MBA1238 Must Read: Measure What Matters by John Doerr

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Hey O welcome to the Hundred Dollar MBA show your business fuel that gets you through every day with our daily 10min business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online and Today's Episode is a Must Read Episode on our Must Read Episodes I share with you a book that has influenced me as an entrepreneur. I share with you its takeaways, its insights and why you should read it too. Today's must read is Measure what Matters by John Dewar. Measure what Matters chronicles John Doerr's lifelong journey of helping organizations implement objectives and key results, otherwise known as okrs. I was interested in this book because I found out that John Dewar has helped companies like Google and nonprofits like the Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, not for profit, and has helped them transform the way they set goals and reach new heights. I also liked the idea of objectives and key results rather than the idea of goals. What is your objective and how would you like things to turn out? In today's episode, I'll share with you the insights from the book that show how okrs not only help companies continuously upgrade and track and rewrite their goals, but how they also encourage a growth centered philosophy that you can pass on to your whole team. There's a bit of humor in this book as well how the Author actually used OKRs to win back his girlfriend. He also shares why Google uses three colors to track their goals and how by using okrs, Google is able to produce a great product team. I get into all that and more. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Measure what Matters is today's must read and it starts off with actually a bit of humor giving you the origin story of this OKR system, objectives and key results and the story is a bit of a love story in the summer of 1975, the author John Dewar was trying to win back his ex girlfriend Ann. He knew she had a job in Silicon Valley, but he wasn't sure where. As fate would have it, however, he found her working at intel, the company where he just scored an internship. The love story ended happily in the end with him and Anna getting back together and they're still married. But as their romance reignited, another story began. The Author's discovery of OKRs the brains behind OKRs was Andy Grove, one of Intel's co founders. He was the Vice president when John was working there as an intern and then he became the CEO and his visionary leadership would be the integral part or the integral reason why the company transformed from a small business to a global giant that we know today. And of course okrs were a central part of that transformation. After getting hired, John the author attended one of Grove's seminars and he explained that OKRs aren't about what you know, but what you do with what you know. If you want things to get done, execution must triumph. Knowledge, you need to actually take action on the things you know. So you learn things from this podcast, you learn things from blog posts, you watch a video. That's good and all, but if you don't implement those things, they really have no value. For example, one of Intel's objectives, an O in the okrs to be the number one company in the mid range computer component industry. By setting just a few objectives, Grove explained, the company as a whole could truly focus on pursuing them. This is the idea of just having one singular objective and not really focusing on too many things. If you have one or two objectives, that's fine. But this is really essential to any company's success is focus. Cal Newport has been talking about this recently, about how focus is in new intelligence. But I also know this is also practice in Facebook. Friend of ours and friend of the show, Noah Kagan was employee 30 and he talks about how Mark Zuckerberg always talked about having a singular goal, singular focus. So how would they know if they actually reached the goal if they met the objective? That's where the key results come in. For example, One of the KRS at the time was to win 10 designs for the Intel 8085 microprocessor. A win being every time the Microsoft is being used in a product. So they clearly define what that means. So they say we want to be the number one company in our industry. Well, what does that look like? What does that result look like. And they say, okay, that looks like having our microchips in 10 major products. So you could do the same in your business. You can define your objective. What's your objective this year? What do you want to do? Let me give an example for my own business. Let's say, for example, with our software company, Webinar Ninja, I say I want to be the market leader when it comes to webinars. Well, what does that look like? Well, my key result will be, well, here are 10 thought leaders, 10 companies, 10 highly respected organizations that I want to have them use. Webinar Ninja to have them use our software. That's what the key result would look like. And it doesn't have to be 10, it could be five. You set the rule. You set what it looks like to meet the objective. Now, what I love about this book is that it gives you clarity. The idea of having a goal, having an objective, and then having a key result, what does that look like? It allows your whole team to rally behind that. There's no ambiguity. This is what we are shooting for. This is what that looks like. This is when you know you've won. This is when you know you've hit the target. Often in our companies, in our business, we just say we want to be great or we even have a defined goal. Like we want to hit X amount of money in revenue. That's great and all. That's the objective. But what does that look like? That looks like increasing X amount every month. You got to break it down for your team. What does that actually look like? The other thing I love about OKRs or objectives that are clear and singular is that it allows your whole team to focus on what really matters. So say, for example, your objective for your company is that your customers have a great experience. That's your focus for this year. That every customer is super delighted with everything they experience with your product and service. So if that's the objective, what does that look like? Well, that might look like reviews on a review site. That might look like really low churn numbers, customers that are leaving your company or leaving your business or canceling subscriptions. But more importantly, what this does is that when you're making decisions in your business, when you're deciding what to work on, when you're deciding what's important, prioritization. You look at your objective and if it doesn't serve the objective, then you don't do it. This allows you to push aside distractions because there's always other things to do, there's other ways to improve, there's always things you can, you know, add on to your business. That's a major issue for a lot of entrepreneurs. They're like, I want to do everything. Well, no, you really can't accomplish everything at one time. Take one thing at a time. Have laser focus with your objective, and then from there you can conquer that. You can really hit that target and then move on to something else. He also talks about tracking your okrs, making sure that you're on pace to hit your actual key results and that you share that tracking with your team so they know that they're getting closer or they're getting better or they're on track. So if your goal this year is to lower Churn, then every time you meet with your team, give them an update on Churn. Churn is at this percent right now. We went a little up this month, but we can fix that by, you know, improving the product or improving our service. This is really important. Even if you meet with your whole team once a month, like we do with Webinar Ninja, we have a remote team. So once a month, all different time zones, we all meet on a call. That's a great time to revisit what your objective is and show them, hey, this is where we're at in terms of reaching our key result. It keeps their eye on the prize and also reminds them, hey, this is what we're working towards. I know we're doing a lot of things, but this is really the reason why we're doing all these things. And he also talks about implementing stretch goals, also heard this phrased as good, better, best. So you can have three versions of key results, meaning that, hey, this is the good version. This is like kind of the standard to reach our objective. There's a better version and then there's a best version. This allows people to stretch themself a little bit, to try a little bit harder. So if they're at the good stage, at the key result, and let's say there's three months left in the year, maybe I can push forward and get to the better, maybe even best. These strategies have helped big companies like Google as well as NASA. Because when you're trying to do great things, you gotta take it at levels or steps.

