Ep. 70: Wisdom From A Seasoned OKR Expert Within the Enterprise Space | Laurence Hewitt, Atruity

In this exciting episode of the OKRs Q&A Podcast, Tim Meinhardt interviews Laurence Hewitt, Senior OKR Consultant at Atruity and OKR Expert. Laurence recently relocated to London and will be our lead consultant in our European and Middle East Communities. Laurence and Tim discuss many aspects of OKRs, and he has so much OKR insight to offer after spending more than 5 years doing OKR consulting within IBM and his 15 years of overall coaching experience as an ICF accredited coach with organizations such as IBM, Viacom, and Time Warner.

To learn more about Laurence, visit his LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurencehewitt/

 If you would like a copy of The Seven C’s To OKR Success Atruity E-Book, click here – https://atruity1.com/seven-cs-to-okr-success-e-book/

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, I have the pleasure of speaking with Laurence Hewitt, Senior OKR Consultant at Atruity, and an OKR expert. Laurence is our newest member of the Atruity team and recently relocated to London and will be our lead consultant in our European and Middle East communities.

Laurence and I discuss many aspects of OKRs, and he has so much OKR insight to offer after spending more than five years doing OKR consulting work with IBM and his 15 years of overall coaching experience as an ICF accredited coach with organizations such as IBM, Viacom and Time Warner. So, everyone, please grab that cup of coffee, plug in those earbuds, and enjoy my conversation with Laurence Hewitt, our newest Atruity OKR rock star. So, Laurence, welcome to the program.

Laurence Hewitt:

Hello. Thank you.

Tim Meinhardt:

So, tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and how you actually got started working with OKRs.

Laurence Hewitt:

Okay, so I have worked in digital media, digital technology, for I guess about 25 years or so. That’s all I’m going to admit to, because I don’t want to seem old. And I have been a coach for 15 years. I am an executive coach as well as an agile coach, and my OKR career I guess started when I was at IBM. When I was at IBM as an agile coach, part of what I did with teams was help them to define their objectives and key results. I was working originally with leadership teams and then I would kind of work with each of those teams going downstream, right down to the teams on the ground. And so, yes, I guess I’ve been doing OKRs now for about six years.

Tim Meinhardt:

Yeah, yeah, terrific. So, I mean, I consider you an OKR expert and I’ve enjoyed our conversations offline immensely, Laurence. As an OKR expert, what do you feel are the largest challenges that, and I’ll say individuals and teams have with getting started with objectives and key results?

Laurence Hewitt:

Yeah, it’s interesting because there are a variety of different challenges for teams and individuals One of the things that that I’ve encountered is either that leadership teams will define their OKRs and then the OKRs don’t really go anywhere. They don’t communicate them downstream well enough. Or what they’ll do is they’ll, call a like a town hall meeting and they’ll say, “These are our OKRs for the year.” And the people in the town hall go, “Oh, huh. That’s interesting. That’s great.” And then they walk out of the town hall, and the OKRs are gone. They’ve evaporated already. And so that’s one thing that I’ve seen. The other challenge that I’ve seen is either a middle manager or even a first line manager who hears about OKRs and thinks, “Oh my God, this would be absolutely great for my teams.” And they would be except that one of the big value propositions of working within an OKR framework is that of aligning the goals of leadership with the work of the teams.

If you have a middle manager that is doing their own OKR thing or a first line manager that doing their own OKRs that are not completely aligned with the expectations and the goals of senior management, that can create issues. So that’s yet another challenge. And then a third challenge that I’ve seen is that the OKRs don’t go downstream far enough. Ideally, what you should have are people on the ground who, when they sit down to do a piece of work, they know that the reason why they’re doing that work is because when they complete that piece of work, it will help move the needle on a certain key result or perhaps even accomplish a key result toward a larger objective. They have that complete understanding, and that is what drives the work that they do.

Tim Meinhardt:

Right. Yeah, yeah. You know that “Northstar” or that “what does senior leadership want,” you can align to anything, right? So having that ability to align to actually what’s going on, you know, several moves above you, as we’ll call Northstars for the organization, are critical because again, you can align yourself to anything. And if there’s no roadmap to the top, then people lose they lose sight of the fact that really what they’re doing other than just accomplishing what their manager really wants.

Laurence Hewitt:

Right. And what I have seen, I have actually seen teams just go off the reservation entirely. And then no one realizes it until the end of the quarter. And someone in more senior leadership was like, “Why on earth is this team doing this work? This has nothing to do with what we’re trying to achieve.”

