Asked: How do I avoid the biggest stumbling blocks when dealing with OKRs?

I took the time to ask Dominique Nagpal a few questions about objectives and in particular OKRs to ask.

Cédric: First, the important topic of inspiration: What are inspiring OKRs? Is there a fear of not being inspiring?

Dominique: I read all the time that OKRs should be inspiring. The thing is that we're all striving to use OKRs to advance our organization's goals. Inspiration is certainly great when you have or get it, but in practice, it often becomes a stumbling block.

Cédric: What would be preferable — refining the perfectly inspiring goal and missing the start of the OKR period, or using solid, well-founded OKRs to get the job done?

Dominique: Thank you for the very valid question. In my experience, leaders and team members need a lot of time to define a perfectly inspiring OKR, or reject enough perfect OKRs because they're not inspiring enough; I therefore choose the solid OKRs.

Cédric: Another OKR quirk: stretch goals. Stretching and stretching goals, what's the point?

Dominique: According to ORK literature, the goals are strechy. The reality is that some companies (e.g. many technology startups) respond well to stretch goals. Other, often more mature, established companies or sectors of public administration find that stretch goals are counterproductive.

However, I've come to realize that the massive increase in performance that comes from setting and communicating clear goals and creating meaningful direction is what is so effective. The leverage they achieve here outweighs the benefits of stretch goals many times over.

Cédric: So what would you recommend?

Dominique: I clearly recommend that customers don't waste time worrying about whether their OKRs are stretchy enough - if it turns out that they can do more, that will become apparent over time.

Cédric: A clear statement, thank you. I would like to talk about the topic of alignment: How can you enable alignment without too many regulations?

Dominique: A good topic in terms of OKRs. In fact, you must accept or learn to accept an imperfect alignment, or an orientation, depending on the. The perfectly oriented organization probably only exists on the paper of an academic textbook.

I would instead try to aim for meaningful direction by communicating clear OKRs at company level and giving each department, function, or team the opportunity to use the power of the OKR framework to independently focus on the desired results. The immediate impact of stopping the unimportant and focusing more time on the actions and actions that drive growth far outweighs any academically interesting but, in practice, illusory vision of perfect direction. That is my very personal opinion.

Cédric: You also hear that the issue of transparency can lead to problems during implementation, is that the case in your experience?

Dominique: Transparency has various degrees. Of course, transparency should be promoted and enabled throughout the organization. However, similar to alignment, full transparency is likely to prove excessive or even counterproductive. The reality is that transparency must be balanced against regulatory requirements such as data protection and labor laws and should be reasonable, sensitive and flexible to take cultural differences and personal preferences into account. Once again, the benefits of improved transparency are worth the effort, regardless of whether that transparency is perfect.

Cédric: And finally, your vote on the “comprehensive introduction of OKRs”, yes or no?

Dominique: I think we agree that OKRs affect everyone, but do we really have to mandate that everyone absolutely has to have 2-3 OKRs? My advice: Stop using mandatory OKRs. The requirement that every single employee must use a certain number of OKRs from day one increases administrative costs and the risk of failure. If this poses a problem, there is an easy solution: start small and simply start the process. A clear set of corporate OKRs, shared with everyone for a few quarters, will do wonders if everyone pulls in the same direction.