Execution eats strategy for breakfast
The Design Project
A full stack design team focused on UX/UI, startups and building great relationships.
OKRs are easy to implement, and they solve all your execution problems—on paper. But I haven't figured out a way to implement them well, yet.
The main problem I've seen is creating accountability.
Writing objectives is easy. KRs are a bit harder. Execution is the hard part. Once you have your objectives and KRs, you have a strategy. Then what?
If culture eats strategy for breakfast—execution eats strategy for breakfast too.
Os and KRs are not enough.
Objectives are inspiring stories—not metrics. Some examples: "build a great culture", "increase ARR", and "develop better leaders".
Well-written objectives motivate yourself and your team when you start executing. They help you communicate what you want to achieve and make it exciting.
Objectives tell you what you want to execute but don't help you actually execute. Objectives are a piece of your business narrative.
KRs are measurable. They tell you what needs to happen for you to say: "We achieved our objective". But KRs are lagging metrics: 150 active contributors per month in the quarter, $10M ARR, 35 new hires etc.
They are "lagging" because, by the time you see them, the performance that drove them has already passed. You can't fix them, they are gone. KRs measure past performance. They measure the outcome of your activities. They are not directly in your control. What you control is your behavior, and what you do with your time.
The question is: how can you change your behavior to achieve your KR? That's your leading metric.
Leading metrics keep execution on track—if you build accountability
Good leading metrics measure the activities that will help you reach your goal. You can track them on a daily or weekly basis and they are in your own control.
A simple example is physical exercise:
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It sounds easy; it is easy—again, on paper. In my experience, I saw OKRs and metrics become nothing but good intentions.
Someone is supposed to manage them, but they won't. Someone is supposed to execute them, but they won't. Buried under competing priorities, no one executes "the strategy"!
It's not the team's fault. It's your fault, team leader. Team leaders own the execution. You have to:
You don't have to do all the work by yourself. You shouldn't do all the work by yourself.
You should delegate it, you should involve your team and align with your team. But you own it. Leaders own it and deliver results.
Accountability is the ability to report progress or lack of progress using numbers. To deliver results, you have to build accountability. Nothing happens without accountability.
Building a scoreboard is easier than it sounds
A set of deadlines, reviewed every week. A Google Sheets with a chart to track how many leads you generated. A dashboard with your NPS score from your customers. A table of content for a document with your % of completion.
It doesn't matter. Start somewhere and keep it simple. You believe certain activities will deliver your key result—that's your leading metric. Track those activities, and write down your progress. Track the progress on your KR too and write it down next to your leading metrics. Share everything with your team. Keep it updated weekly or daily. You have your scoreboard.
Now it's like a game. Your job is to win.
Leading weekly meetings is harder than it sounds
Prepare an agenda. Give a set amount of time to each participant. Everyone answers: are you winning your game? If not, what do you need to win?
It's the team leader's responsibility to help everyone win their game. It's the team leader's responsibility to find the right player and change the wrong ones.
If the game is important, losing has to have consequences. If the game is not important, the team leader chose the wrong game: change it.?