Tim Meinhardt:

Right. And they’ll say, “Well, we have our OKRs,” right? So, you know that we look at structured framework when we put an OKR program in, as you know, and not having those Northstars in play is critical because again, it sets the foundation for objectives and key results. And, you know, you mentioned that other thing where people, they set an OKR and then they walk away. There’s no communication. There’s no recognition for people doing anything. There’s no feedback, the CFR routine that we talk about constantly where we want people to have that brief check in meeting. How are we doing? How are you doing? Any challenges? What were your wins? You know, what are your priorities? What are the things that, and we say like Christina Wodtke, what of things on the horizon a little bit, what else are your health metrics and you’re keeping an eye on that are important, real quick so we can get that that timing down and do those meetings quick and fast and have them be actually productive as opposed to just everybody sitting in a meeting. You know, one of the things that we talk about is that, you know, a good OKR program actually saves time, it doesn’t cost time. You can go through countless podcasts that I’ve done where people said, “Oh, my gosh, you know, this is going to be yet another management thing they’ve stuck on us. I’m busy enough as it is.” And the next thing you know, they get in and they make a step towards things, and they go, “Gosh, this is really great. I’ve actually saved my team time and increased productivity.”

Laurence Hewitt:

You said something a moment ago, Tim, that was very telling what you were recalling, what others say. Here’s another thing that management is having me do. The whole point is that the OKR framework should not be another thing. It should be a thing instead of what you’re currently doing. It should be an improvement in what you’re doing. So, in other words, it’s a replacement for whatever it is you’re doing now.

Tim Meinhardt:

Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. You know, it’s that getting that what are your true priorities as they relate to the priorities of the organization and what they’re trying to accomplish? And, you know, watching it go off the rails, sometimes it’s just frustrating. So, you spent a lot of time at IBM and how would you describe your biggest challenge at IBM and driving that buy in and adoption? What were your big your big struggles?

Laurence Hewitt:

You know, I think that part of it is people not understanding. It’s actually a lot of what you had just said. People not understanding exactly what the framework is, how it works, and what the value is to them. They see it as yet something else that they need to do. The other thing that I’ve heard at IBM is, “Oh, here’s the latest flavor of the week at IBM. This is yet another thing that’s going to come and go.” Well, it turns out that at IBM OKRs are not coming and going, it’s really the way things are being done. And that’s kind of what I have seen. What’s really interesting is when you talk to the more downstream teams from OKRs, they actually get very fired up about it.

Tim Meinhardt:

Right?

Laurence Hewitt:

Because the other thing that OKRs do for a team is they really give them a sense of meaning and purpose in the work that they’re doing. Because now I understand if I do this piece of work, this is how I’m moving the needle on the impact that I’m having on the organization. This is how my work, whatever that work is, this is how it relates to what senior leadership and what the larger org is trying to achieve. So that’s a huge plus. So, I’ve seen these downstream teams get very excited. Of course, I see senior leadership teams get very excited. It’s generally the middle management layer that is like, “Oh, here’s something else we have to do. This is the new flavor of the week.” And what I attempt to do in those cases is to relate to them the value, relate to them how it makes their lives better, how it creates that alignment between what their leaders are telling them and the work that their teams are going to be doing. And when I focus on those things, not even necessarily about “this is not as hard as you think, and this is not as much time as it as you think it takes.” But really, “this is how it’s going to make your lives better.” That tends to be what that moves them toward by it right now.

Tim Meinhardt:

And sometimes they see it, you know, and it may take a couple of meetings and all of a sudden that light bulb comes on and they go, “aha,” that aha moment. But, you know, you mentioned and again, I talked to everyone in our audience about this that, you know, having that sense of purpose is a big deal. You know, I mean, knowing why you’re doing something that you’re spending 40-some hours a week doing, you want to know that you’re having impact for an organization. And, you know, we have the Great Resignation right now taking place. And part of that resignation is people feel disconnected to the result. And so, what they want to know is that their work they’re doing is meaningful not only to themselves, but to the organization. And they can see that. And, you know, OKRs certainly do bring that picture. So very well said. What do you think are the three—and I love my phrase of three—but what do you think are the three most important aspects, Laurence, to a successful OKR program?

