Ep. 55: From Outputs to Outcomes Using OKRs | John Condon, Chief Growth Officer at Dynamic Integrated Services (DIS)

55: From Outputs to Outcomes Using OKRs | John Condon, Chief Growth Officer at Dynamic Integrated Services (DIS)

In this exciting episode of the OKRs Q&A Podcast, Tim Meinhardt interviews John Condon, Chief Growth Officer at Dynamic Integrated Services (DIS), a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB). John’s impressive background makes for a very lively conversation, and you will quickly see how his experiences play into his viewpoints on OKRs, the management framework, and why OKRs work so well in numerous organizations, including governmental agencies and his own organization—DIS. 

John has consulted with numerous large government agencies and departments, leading them through major organizational change and operational improvement. His close work with government executives and managers has included a great deal of coaching on change management and team-building techniques, which contributed significantly to his work in co-authoring Improvement Driven Government: Public Service for the 21st Century. John was named by Federal Computer Week as one of 2001’s “Federal 100”—the top executives from government, industry, and academia who had the greatest impact on the government information systems community.   

If you are interested in working with the Atruity team or have a question you would like addressed on the show, please email contact@atruity1.com or visit our website at www.atruity1.com

Tim Meinhardt:

Welcome everyone to another exciting episode of the OKRs Q&A Podcast, also known as the OKR Corral, where OKR insight is the king. I’m your host, Tim Meinhardt, president and CEO of Atruity, an OKR consultancy headquartered in our nation’s capital.

Before we begin, if you’re an OKR fan and enjoy our podcast, please subscribe, leave a review, and explore our website at www.atruity1.com. And finally, should you have a burning question you’d like addressed in future episodes, please drop us a note at contact@atruity1.com. 

In this exciting episode of the OKRs Q&A Podcast, I have the pleasure of interviewing John Condon, Chief Growth Officer at Dynamic Integrated Services (DIS), a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business located here in the Washington, DC area. John’s impressive background makes for a very lively conversation, and you will quickly see how his experiences play into his viewpoints on OKRs, the management framework, and why OKRs work so well in numerous organizations, including governmental agencies and his own organization—DIS. You will love John’s enthusiasm and insight. We not only discuss his experience with OKRs, but how to shift your focus from outputs to outcomes.

This episode is jam-packed with terrific tidbits, takeaways, and insight. So, everyone, please grab that favorite cup of coffee, plug in those earbuds, and enjoy my conversation with John Condon.

Off we go, so, John, welcome to the program.

John Condon:

So happy to be here, Tim.

Tim Meinhardt:

This is great, this is going to be a wonderful podcast. I’m so excited.

John Condon:

Let’s go for it.

Tim Meinhardt:

So, John, tell our audience a little bit about yourself, a little bit of your background, and what you’ve done and what you’re doing today.

John Condon:

Okay, I started out as a young fellow with a desire to go to the Naval Academy, and I made a big mistake. I waited too long to go to my congressman and asked for this appointment because when I did, he literally groaned and said, “Johnny, I’m so sorry, I’ve already given that appointment away. Would you like to go to West Point or Air Force or Coast Guard?” I kept saying, “No, sir, I really only want to go to the Naval Academy.” And he said, “Well, you go home, and you tell your mom and dad,” (who he knew really well) he said, “you tell them you’re going to the Naval Academy next year.” And so I did. And it was my mom who had the idea that she said, “Well, why don’t you do this once you graduate from high school? Why don’t you think about going into the into the National Guard, and you’ll do your six months and get all that training? And then, you know, you’ll come home and go off to the Naval Academy with all that training under your belt.” So, everybody agreed that was a great idea. 

