It's a new year and most of us are thinking about making and achieving some goals for 2022. I usually write these in the back of my personal planner. Last year I am embarrassed to report that I achieved none of the goals I set out to achieve. Thus, I hoped that by reading Measure What Matters I might gain some tips on how to set better goals and that is exactly what happened.
In Measure What Matters, John Doerr explains how and why some of the leading tech companies set objectives with key results that are analyzed and measured every quarter, as well as how doing so improves productivity and can change a company's culture. An objective is "what" you seek to achieve. Key results are the "how" used to achieve the objective. They are incremental steps that will reach the objective. When all the key results are complete, the objective should be met.
Generally, only a handful - about three to five objectives should be set each quarter. These should all be broken down into key results that will lead to meeting the objective. Thus, with each objective, a person or an entire company can see how close or how far away they are from reaching an objective at any point in the quarter as they measure what has been accomplished to achieve the objective.
For example, if one of my objectives for the first quarter of 2022 was to pay my credit card balance in full during 2022 and keep it paid off, and my current balance was $1,000 and the deadline was to have it fully paid by April 1, I could list, "Pay Off Credit Card" as the first objective. Then I would need to list the steps or the strategy I will use to achieve this objective. I might decide that I need to pay $350.00 for January and February and then the remaining balance for March. I would also need to list how I would generate that money every month. Would I sell stuff that was not being used to generate cash? Would I pick up a part-time job? Would I get a side gig? Whatever strategy I decided to use would also be listed. Then each week/month I would measure the amount that was actually earned and the amount I paid toward the card and compare that to the amount I planned to pay.
Objectives and Key results can also be used with more aspirational and stretch goals. When the companies set out to achieve these types of goals, they allow more flexibility into the grading so that 70 percent is considered a good result.
I don't have a tech company - I have only myself to lead, but I can easily see how this would be useful in getting people to work together and to see what others are working on that will lead to a company's goal being achieved. I will be using objectives and key results this year to achieve a few goals. I am optimistic that by constantly measuring whether my activities are getting me closer or further away from goals every week, I will stay on track and achieve them.
If you have a small company, this book could be priceless. But if you have only yourself to lead, the first few chapters are more than adequate to get the idea of how to use objectives and key results.
This book was purchased, not a gift.
Thank you for reading this review. Comments are welcome. We have not received anything from the author or publisher in exchange for this review.
Copyright @2022 Christine Esser
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