Laurence Hewitt:

First of all, not rushing. You’re not rushing through them. You know, I’ll talk to a person that I’m working with in organizing the OKRs, and they’ll say, “An hour, should do it right?” And I’m like, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no. It’s not going to be an hour.” This is not something, you know, you quickly get together. This is not a meeting that we’re doing. You know, this is something we’re workshopping, right? That this is something that everyone has got to have a hand in, everyone has to have a voice in, it’s going to take some negotiation, it’s going to take some butting of heads, there are going to be some debates, it’s part of the process. And all of that is constructive and productive, but it takes some time. So, ensuring that you give the process its due amount of time. It is the first thing that you have to do, that’s very important.

The other thing that I would say is to ensure that your OKRs are quality OKRs. And what I mean by quality OKRs is that they in that Goldilocks zone. In other words, they’re not too aspirational, you know, pie in the sky, and they’re not too tactical, as well. They have to be right in that sweet spot of being aspirational and being actionable, but not being, for example, a task that someone has to complete.

Tim Meinhardt:

Correct.

Laurence Hewitt:

I often see that oftentimes when I’m doing OKRs with people for the first time, they go right to the actions, the things that they need to do, and it becomes a task list. And what I say to them is, “Look, if you’ve got a verb in your in your objective or your key result, chances are that that’s probably a task more than it is a result or an objective.” And so, I’ll turn it around and I’ll say to them, “Okay. So, if you were to complete this task, what is the outcome you would have achieved by completing that task? Tell me that.” And I say, “There you go, that’s your key result.” So that’s the second one.

And then the third one would be that the people on the ground, the teams on the ground, need to understand, like every day it’s got to be top of mind. Every day it’s got to be a part of their DNA where they know that they’re doing this work in order to achieve this key result. It just needs to be part of the culture.

Tim Meinhardt:

Before we continue with the interview. We’d like to tell you a little bit about Atruity.

Stephanie Meinhardt:

At Atruity we understand the challenge of implementing a successful OKR program. While the methodology may be straightforward and easy to understand, the implementation and execution of the program can seem daunting. Your team is concerned because you’re unsure how to properly implement or manage your OKR program. You are not alone. This is where Atruity comes in. We know how to implement an OKR program and are experts in OKR implementation and management. By using our proven methods and implementation structure, we can help you to successfully implement OKRs within your organization in as little as 30 days. If your organization is considering implementing OKRs or struggling with the management of the program, do not hesitate to reach out to us at contact@atruity1.com. Remember, no plan succeeds on its own—execution is everything.

Tim Meinhardt:

You know, I couldn’t agree with you more. You know, when you mentioned that time for thought, some of the best quality sessions that I’ve ever had in helping people, and whether it’s an individual—I personally like a couple of people to get together. You know, I have a two-pizza rule, but in order to create a manager’s OKRs, it’s a little bit of a collaborative event, but they can’t just go, “Okay, fine, we’ll come into the meeting,” and there needs to be some thought. And as they get going in an OKR program, that reflection period, you know, when they finished a quarter or two, they begin to, to reflect a little bit on “what did we do, what did we accomplish, how well did we do, where we right, where we wrong, were we high, were we low?” And I think that time spent just in thought really does begin to help them create things. And, you know, you’re right, I love that comment about the Goldilocks because you know, we like to say a good key result will frighten you a little bit but excite you a lot. And that’s a tough thing to find sometimes. And, you know, people are not comfortable with taking that risk sometimes, Laurence.

You know, this is a very visual event. Everybody gets to see everybody’s OKRs in our framework. And it’s true that what objectives and key results are supposed to do is when you’re out there and you’ve put your particular key results out there for everyone to view, that gets a little bit nervy at first. But we always help people, coach them to make sure that, you know, “Look, it’s okay. You’re not the first person to feel that, and you won’t be the last. So just go ahead and go for it. Because what we want you to do is be excited on things,” and then you know, you’re 100% right when you do these key results. And there are many things that happen during the week that take you in a variety of different directions and you want to pull your head out sometimes at the end of the week. But you’ve got to refocus yourself on really “what was our priorities, what did we really need to get done this week and did we get that done?” Because there are always going to be distractions. And that type of quality focus is really where objectives and key results really begins to pay dividends over the long haul, by keeping people on track to do the things that are most critically important as it relates to what they’re doing, because it’s in higher support of a greater thing that the organization wants to accomplish. Could not agree with you more there. So, this isn’t something that comes up, and I’m dying to hear your thoughts on this, Laurence, but were there other methodologies at IBM that OKRs were either in compliment to or in contrast to for people’s daily activities?

