Alignment and focus are crucial in the workplace. This is where Objectives and Key Results (OKR) comes into the picture. OKR is a management framework that can make or break your business.
Yes, you read that right—even if an OKR process seems necessary for business operations, it can also be detrimental if you don’t know how to use it properly.
Objectives and Key Results
In OKRs, your Objective is your strategic theme of what you want to achieve. With this, it will set up a group of Key Results.
Your Key Results (KR) measures the progress of your goal. The one who assigned the objective is also responsible for the KRs, but the KRs will be cascaded to a team of employees who will update performance and own the KRs.
There are many reasons you should use OKRs for your company. For one, it promotes cascading alignment and allows everyone in the organisation, team or department to take smaller steps. In that sense, OKRs are effective because they break down objectives into smaller ways, making them clearer and allowing employees to track the progress easily.
When OKR Is Detrimental
Cascading OKRs where big goals are broken into smaller pieces for each level of the organisation is an excellent move. This aims to achieve a more solid focus. However, it requires proper implementation. When a company doesn’t know how to do this properly, this will leave the workforce with little to no room for innovation, which becomes detrimental to the business’s success.
Another reason OKR can’t deliver benefits to your company is when it’s implemented at a high level that it no longer allows collaboration. In turn, it can create silos that favour local key results.
When OKRs are tied to higher-level objectives, there’s no clear focus that can make everyone in the organisation feel lost or all over the place. If the employees can only align their work with the team goals, it can shrink the scope of your aspirations.
When OKR Is Effective
An OKR isn’t the only way for your company to succeed, but it can provide significant help to boost your growth and to achieve a more effective workforce.
OKRs are effective when they are associated with productive initiatives. Not only will this be fruitful, but this will also empower your employees.
OKRs become effective when they provide room for top-down alignment and collaboration. Moreover, companies must have a strategic focus across various objectives that are aligned to the specific needs of the target audience, at the same time, with the consideration of the current market.
Should there be any changes, these OKRs must be able to adjust to them easily.
When OKRs are effective, you will have a more responsive workforce that will support your business’s growth all the way.
Conclusion
Although OKRs are an excellent idea, you should know how to use them to get the best results. Otherwise, they could become problematic that will impact your business significantly. To make sure you’re doing OKRs right, start by working with the right people.
At SKILLFIRE, we help companies and leaders like you who want to build high-performing teams and create great customer outcomes. The OKR (Objectives and Key Results) framework is a powerful team-based approach to drive success and accountability in your teams.
Ready to grow your business? Let’s talk!