OKR Helps Leaders to Leads

Many leaders have an idea of what they want to accomplish but struggle to communicate it. OKRs — Objectives and Key Results — are a tool for leaders to articulate their vision in a clear, concise, and practical manner.

OKRs help answer two critical questions. The first: “Where do we want to go?” (The Objective). The second: “How will we know when we get there?” (Its Key Results).

What distinguishes a leader from a manager? Though some people use these terms interchangeably, we believe they describe two distinct roles. OKRs can be of enormous value to both.?

Being a Leader

Leaders have a vision that charts an organization’s path and answers the question, “What’s next?” They concentrate on growth, innovation, and defining where and when the company needs to shift or stretch. You do not need a title to be a leader. Leadership is a way of thinking and approaching problems, regardless of hierarchy. Among other things, OKRs help leaders to focus on the goals most critical to their vision, and to reinforce the organization’s commitment to those goals.

Leaders use OKRs to articulate their vision in a clear, concise, and practical manner. Good OKRs help everyone make better decisions by focusing teams on the top priorities.?

Being a Manager

Managers are directly in charge of day-to-day operations and guide their team in the use of resources to execute a vision. They tend to concentrate more on tactics and practice — getting done what needs to be done. Good managers make sure everything runs smoothly. OKRs help managers align their team’s goals to the organization’s mission and top-line Objectives and to track their team’s progress every step of the way.

Managers use OKRs to achieve operating excellence. While most careers involve both leadership and management, this course seeks to make you a better leader.

OKRs Help Teams Accomplish Audacious Goals

All of us have goals — the big ideas we’re striving to make a reality. Many of us also have a responsibility to the larger goals of our organization. But as John says, “Ideas are easy. Execution is everything.”

John explains the benefits of using OKRs with an acronym: The F.A.C.T.S. OKRs empower organizations to Focus, Align, Commit, Track, and Stretch.?

One of the areas where OKRs help most is by bridging the gap between ideas and execution. They help leaders to clarify, communicate, and — most important — achieve their goals.

For example, let’s consider Duolingo. You might know them as a free mobile app that helps people learn new languages. Founded in 2011, Duolingo is now a public company with over 300 million users and an estimated value of more than $6 billion — a resounding success. But when you look at their mission, you realize they’re just getting started.

What is Duolingo’s mission? “Give everyone access to a private tutor experience through technology.”?

That’s a huge idea, with enormous implications. Imagine if everyone on Earth had access to personalized education. How would that change how people learn? Or who can learn? Or what we would learn? The Duolingo mission is a banquet of food for thought, but what does it have to do with a language-learning app on your phone?

With the help of OKRs, Duolingo divided their mission into manageable parts. The mobile app is one of those pieces.

OKRs Turn Missions Into Milestones

That may be a simple way of framing it, but it gets to the heart of what we accomplish with OKRs.

Let’s return to Duolingo’s mission: “Give everyone access to a private tutor experience through technology.” It grew organically out of the company’s origins, as a provider of free language learning to low-income students who were at a disadvantage in passing college entrance tests.

It could take many years, perhaps decades, for Duolingo’s mission to be fully realized. But on the path to that mission, they’ve decided that the demand for language learning is so universal that it’s the right place to start. So they committed to the following milestone: “Everyone with a smartphone can learn a new language for free.”

Companies can’t fulfill their missions unless they stick around. To sustain itself and grow, Duolingo needs revenue. To that end, they introduced an optional paid subscription. It unlocks more learning tools in the app and enables students to get through courses faster.

Today, about 5 percent of users are paid subscribers. Now that Duolingo is a public company, investors want to know how they’ll increase that number. The company’s leaders are eager to do so too. The more revenue they raise, the faster they can grow and accomplish their mission.

So now we’re looking at an even more specific, shorter-term milestone: increasing the number of paying users by adding new, valuable features such as foreign language podcasts and audio lessons.

To recap: We’ve moved from the broad, grand goal (universal private tutor experience) to a narrower goal (everyone can learn a new language for free), to an even narrower goal (expand the paid subscription base by adding valuable features).

And that’s where OKRs come in. The goal to expand the paid subscription base is the seed of an OKR. It’s a meaningful, measurable goal.?

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