Hey happy Monday!
OKRs are behavioral science
Strategy always represents a description of a behavioral change, between the current way of working and the new way of working that best supports the achievement of a future state of the organization.
This concept is so ingrained in MAKE PROGRESS with OKRs, that leaders are asked to perform a challenging but powerful exercise to map the organization by analyzing current team behavior and how it should change to better support strategy execution. The template for this exercise, called Now & Next, is available in the OKR toolkit.
But change is difficult. Here is the four-step framework that inspired MAKE PROGRESS ‘s work with OKRs.
Before we begin: how our brains work
Organizations are made up of people, and the first level of change must take place at this very level. It is important first to understand how our brains work and what happens when we change.
Imagine the brain divided into two systems: rational and emotional.
The rational system enables long-term planning, thinking and decision-making; it is slower as it weighs pros and cons, weighing the consequences of choices in our best interest.
The emotional system, on the other hand, concerns instinctive decisions and satisfaction of immediate desires. It is through it that automatic habits and behaviors are developed, even without awareness.
These two systems work in pairs: when we make a decision, one or the other wins.
Designed to support human progress, both systems do not aim to endanger the person. However, the emotional system can sometimes overpower the rational one frequently. While this has saved us from danger in the past, in the business context it is critical to rebalance the weight of decision makers and use this mechanism to our advantage.
1. Making the change clear
The first step is to make the need for change irrefutable. Unfortunately, exactly the opposite often happens: it is imposed.
When this happens, resistance is triggered due mostly in the lack of clarity about why and how to change. One cannot move in a direction one does not know.
Communication of the strategy is the first moment in which change is triggered. It must be done in the most understandable way possible, and it must be structured to allow adequate space for people to contribute but sufficient precision to do so effectively.
Saying “let’s focus on innovation,” “let’s become a category leader,” or “let’s provide incredible returns to our stakeholders,” are like good resolutions that are already abandoned by February because they don’t bring the necessary clarity. It’s like saying you need to “have a healthier diet.” What does healthy mean? How much pasta, vegetables or meat do you need to eat to be healthy? Is it possible to eat cheese? What about eggs?
The clarity and pragmatism of the strategy support adoption. The Strategy Focus Onepager is the tool from MAKE PROGRESS that allows the entire strategy to be represented on a single page in a highly pragmatic way.
The canvas is based on the idea that decisions on the left side of the paper must bring numbers to the right. This implies that it is impossible to achieve new results without changing the organization. This simply drafted document becomes the centerpiece of the strategy, the fastest vehicle for distributing it and making it actionable by mobilizing people.
2. Creating desire for progress
Growth strategies that only aim to enrich the property do not work. The literature points out that economic incentives are not the main driver of change. People want to feel connected and part of something bigger.
Each OKR project involves redefining and sharing the company’s vision and mission. Once leadership has described and communicated the strategy, teams understand how to connect and connect their goals to their vocations, finding the meaning of their work in a clear and necessary pattern.
OKRs become important to people not only technically accurate.
3. Starting downhill
We are incredibly good at persevering in useless actions despite knowing that they are unprofitable and do not bring us closer to our goals. We continue to turn off the alarm clock, avoid the gym, and invest time and resources in projects that are never measured, despite knowing their little impact on growth.
Rather than focusing on fixing what is not working, with no guarantee that the situation will improve , it is easier to double down on what is working.
How often do meetings become places where problems emerge, even the less relevant ones? To understand what worked rather than continuing to talk du unnecessary technicalities we need to equip ourselves with a system that helps us individe successful projects.
Teams that use MAKE PROGRESS make use of a tool, included in the OKR Toolkit, called Project Alignment through which they are able to map projects to growth support and recognize what is not contributing, freeing up time to focus on priorities.
4. Removing obstacles
Starting downhill is the first step in gaining momentum in strategic motion, but it needs to be supported with the creation of systems that facilitate achievement.
We cannot ask people to achieve higher targets simply by working harder or sacrificing personally. We must aim to build repeatable systems, achievable only by developing an operating system that provides recipes for overcoming challenges.
A crucial role in organizations is that of the operation manager, who simplifies work by providing timely information and distributing process knowledge to those who must execute it.
To the creation of libraries of procedures, useful for speeding up execution and reducing errors, there is a fundamental concept in the program MAKE PROGRESS that amplifies the results: roadblocks.
Obstacles and solutions flow from the periphery of the organization inward, making teams autonomous and proactive. Leaders thus gain valuable information about how the organization works, and roadblocks become beacons that illuminate strategic areas where innovation has faster returns, involving the whole group rather than just a few individuals. The template for removing roadblocks is already available in theOKR Toolkit.
The framework in brief
The effectiveness of the framework lies in its simplicity, which in the four steps brings balance between the rational and emotional parts of people with respect to change.
The first step is to bring clarity to the change while the second is to create the desire for the change itself. The third in making the change so easy that it is inevitable, and finally the fourth in sustaining the change by removing obstacles.
If you would like to learn about how to evolve your organization with the tools from MAKE PROGRESS I have provided this schedule to meet and see the tools in action. When you are ready, choose the best time from this link.
I look forward to learning about what you are creating
ALWAYS MAKE PROGRESS ●↑