And so, I went over to the recruiting station. After I graduated in high school, I went over to the recruiting station. It was lunchtime and everybody was at lunch, except for the Marine Gunnery Sergeant. And he saw red meat. And when I told him about the Naval Academy, he said, “Then why in in heaven’s name would you have wanted to go in the National Guard?” You know, the Marine Corps in the Navy—that’s the Naval Academy. So he said, “So stick with me and we’ll get you all lined up.” And then he asked me how old I was. I was 17. He said, “Well, one of your parents has to sign for you.” And I said, “Well, I just rode my bike over here from my mom’s business.” He literally put my bicycle in the back of his pickup truck, and we drove back to my mom’s business, and they had a discussion, and he told her, “Mrs. Condon, you know, it’s very, very hot down on Parris Island right now. Why don’t we wait till the summer’s over and then we’ll send you down, we’ll send your son down in around October first. He’ll be done with the six-month reserve by April first and have a couple of months before he goes off to the academy.” Great idea. 

So off I went towards the end of September to Parris Island, and I went through boot camp and then I went on to Camp Lejeune in the early part of the next. The next year, which was 1965 and about a month into basic infantry training at Camp Lejeune, they assembled all reservists in the gymnasium on a Saturday morning, and they read a Lyndon Baines Johnson executive directive. And it went like this: “All reserves on active duty are hereby extended on active duty an additional 13 months, which is the length of a tour in Vietnam, and you’re all going.”

Tim Meinhardt:

Oh my gosh.

John Condon:

So off I went, and I went out to out to California, to Camp Pendleton and became an infantry radioman in a rifle company, and we sailed by ship to Vietnam. We were the first marines to land in Vietnam in April of ‘65. And I was the radioman for a platoon commander who was a Naval Academy grad, just so happened. And he found out about my interest in the Naval Academy and decided to help me apply, or reapply, in this case. And I got my orders after about eleven months in Vietnam, and I went home and went to the Naval Academy Prep School and then went to the academy. And it was always my intent to take a commission in the Navy like my dad and my grandfather. And so, I did take a commission in the Navy, and I became a surface warfare officer. 

In the time that I was on active duty—almost 28 years—I had the good fortune to command two ships: a small one, when I was a lieutenant, I had a patrol gunboat—USS Welch—and when I was a commander, I had a large amphibious ship, and I got that ship as a result of the predecessor essentially getting fired. They call it being relieved, for cause, and the cause in this case was safety—they had a couple of casualties on that ship. A couple of young sailors were killed in accidents, and after the second one, that was it. And so, I took that ship over and it was not in very good shape. It was the USS Hermitage, and on the waterfront it had a nickname—the Squirmy Hermie. Yeah, it was pretty, pretty tough. None of the officers or the chief petty officers or the petty officers would go to their respective clubs on the base because they were quite frankly ashamed of their ship. None of them would wear their ball cap—their USS Hermitage ball cap—off the ship. They just were grossly embarrassed. The ship hadn’t passed a major inspection in almost three years. So I’ll leave the rest out and I’ll just tell you that I changed things around a whole lot. 

And sixteen months after I took command, we won the Arleigh Burke Fleet Trophy, which was named after Admiral Arleigh Burke of World War Two fame. That award goes to the most improved ship in the fleet, and that is something I will take to my grave with me—it’s the single proudest professional achievement of my life, and I’ll never forget it. But more than that, among all the awards that we won, we won every single award we were eligible for two years in a row. And the one I’m most proud of—while I’m very proud of the Arleigh Burke Fleet Trophy—the award I’m most proud of, and again, we won it two years in a row, it’s called the Golden Anchor Award and it goes to the ship with the highest re-enlistment rate. And to me, that says it all. We had the lowest re-enlistment rating when I took command of that ship. And the next two years, we won that award twice. And that’s because sailors had a new lease on life.

Tim Meinhardt:

Right.

John Condon:

They began to really enjoy their time in the Navy, and a lot of them decided to stick with it and re-enlist. And so that’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.

