As a business owner, you have a vision and have devised a mission to accomplish your objectives. You have hired the top performers from the talent pool. And you have outlined the expectations to your workforce. Yet, you are not achieving what you expected quarter after quarter. You find a misalignment between your and your teams’ objectives, despite their effort and your strategies. 

Furthermore, this is a time of intense competition as each business attempts to retain its standing in the market, if not reach the top position in the industry. The pressure can be immense, and the right strategy can be a game-changer. You may have gained agility through DevOps or SCRUM methodologies, as they have been common approaches to business successes. While they have been and continue to be successful on their own merit, companies still find perfect alignment elusive between their goals and the adopted strategies. So, what do you do?  

You implement OKRs as some of the big companies like Google, Netflix, etc. have done. You bring together all the teams or departments and unite them to march in the same direction, with a clear-minded focus on your business objectives. What are OKRs, and how adopting an OKR practice can create alignment across the board? We will explore how your business can stay focused with the help of OKRs even under market pressure. 

But, first, an overview of OKRs. 

What is an OKR, and what do we mean by an OKR strategy?

An OKR is a methodology that involves setting an aspirational yet realistic objective with measurable key results, i.e., O = Objective and KR = Key Results. Thanks to Peter Drucker, what started as Management by Objectives, has evolved into OKRs. The MBO framework spelled out in The Practice of Management laid the groundwork by stating that the objectives should be clear, challenging, achievable, and communicated to the employees. It should also enable frequent feedback with rewards and not punishment. 

As a strategy, it works toward personal growth and development and follows the annual reviews when the goals and results are evaluated. Over time, these goals became too broad and less focused. Companies continued to find alignment elusive. 

How OKR creates continuous improvement

In contrast, an OKR offers a faster cadence that involves more frequent reviews of the goals, giving you the freedom to set objectives, track their progress, and the flexibility to change directions. Waiting till the end of the year to see if a goal has been achieved is no longer viable in today’s rapid-paced businesses.  

An OKR strategy operates under the premise that the company-wide goals need to be reviewed frequently and regularly, either weekly, monthly, or quarterly based on business needs. This flexibility is essential because it allows you to monitor progress and ensures that your employees stay on track. 

Unlike MBOs, where you let a year go by before reviewing your goals, OKRs enable data-driven decisions based on clear metrics to make changes at any time, if necessary.  

The name of the game is agility and flexibility and not the waterfall methodology of MBOs, which don’t offer much in the way of frequent feedback or adaptability to business changes. MBOs are also restricted to the top-down cascading approach. Clearly, the OKR methodology is your answer. You would need to set up a parallel process across different teams. Each team defines specific OKRs connected to your organisational objectives, with validation from managers adopting both the bottom-up and top-down approaches simultaneously. Read on to learn how to adapt to OKRs and create that organisational alignment. 

How effective OKRs create company-wide alignment

Effective company OKRs start with being clear on WHAT the goals are and How they will be achieved. The clarity that comes from knowing what you want to achieve will also ensure sifting the wheat from the chaff. Anything extraneous to the WHAT can be left behind, ensuring razor-sharp focus on the goals. 

What also makes adopting OKRs effective is aspirational goals. They must be challenging yet realistic, i.e., stretch yourself by going beyond your comfort zone and expanding your capabilities. Ambitious goals may be just that – too ambitious and maybe unachievable, thereby creating more setbacks in your journey towards the desired results.  

The third lynchpin of OKR implementation has to do with fast-paced tactics. Adopting an OKR strategy involves the large picture, while the tactics you use deal with the steps to building the large picture. Simply put, you would establish short-term goals revisited and reviewed every few weeks or months, so your teams don’t veer away from the main objective. 

There you have it – clear company objectives communicated to everyone in the company, goals that are challenging enough to keep everyone engaged and striving to do better, and always staying on track. All that’s left is to ensure that company-wide objectives are in perfect alignment with the various teams and employees across the board.  

How to ensure company-wide alignment with OKR mechanisms

You can achieve perfect alignment by using the mechanisms of OKRs. They are designed to make a difference in how efficiently you achieve your company objectives. OKRs offer a three-pronged approach – transparency and visibility across all stakeholders, collaboration, and establishing interdependencies among teams. 

• Visibility helps detect misalignment immediately and gives you a chance to rectify that area. 
• Collaboration through a shared understanding of your overall business objectives enables working in sync on the progress and continuous review of the results and the goals. 
• Eliminating siloes and achieving multi-directional alignment across interdependent business units ensures organisational alignment 

Now, we circle back to what you can achieve by adopting OKRs and making the most of the mechanisms mentioned above.  

Leverage the power of alignment inherent in OKRs

Inherent in OKRs are four key elements that help create company-wide alignment – focus, unite and collaborate, accountability, and a ‘stretch goal’ practice. You could say these four elements go hand-in-hand with OKR best practices.  

Ensuring sharp focus

Staying focused on the goal gets you there faster and more efficiently. Moreover, in an organisation, we can’t have fractured focus among teams, with each one going in different directions. We are talking about collective focus here, which can be enabled through OKRs. Collective focus keeps every stakeholder committed and on the path to achieving organisational objectives.   

Always staying connected

Teams staying connected can clear the path towards alignment. The OKR mechanism that helps share the objectives and work in sync wins half the battle towards fostering alignment. Moreover, you can be sure that everyone knows their responsibilities, creating a supportive and unified culture in their effort.  

Creating a sense of accountability

Knowing their responsibilities will take your employees a step closer to accountability. Accountability must be the watchword for any organisation as it creates a culture of individual and collective responsibility, in which each member is held accountable for their progress.   

Establishing realistic goals

One of the tenets of OKRs is setting SMART goals – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. While it is essential to set a goal that can be measured and achieved within a time frame, it is a realistic goal that needs better understanding. Realistic goals are those that are not so ambitious that they set you up for failure from the beginning. It can’t be too easily attainable either, ensuring it remains challenging enough to keep your employees engaged. Stretch goals are those you set and work towards, knowing that you may not achieve them, but still going further than expected. Stretching yourself is a huge motivational factor, as it brings hidden strengths to the fore.  

Final thoughts

The big question is, do you implement OKRs only when under pressure? The answer unequivocally is “No”. As proven by global brands, OKRs strengthen the ties that bind the organisation together. They keep the entire workforce working with a clear vision, independently and with teams, staying on track and aligned with your overall objectives. Therefore, bringing an OKR system into your organisation is a winning move. The bonus round is that it also ensures unwavering focus even through changing times.