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Is it time to reimagine your future. The right business skills may make a difference in your career. At Capella University, we offer a relevant education that's designed to focus on what you need to know in the business world. We'll teach professional skills to help you pursue your goals like business management, strategic planning, and effective communication, and you can apply these skills right away. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella. Edu.

Today's Must Read Measure what Matters by John Dewar is a great read. It's easy to read. It allows you to just have some clarity and focus in what you need to really work on in your business. And it gives you the tools, it gives you the strategy, it shows you how to set OKRs, how to communicate them with your team, how to track them, and how to even take it to the next level with stretch goals. I highly recommend you pick up this book. It's an easy read, it's a quick read, and it's one little thing you can add to your repertoire as a manager. It's a simple thing that can add clarity to your team and they'll thank you for it. Be like, okay, this is a lot easier to understand. One thing to focus on this year. Everything we do is towards that goal. This is what that goal looks like, or this is what it looks like. When we achieve that goal, it's going to earn you a lot of points as a leader. Measure what Matters by John Doerr Pick it up. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe right out on whatever you use to listen to podcasts. Whether it's Himalaya or Apple podcasts or Stitcher Radio or Spotify or Overcast, we're on them all. By hitting subscribe, you automatically download the next episode when it's available. That way, it's ready for you whenever you're ready to listen. Also, by hitting subscribe you get access to all our archive episodes, over 1200 episodes in our archive, and you get access to them for free. But the only way to do that is to hit subscribe. Alright, thank you so much for listening to the $100 BA Show. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I find the best management techniques are the simplest, the ones that are easy to understand and to implement. When you complicate things, you make it hard for you to communicate it to the team or for your team to comprehend. And therefore it often just never gets done. It just kind of falls on the wayside because things are busy in business. This is why I love the OKR system. It's super simple. One objective. This is what those objectives look like when they're met. Let's do it. Let's go at it. And just constant reminders of what that objective and key results are. Thank you so much for listening. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

Is it time to reimagine your future? The right business skills may make a difference in your career. At Capella University, we offer a relevant education that's designed to focus on what you need to know in the business world. We'll teach professional skills to help you pursue your goals like business management, strategic planning, and effective communication. And you can apply these skills right away. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella Eduardo.