Tim Meinhardt:

And you’re sticking with it. John, you know, I have to tell you, you know, you and I met many, many years ago, and you know, from the first time I had a chance to shake your hand, I’ve always been impressed with the way you’ve handled yourself. And, you know, just to talk a little bit about what you did right there. It exemplifies your leadership style among men and among people as you move forward in your professional career. And so, you know, I felt truly honored when you showed this interest in OKRs and actually talked to us about OKRs, and so maybe you want to share with the audience briefly, you know, why did you originally want to work with us at Atruity to develop OKRs for the company that you’re involved with right now?

John Condon:

Sure. Well, Tim, I’m going to go back again a little bit in history because I think it’s important for people to know. After my Navy career, I joined Coopers & Lybrand and I was fortunate to make partner after a few years and I ran the strategic planning practice in the federal community for Coopers & Lybrand. I actually published a book with the two other—I coauthored a book with two other partners, and my part of the book covered strategic planning and organizational change management. I got very involved in strategic planning because to me, it personified or epitomized a real good government practice that is having a plan that you’re operating by and sticking with it. And I brought that to a lot of federal agencies. So over the years, I’ve been doing strategic planning. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve done it inside the federal government, but also with higher education and with the health care industry. 

When I found out about OKRs and it was through you, Tim, that I did, and you started me off by having me read a couple of very incredibly good books. And as I read the stuff and as I learned more about OKRs, it just came across to me that this is the right way to do strategic planning. And so, I took my methodology and adapted it to the OKR methodology, and it works beautifully, but it’s powerful when it’s really taken aboard by people and they embrace it to the point that they’re setting what the books both talk about—the cadence of strategic planning, and all of the work that comes out of strategic planning, and the good, strong, measurable results. So I just became a fan of OKRs, and now we’re implementing it in the federal government and a couple of agencies to start off with. But more importantly, we’ve brought it in to DIS, and we’re working the foursquare and the cadence. We’re running the company on OKRs and it’s working. Working well.

Tim Meinhardt:

It’s just great to hear, you know, and you and I have had so many great discussions about this, and I just love your background. Tell everybody just a little bit about what you did at IBM. I thought that was a very interesting transitional piece as well, John.

John Condon:

Yeah. So, I was at Coopers & Lybrand when I got a phone call from a family member and he said, “You’re going to get a phone call from a recruiter and you need to take the call, John.” And I said, “You know,” this is an uncle of mine, I said, “You know, Uncle John,” who I’m named after, I said, “You know, I’m a partner at a big egg, and I think this might be my last job.” He said, “No, you need you need to take this phone call.” So I did, and pretty much they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. So, I became the head of government consulting for IBM, and I ran government consulting—both federal and state and local—across the United States. And this was under Lou Gerstner, who took over IBM and put IBM into the services industry. We were on the ground floor of that, and I had a great run with it. And again, we did strategic planning. That’s where I did a lot of the strategic planning with higher education and the health care industry. Because I ended up, after being in charge of government consulting, I moved up and took over the public sector for consulting, and I was doing it across the United States and, as well, up in Canada and had a great run with it. Beyond that, after a couple of years’ stint as the public sector executive, I then went to—IBM is not unlike the military. Sooner or later in the military, sooner or later you go to the Pentagon. And in IBM, sooner or later you go to Armonk, New York—their headquarters. I guess it was my time and I went up to headquarters and I worked for the chairman and the vice chairman, both Lou Gerstner and Sam Palmisano. And I was the Internal Transformation Consultant, and I had a group of about 150 hand-picked consultants from around the world, from IBM. A lot of them worked remotely from whatever country they might have been from. I had about 70 or 80 of those folks from the US and they were with me up at headquarters. And we did some very, very interesting stuff inside IBM, but it was a time of change. e-Government was just coming into vogue. There were just so many interesting aspects of what was going on in IBM. But a very important thing that happened to me was my establishing, if you will, a very strong working relationship with the head of strategic planning at IBM. And he and I worked hand-in-hand on that strategic plan, which was a terrific piece of work that was not a, you know, you meet every six months or whatever—we were working that strategic plan on a daily basis. And that’s my biggest take away from my experience at IBM. There was so much going on in the marketplace, and so many new opportunities popping up. You had to stay actively engaged with your strategy in order to keep pace with the competitors, quite frankly. So that was a big takeaway for me in terms of my IBM experience.

