?? Use Quarterly OKRs to Continuously Improve Economic Engagement

File this under #businessresilience

After a brief hiatus, we’re back with another installment in our series on self-governance through Economic Engagement (EE). The series began in March with an exploration of management spans (#302 onwards). That inquiry evolved into a framework for self-organization (#305 onwards), which, in turn, led us to explore the five key aspects of EE (#311 onwards). Now it’s time to conclude this chapter by creating a management system to continuously improve EE and, in doing so, pave the way towards self-governance.

Economic Engagement (EE) is a foundational pillar of self-governance, which represents the highest form of self-organization within a company. EE focuses on aligning the entire workforce — at every level — with the organization’s needs, goals, and financial realities, as well as those of its customers. By fostering transparency, accountability, and shared purpose, EE creates the conditions necessary for self-governance to thrive.

Building Economic Engagement

As we’ve discussed in previous articles, building EE requires concerted effort across five key factors:

• Customer Engagement, aka Customer Empathy: Understanding and empathizing with customers’ needs and desires.
• Economic Understanding, aka Financial Literacy: Having a firm grasp of the company’s financials and the factors that influence it.
• Economic Transparency: Providing employees with access to financial data to enable informed decision-making.
• Economic Compensation, aka Financial Upside: Ensuring fair compensation for long-term results that employees contribute to.
• Economic Participation, aka Participatory Management: Allowing employees to influence company strategy and governance.

Measuring Economic Engagement

To track progress across these factors, I recommend deploying a simple 5-point Likert Scale survey. Ask employees to rate their agreement with the following statements:

• I have an intimate understanding of my customers’ needs and wants.
• I have a solid grasp of my company’s financial performance.
• I’ve got access to the financial information I need to make informed decisions.
• I am fairly compensated for the long-term financial results that I create.
• I can appropriately influence my company’s strategy and governance.

A score of “1” reflects strong disagreement, which you might normally expect from entry-level employees. A “5” signifies strong agreement — what you’d hope for from founders or senior leaders. The goal of EE is to make everyone — from the C-suite to frontline staff — feel like they’re an integral part of the organization’s direction and success.

By running this survey quarterly, you can map results over time and analyze trends, either across the entire workforce or by a representative sample. Insights can be drawn by comparing results by team, seniority, or in aggregate, helping to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement.

Creating Quarterly OKRs Around EE

At the start of each quarter, I recommend defining Quarterly OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) by focusing on one of the five EE factors. Focus is essential, and this objective becomes your goal for the quarter. Here are some examples of objectives:

• Objective: Get to know our customers better than we know the Kardashians.
• Objective: Make company financials as transparent as a newly polished window.
• Objective: Make our governance process so inclusive people can’t help but contribute.

Once your objective is set, define 3–5 measurable Key Results to achieve it. For instance, if your objective is financial transparency, you could define success with the following Key Results:

• Share an updated cash flow forecast in Slack at least four times per month.
• 80% of staff say they know where to find up-to-date cash flow forecasts.
• 80% of staff say the cash flow forecasts are helping them make decisions.

These Key Results create clear benchmarks for tracking progress. Be sure to gather a baseline measurement before implementing any changes, and then track your progress monthly.

For tips on creating effective OKRs, refer to OKR+, a coaching framework I’ve designed to help teams maximize the value of their OKR process.

Identifying Initiatives

After defining your OKRs for the quarter, the next step is to identify the initiatives — the specific actions you’ll take to achieve the desired results.

Depending on the objective, you’ll find suggestions for initiatives in issues #322 (Customer Engagement), #323 (Economic Understanding), #324 (Economic Transparency), #325 (Economic Compensation), and #326 (Economic Participation). These suggestions can serve as starting points, but context matters. You and your team will ultimately determine the best approach for affecting meaningful change.

Remember, this process will likely involve some iteration. Three months isn’t a lot of time, so choose initiatives that are quick to implement, allowing sufficient time for their impact to be felt and for results to start trickling in.

Assessing Progress and Adjusting Course

At the end of the quarter, assess your results. Did you meet your OKR? If so, you may shift focus to a new objective in the next quarter. If not, it might make sense to continue focusing on the same objective until further progress is made.

One of the strengths of this approach is its adaptability. Economic Engagement is not a static goal — it’s a continuous, evolving process that requires ongoing attention and iteration. Circumstances within the company will change, and your approach to EE will need to evolve accordingly.

But with this system in place, you’ll always know where you stand — and, more importantly, you’ll know what to work on and why. This is the essence of continuous improvement: making informed decisions, driven by data and aligned with the collective interests of your organization.

That’s all for this week.

Until next time: Make it matter.

/Andreas

How can we build better organizations? That’s the question I’ve been trying to answer for the past 10 years. Each week, I share some of what I’ve learned in a weekly newsletter called WorkMatters. Back issues are marinated for three months before being published to Linkedin. This article was originally published on Friday, Oct 4, 2024. If you are reading this you’re missing out. Subscribe now and get the next issue delivered straight into your inbox. ??