The Mysterious Case of Executive Buy-In for OKRs

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As I was considering topics for this week’s blog post I frequently came upon the same theme as I reviewed notes from our OKR Book office hours sessions (free, by the way) and my client work. How do I get executive buy-in for OKRs?? It comes up again and again. And I think this is particularly odd. Why? Because OKRs are a goal-setting framework. They should originate from executives. Buy-in should be baked in. This isn’t a software development process or a design methodology. This is an org-wide approach to aligning and prioritizing work. So why does this question keep coming up?

Cargo-culting is real

We saw this with Agile. We saw this with the recent trend in tech layoffs. And now we’re seeing it with OKRs. Cargo-culting. This is a phenomenon first witnessed during World War II when military personnel arrived in the South Pacific. The locals had no concept of “cargo.” The military however came with a lot of it. They loaded and unloaded it from their ships. The locals, seeing how important it was to these foreigners, decided to mimic their movements in the hopes of attaining a similar level of prosperity. They too carried “cargo” from the beach inland and back to the beach. They just didn’t understand what they were doing or why.?

Companies cargo cult all the time. “Well, they’re doing it, so we should be doing it too.” Regardless of what “it” is. Adopting a new way of working? We’ll do it too. Layoff a bunch of product managers and designers? We’re in! Implement a new goal-setting framework? Works for them! But when the realities of these new ideas hit home, executives often balk, walk back their initial enthusiasm and push for the “way we’ve always done things.”?

For better or worse, OKR’s are the flavor of the moment for many companies. Most executives are aware of them and certainly many of our clients have attempted to implement them. The irony in the majority of these cases is that the individual teams are ready and willing to re-align towards the customer. The friction appears when the new goal setting framework is reflected back to the leadership team that brought it in.?

Why do executives push back on OKRs?

If OKRs are implemented correctly much of what leadership has traditionally done now falls to the tactical teams executing the work. This is unfamiliar territory for everybody. Leaders want to tell teams exactly what to build. Teams want to ensure they’re meeting customer needs. These two things don’t always align. Teams that are fortunate enough to be able to collect qualitative and quantitative evidence that validates a shift in direction from what the executive originally prescribed, find themselves in the unenviable position of having to push back on that executive. The irony in all of this is that it was the executive (and their peers) who asked the team to meet the needs of the customer by implementing OKRs!?

OKRs take executives out of the deliverables business. For what it’s worth, they should never have been there in the first place. If you’ve hired well and trust your teams to do their jobs, they are the ones who create deliverables. Executives should set strategy and direction. They should remove obstacles for delivery teams and ensure the organization is aligned around a finite set of goals. Tactical execution and decision making is what our teams should be doing. And yet, executives struggle to let go of that level of tactical control. One thing the majority of executives don’t realize when adopting OKRs is that this way of setting goals doesn’t specify solutions. It is up to the teams to discover the best combination of code, copy, design, business model, and value proposition that meets user needs.?

Ambiguity is the breeding ground of anxiety

This is the crux of the challenge of getting executive buy-in for OKRs. Ambiguity. Before the invention of continuous software there was a level of predictability executives could count on. What will be in the next release? That made sense when the next release was 9 months away. But with continuous deployment and integration releases now happening hourly, daily and weekly, what used to matter as a measure of value (deploying a feature) is now an afterthought. Unfortunately the executive mindset hasn’t fully followed this trend. It’s hard to shake off more than 100 years of manufacturing mindset. I can appreciate that. But in digitally-driven businesses (the majority of our world today) that mindset is a hindrance not an advantage. Ambiguity, complexity and unpredictability are simply part of product development today.?

It’s this lack of predictability that creates the anxiety that pushes back against OKRs. “I need to know what we’re shipping and when.” That’s a fair request but equally as fair should be the response, “We’re not sure. We’re testing 3 variations of a hypothesis to see which one improves customer behavior the most.” It’s that second part, the response, that teams fear and executives often dissuade. The ambiguity of not knowing exactly what we’re shipping causes anxiety with leaders. This anxiety pushes for a clear decision before the data has provided clear direction. And this is what starts the breakdown of OKRs.?

How do we soften executive resistance to OKRs? Prove the model.

Any kind of org-wide change is difficult, time consuming and risky. OKRs are no different. The way we prove the value of OKRs to executives is through lightweight, safe-to-fail experiments (sound familiar?). In this case we’re not talking about product experiments but rather process experiments. If you find yourself struggling to convince an executive team about the benefits of customer-centered objectives and key results offer to run an experiment. Choose a strategic initiative that the executive team cares about but isn’t their absolute top priority. Put together a small team of top performers to work on this initiative. Work with them to set an initial set of OKRs. Ask their executives to clear their paths allowing them to focus solely on this initiative. Timebox the whole thing — 12 weeks, no longer.?

Let the team get to work and ask them to share transparently how they’re progressing on a weekly basis. Amplify their work and their progress towards their OKRs. Be particularly vigilant in highlighting the ideas they chose not to pursue. Invite a broad range of executives to attend bi-weekly demos from this team. Celebrate their progress towards their key results. Celebrate the ideas they chose not to build. Connect the increases in key results they achieve to the business goals executives care about. Finally, measure the team’s happiness, camaraderie and productivity. What you’ll likely find is a team invested in the problem they’re solving, passionate about innovating unique solutions and excited to get to work every day.?

Evidence should overrule the hieratchy

OKRs done well put the customer first. This will challenge existing hierarchies and ways of working. It’s natural for leadership teams to resist. The easiest way to move leaders towards a successful OKR implementation is to prove the model to them. Show them it works. Prove that it makes them and the company successful. With that kind of evidence you (and they) can justify scaling the idea across the entire organization while maintaining the leadership teams’ ability to drive their desired narrative.?