How did Columbus Performed against his OKRs?
Here is a summary of the previous piece Queen Isabella, Columbus, OKRs and Performance Reviews.
Queen Isabella wanted to increase Spain’s wealth. She speaks to you, remember, you are Columbus in this story, to help her achieve her objective. You propose that you will support this by finding a new route to China (his objective). You developed a set of Key Results (milestones) to meet this objective and started working on them.
Queen Isabella’s overarching objective: Increase the wealth of Spain Columbus’s objective in service of Queen’s objective: Finding a new route to China Columbus’s Key Result Areas (all linked to specific dates): 1. Hire subordinate captains 2. Float an RFP to ship builders 3. Select a contractor 4. Monitoring contractor’s performance and quality while construction 5. Recruit and train the sailors 6. Obtain supplies especially lemons to fight scurvy 7. Sail on 3 August 1492
You delivered on all the Key Results Areas; Your three ships left Palos de la Frontera on 3 August 1492. However, everything after that was a disaster from an OKRs point of view. You didn’t meet your ultimate objective of finding a new route to China. Instead, you found the ‘New World.’ The ‘New World’ is proving to be a lot more valuable to the Queen than the new route to China.
Performance Review
It is 1493 and you are back from the New World for your Performance Review with the Queen. How do you think the Queen would evaluate your performance?
Of course, you got an ‘Excellent’ performance review. We know this because the Queen granted you an even bigger armada to go back to the new world to colonize and settle.
What if Columbus Hadn’t found the ‘New World’?
Some of you may be thinking that Columbus got a good performance review as he may have failed in achieving the form specific goal but he overachieved in substance. What if he hadn’t found the ‘New World’? What would have been the fate of Columbus?
To answer this question tangentially, let us consider another historical story.
This is 1453 and the Ottoman Sultan, Mehmet II, has put a siege on Constantinople. His ultimate objective is to conquer the walled city. One of his Key Results is stopping any sympathizer ships carrying supplies of any kind from entering the Golden Horn. This Key Result of Mehmet II is the objective of his Admiral Baltao?lu (AB for short) who is commanding the ragtag Turkish Fleet. The moment of truth; four ships try to enter the Gold Horn and due to stark technological inferiority, AB is not able to stop them. In the intense fight that ensues, AB is injured and is rescued by his sailors. Mehmet II is so furious and wants to kill the AB for not meeting his objective, however spares him when he hears about his bravery during the battle. .
AB now is on the land and is part of the force that is tasked to breach the walls of Constantinople. He fought valiantly and helped Sultan Mehmet II achieve his overall objective, the capture of Constantinople. Some recent dramatization depict AB comings up with maneuvers which were instrumental to execute the breach.
Lessons and Reflections
What are the lessons from this historical story for us who are going to conduct Performance Reviews for 2020 and set OKRs for 2021?
First, OKRs is an exercise in strategic alignment, direction setting and focus. At the same time, they leave the employee with the freedom to adapt depending on the circumstances to reach there. Columbus knew what is the Queen’s overall objective and adapted to meet it through other means. Imagine, he decided to go back when it occurred to him that he has lost his way and is not going to find a new route to China. OKRs resolve the following age old dilemma.
Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to. Alice: I don't much care where. The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go. Alice: ...So long as I get somewhere. The Cheshire Cat: Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough. From Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol
Second, it is possible that all the Key Results could be achieved but the objective could still be missed: Columbus met all the Key Results. He got the ships built, trained the sailors and set off for his voyage on the designated date. But still missed his main objective i.e., didn’t find a route to China, may we add by a huge margin.
Third, despite the fact the lower level objective isn’t met, the overall objective may be met (or even exceeded): While Columbus didn’t find a new route to China, he did find the New World that increased Spain’s wealth many more times than the set target, and gave the Queen the money she needed to win the wars.
Fourth, OKRs do not equal performance reviews, not in a blind tick / mark sense. If that were the case, Columbus wouldn’t have gotten a positive performance review from the Queen. Another way to put it is that OKRs do not take away the initiative from the employee. If it were so, Columbus would have left when he realized that he lost his way and will not find the new route to China. How then his performance review would have gone?
Fifth, organizations are essentially composed of pyramids of OKRs. Remember how Columbus’s objective was directly linked to (essentially a subset of) that of Queen’s overall objective or how AB’s objective was essentially a Key Result of Mehmet II OKRs (This reminds me of the Pyramid Principle, which is one of the most effective communication tools out there.)
Next, I will try to answer the following two questions:
- How to give a performance review? Brief answer: talk about strengths, challenges and key message. We will practice the case of Queen Isabella and Columbus as it is easy to practice on the dead.
- What is the difference in OKRs and a Project Charter? Brief answer: they are the same. We will go through a unique, simple format that builds on the OKRs and ensures strategic alignment for a year (and/or a project) as well as covers for contingencies and also provides a neat way to link it with progress updated.
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4 年Moving on from a rigid framework of objectives to more of an outcome based approach has been a strong component in digital transformation nowadays. For example, modern software development has largely ditched the waterfall models where the what, the how and when is very much prescribed from the outset. Instead, we tend to use outcome based metrics and approaches that give experts (such as the professional seafarer Columbus in your case) the freedom to find their own way and methods to satisfy project goals. And, we put them into a wider context, so that the involved stakeholders understand the relevance of their contributions and roles. In todays real world, this finds its reflection in "new" working methods such as Agile, incremental feedback-based development, DevOps etc. Much as in 1492, the job is to recruit the right team, brief them about the outcome you want to achieve, and let them find their own way to deliver that outcome (it's called innovation and empowering your employees). There is no reason to down-mark your team if it comes up with an unexpected solution that still satisfies or even over-delivers on the stipulated outcomes. Overall I feel that we should stop using balanced scorecards that are basically to-do lists measuring "performance". The most important is whether you have achieved the outcome of the objectives you were given.