Tim Meinhardt:

Sure. So, all right. So, John, let’s shift gears a little bit here, and I want to dovetail off this a little bit from a transformation perspective. But more importantly, what are your thoughts about how OKRs actually help—they really help you execute your strategy. What’s the differentiator that you saw that allows you to say, “Hey, this is a great methodology for us to use as we move forward not only with our organization, but with our federal government partners?”

John Condon:

Yeah, I think the single most important thing from my perspective that really stands out is that the objectives, the objective piece of the OKR methodology are about outcomes, and not outputs, but outcomes. And to me, that’s a game winner. I mean, you’re constantly pushing the envelope, if you will, but it’s about outcomes that your end customer is going to realize. And it’s going to be goodness. It’s going to be measurable goodness. Are you going to be in a place or are you going to take your customer to a place where they really want to be? And so, to me, that’s the real differentiator, is that outcome versus output.

Tim Meinhardt:

Yeah, terrific, very well said. And so, you know, when we ended up doing a little bit of training for your organization, and maybe you could speak to that, you know? What did you get out of the training? What did you think was beneficial for your organization as you moved into this, this really this new sector of your business at DIS?

John Condon:

Well, let me speak to the other DIS-ers. Some of the other executives and some of the more junior people who got that training. I think again, the eye opener for me was how well-accepted it was by them. So they had a homework assignment and that was to read the two books and they all did it.

Tim Meinhardt:

I know, I was impressed.

John Condon:

Yeah, and they all came to the class, you know, loaded for bear. I mean, they were really ready to take your tutelage and run with it. And I think you saw that in the sessions. But what I’m continuing to see is they’re running down that road, you know, with a bone in their teeth. They have glommed on to OKRs and they’ll live in it. They are living it on a daily basis.

Tim Meinhardt:

That is just fantastic.

John Condon:

Yeah, and you know, these same young people are doing that with their federal client. And I’m at liberty to say in one instance that it’s the VA. It’s not all of the VA, but it’s a sizable chunk of the VA, and our people are taking their enthusiasm, which is contagious, quite frankly, and they’re bringing that to the client and the client has reached out and grabbed hold, and now they’re running down the same bunny trail. So, I mean, it just has a way of taking off by itself, almost. As long as you stick with that cadence and the foursquare, you’ve got to keep, if you will, the discipline—that weekly discipline of the foursquare and maintain the cadence. And you know, we’ve done the training for the client, and we did it the same way you did it for us. We took your model, Tim, and brought it to the marketplace.

Tim Meinhardt:

Well, I think it’s fantastic. You know, I like to bring a lot of energy to the training because, you know, there’s a piece—even in John Doerr when we talk a little bit about, you know, when we listen to his tape, and it says that’s where the magic happens. And Bono talks about that. And I get jazzed on it, just hearing it, because it is where the magic happens. And I feel so excited that people are bringing that energy because that’s what OKRs bring. They bring the energy, the possibilities, how good we can get, how focused can we get, how focused on the outcomes can we get that truly begin to change the way organizations view what’s really important in their priorities. And you know, John, you mentioned this thing about the weekly cadence, and I just have to say that we don’t talk enough about it, but I’ll tell you how important it is. You know, as you and I have talked, there are reasons OKR plans fail. And it’s that mismanagement aspect of it that just—you can get it all right. It’s not that difficult to understand, you know, an objective or key result in the cadence and the vernacular of what those terms mean. But the ability to do it consistently, that’s where people—you know, consistency breeds familiarity. Familiarity breeds comfort, and that’s where culture change actually happens. So, thank you for bringing that up because staying with the program, being consistent, is where you really begin to see things change.

