and then you have a key result around that.

The customer size passion score will be X. Just as an example,

Ash Roy:

This objective was inspiring and gave a team a clear direction to work toward and a way to measure their progress as Jessica and a team got more comfortable with OKRs. One of the key milestones they achieved was a dramatic increase in revenue.

This was directly tied to OKRs that they had set and achieved. Another important result. Was improved team alignment,

Jessica Mah:

The team lead, and maybe two or three confidants put together the outline and the basic gist of the plan. And then you have everyone else come in and they might not be writing it from scratch, but they're still contributing.

Ash Roy: Jessica found that OKRs helped her and everyone in her team understand how their work contributed to the bigger picture. This led to increased motivation and productivity across the board. As Indinero continued to grow, Jessica used OKRs to maintain the company's innovative edge.

Jessica Mah:

It allows them to dream big and to think big, but no, they have to also work within economics constraints, so to speak, instead of a dollar number constraint.

Ash Roy:

You're not saying to them, this is how much you can spend. You're saying to them, I don't care how much you spend, just deliver value. Just make it work.

Jessica Mah:

Exactly, exactly. It's forcing them to work smarter, not just harder. It's forcing them to think through how do we actually get more efficiency from each person so that we're not just filling bodies in the room.

Ash Roy:

Jessica's journey with OKRs showcases how the goal setting framework can drive significant business growth by consistently setting and measuring progress through specific key results. She successfully turned Indinero from a struggling startup to a multi-million her success wasn't just about achieving targets.

It was about creating a culture of focus, alignment, and continuous improvement. So, as you've seen, the OKR framework isn't all unicorns and rainbows. There are setbacks, like in any situation, but you can use them to overcome these setbacks. Your objectives should also be ambitious and drive you and your team to stretch beyond their comfort zone.

They should align with your company's mission and your long-term goals. Remember, key results need to be specific and quantifiable. Instead of a key result like improve customer satisfaction, which is pretty vague, you might say, increase our net promoter score from 7 to 8. 5. This gives you a clear target to aim for and know whether or not you succeeded.

If you'd like to learn more about the SMART goal setting framework, you can check out this episode here where I talk about it in detail. But in brief, SMART is an acronym and stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time bound. And every key result you set in your business should have these five criteria built into them.

Crafting impactful objectives and measurable key results and consistently tracking your progress and conducting thorough reviews. You can master the OKR process and use it to propel your business forward. Just like Jessica Mah did. This episode has been brought to you by short form. And if you'd like to learn how to get access to a five-day free trial with a 20 percent annual discount, head over to shortform.com/ash. And please do like this video and subscribe to our channel for more content like this.

If you think somebody else will benefit from this, please do share it with them. Thanks for watching. And we'll see you again soon.

Ciao for now.