John Condon:

You know, Tim, you remind me of another thing that I think is critically important. When you taught us the OKR methodology, one of the major things you pointed out was in the early stages, it’s okay to make a mistake.

Tim Meinhardt:

It’s okay to be a little clumsy, right?

John Condon:

And both of the books, you know, addressed this, I think, and they do so in a particularly good way. I have to tell you that our experience in implementing OKRs with our federal clients, that very same dynamic has paid off. Alerting them to the fact early on that, “Hey, you’re not going to get perfect right off the bat. In fact, you may never get perfect, okay, but don’t worry about that. Don’t worry about mistakes. They’re healthy as long as you learn from them and don’t do it again.” And I’ve been seeing this happen, and it’s just invigorating to watch the people say, “You know what? I had a funny feeling we were going down the wrong road on this one. And, you know, we did, but we learned from it. And now we know—not going to do that again. Well, you know, this other area over here, we’re just getting started over there, we’re liable to make a mistake over here. It’s okay, though, as long as we learn from it and don’t do it again.” So we’re seeing this play out. We’re seeing it play out.

Tim Meinhardt:

You know, whenever you put a new management methodology into play, people become intimidated. You know, it’s uncomfortable. And so, giving them that ability to let them know that they’re not the only one that’s ever felt uncomfortable, and that it’s going to go a little choppy at first, but that as they move forward, they’ll slowly begin to get the hang of it. And you know what, John, that also when they become the evangelist and they begin to help other people in their organization think the same way they have that empathy that, “Hey, I went through the same thing.” To me, that’s critical and very well said.

John Condon:

Well, you know, Tim, again, you remind me of another aspect, and this is very recent in a conversation that I had with a pretty senior executive. And she said to me, “You know, some of my direct reports have kind of confided in me. They’ve come to me and said, you know, ‘Is, is this just the next new fad?’” And she shared with me, but having her direct reports read the books and see that this didn’t pop up three weeks ago. This has been around for 20 or more years. 

Tim Meinhardt:

Right, right.

John Condon:

It’s not a new fad. It just hasn’t been out there that much, you know? But, you know, look at the federal government. I think we’re breaking ground in the federal government with OKRs. We’re trying to find where else in the federal government is this happening? And we’ve not found too many examples. There aren’t that many.

Tim Meinhardt:

And think of it, you know, I think as they move forward, they’ll understand about the prioritization and having that clear sense of purpose. You know, I did a podcast that will be released here in the next few weeks that talked about clarity of purpose, you know, and that breeds trust. And you know, and you’re right, you know, we talk all the time to people that are coming to put OKRs in play for the first time. Most people have that feeling of, “Oh gosh, this is management’s attempt,” you know, “This is the next big thing,” you know, “Gosh, you know, we’ve done this kind of stuff before,” and they’ve been pleasantly surprised. And I’ve had more people on our podcasts talk about this experience. And Amy LaScola said, “I’ve seen it all, Tim, I’ve seen it all.” And in her podcast, she says, “What a transformation,” and a light bulb went off and she goes, “Oh, I get it. Oh, this is so awesome. It is fantastic.” So, thanks for bringing those points up, John.

So, listen, we’ve already talked here for 23 some minutes, which is fantastic. What other insight, maybe, would you be able to provide to our audience about using OKRs, because I think people would be very interested, John, in your insight. You have a background that is literally second to none in in strategic planning, in leadership, and I think it’s just healthy to hear from somebody that’s been able to do all of this and then discovered something new. And so, I’d like to just say any, any last pieces of insight, John, you would like to leave our audience with?

John Condon:

Sure. There’s an observation that I would make, is that the more people in a particular part of an organization that you can get involved in the OKR methodology—you know, we talk about the wheel and the spokes, and you know, you start up here and then you move down through the organization, maybe, maybe only a couple of levels, maybe three levels at the most. But if you are getting down to the lower level, folks, there’s still fairly senior people. But you know, the more you can do that cascade and you can get more people involved, and they can see how a high-level objective, you know, leads to a lower-level objective, leads to maybe one more level below that. And in between all of those are their respective KRs. The associated activity that happens as a result of that is where the rubber meets the road. People are really getting stuff done, and it’s outcomes, not outputs. The outputs are activities. And they start seeing this, and it starts ringing a bell for them. It just makes so much sense. I think that’s how you galvanize and OKR program and really get it to work.

Tim Meinhardt:

Could not agree with you more, John, and you raised a very interesting point, and I want to just highlight a couple of seconds here for what you said. Like it, sound so easy to say, “Hey, we’re going to have our whole organization aligned, okay, we’re going to communicate our top priorities, three levels down to management, so they know exactly what it is that we need to accomplish and their activities that they’re doing now, okay, they feel a purpose, you know, and I know why I’m doing what I’m doing because it’s leading to this greater, you know, this greater direction that we’ve decided at a higher level.” People think that’s easy to do. I’m here to tell you that’s hard.

John Condon:

It is hard.

Tim Meinhardt:

And yet when you see it, when you see it, and you begin to see 40, 50, 100 managers, okay, all being able to say, “I got it, this is what I’m focused on,” and being able to see that in a visual manner, it is compelling. And I think that in and among itself is one of those “aha” moments when people say, “Oh wow,” now they thought they had it aligned, okay, but it’s all done collaboratively as well. You know, so everyone’s gotten by and throughout the organization that, yes, this is collectively what we know we need to do. And it comes, John, sometimes comes from the top down. Sometimes it has that ability to go from the bottom up, and that type of meeting in the middle and collaboration is, I hate to say it, that’s where that magic happens.

John Condon:

Absolutely. 

Tim Meinhardt:

And that’s where organizations, you know, actually have profound results, I’ll put it that way.

John Condon:

So, Tim, one of one of the things that I’ve always absolutely believed as a matter of fact, is strategic planning, when it’s done well, an incredibly important byproduct is team building.

Tim Meinhardt:

Isn’t it?

John Condon:

Because what happens is, let’s say it’s ten executives that, in support of an undersecretary or a secretary at a federal agency, they all do this. They all engage in the strategic planning dynamic together insofar as their understanding of one another’s respective roles and attendant responsibilities. That process, that strategic planning process, what it does is it enables them to know more and learn more about their peers’ roles and attendant responsibilities. And here’s another piece of that. You show me a high-performance organization and I’ll show you one where peers—they’re clear about their own role and attendant responsibilities, but more importantly, or at least equally importantly, they’re also clear about their peers’ roles and attendant responsibilities. And it’s “Hey, this is what I think you need from me in order for you to be successful. But by the way, here’s what I need from you so I can be successful.” Well, I’m seeing this play out with the OKR methodology.

Tim Meinhardt:

That alignment, you know, we all talk about vertical alignment. It’s that horizontal alignment. You know, John, those conversations, they change, and they change for the better. It’s that clarity of purpose where I’m not stumbling over you, and you’re not stumbling over me and collaboratively together, we’ve said this is what we need to accomplish as an organization. And then being able to take that down to the folks that are dying to be able to have that clarity of purpose, I think, is where you get that true—and I hate to use Bono’s words in John Doerr’s talk, but that’s where the magic happens.

John Condon:

That’s where the magic happens.

Tim Meinhardt:

And that’s where the magic happens. Hey, John, this has been a fabulous, fabulous podcast. I want to thank you for coming on.

John Condon:

The pleasure was all mine

Tim Meinhardt:

And I’ve got to have you on again because this was too short. And I wish you all the best of luck on your endeavors here as you guys continually move forward in the federal marketplace. And as always, we’re in complete support of what it is that you all are trying to accomplish. And I wish you all the best here as we’re coming into the holiday season.

John Condon:

Thank you, Tim. Right back at you.

Tim Meinhardt:

You got it, bud. See you, John.