Laurence Hewitt:

Yeah. So, IBM’s team’s, not just their software development teams, but many other teams, marketing teams, for example, the digital sales teams, for example, work within various agile frameworks. And so, one of the things that I developed while I was there was an approach to connecting the OKRs of leadership to the work of the Agile teams. And so, I referred to the extension that I created, I referred to as OKRA. OKR+A for Agile. And the way it would work is a product owner or product manager would take the OKRs for their area, and the first step was to incorporate the OKRs into the roadmap, into the product roadmap, so that the roadmap not only represented what that product needed to be but represented the objectives and key results that they were on the hook to achieve within that area. So, to keep the product roadmap completely aligned with the goals of more senior leadership, that roadmap then would be translated into a team’s backlog, their sprint backlog. Every item in a backlog, so if you know anything about agile, a backlog is made up of Epics and then User Stories. So, every Epic and every User Story had assigned to it an objective and a key result. So, you knew that when you worked on this User Story or once this User Story was complete, this key result, would be achieved.

Tim Meinhardt:

Would be achieved, right.

Laurence Hewitt:

And what you had was, when you were doing your sprint planning, not only were you planning the work you were doing, you’re planning what key results you were going to focus on to achieve those key results. You were looking at it through the lens of “to achieve these key results, we’re doing this work.” That was the idea. When you did a sprint demo, the sprint demo was these are the key results that we achieved, and this is the work that demonstrates the achievement of those key results. And so, what do you have? So now you have the OKRs from leadership trickling back right down to the product features and functions that are being produced. So that was an agile framework that was completely complementary and connected to the OKR framework.

Tim Meinhardt:

Yeah. You know, I find first off, there are things that, with competing methodologies, that you don’t want to build a structure where they literally are thwarting each other, you know. You want to build them so that they’re complementing each other and having each run in its own unique swim lane, so the things that are germane to that particular methodology don’t become compromised because there’s an alternate methodology that someone’s looking to follow a little bit. So that’s fascinating about the agile. You know, and I love that.

Laurence Hewitt:

The other thing about OKRs, I mean, not only do you have the problem potentially of competing methodologies, but you also have the problem of, like I said, people on the ground, people on those teams that are actually executing on the work, not quite understanding how these relate, how these translate into what they’re doing. That’s what the OKRA framework did. That was one way to do it, there are obviously potentially many other ways.

Tim Meinhardt:

Right. Right. Absolutely. All right, so, last question here. What insight would you give an organization that is considering adopting an OKR program.

Laurence Hewitt:

Yeah, you know, it’s interesting because oftentimes people or organizations, they decide we’re going to adopt this framework. It’ll be great. We’re going to be able to define our objectives and key results and they launch into it. And the insight I I would give them is that the best OKR implementations start with understanding the reason why you’re doing an OKR implementation. You sort of do OKRs for your OKR implementation. And I mean that seriously, what are the objectives and key results you’re looking to achieve by implementing an OKR framework with your organization? What are what are the metrics that you’re going to look at to say “This OKR implementation mission is successful or this these are the improvements we need to make in order to make it a successful implementation?” The way that you can understand whether or not you’re being successful is having a clarity around your OKRs around the OKRs.

Tim Meinhardt:

Right. It’s true. You know, if there’s a good understanding of what we’re trying to accomplish, then you have a much better chance of staying committed to it over the long run as well, because you’ll see very quickly that there are changes taking place in your organization. So, were those the thing that you want? Sometimes you see things you didn’t even expect and it’s a bonus, but you know, you do have to have that understanding of, “Hey, we’re going into this for, whether it’s an overall, you know, we want to be able to improve our communication throughout the organization.” You know, we feel as though we’re imparting upon a new strategy, and we want to make sure that everybody is clear about what it is that we’re doing all the way throughout the organization. So, I have to tell you, Laurence, that was excellent insight and I love it. It was fantastic. Well, Laurence, thank you so much for stopping by and doing this today with us. And I greatly appreciate, as always, your insight about objectives and key results and, you know, and your work not only that you’re doing right now, but the work you’ll be doing with us at Atruity. So, I want to thank you, and I hope that you have a wonderful week.

Laurence Hewitt:

Thank you, Tim. It’s been a real pleasure.

Tim Meinhardt:

Thanks so much for taking a few minutes to listen to our OKRs Q&A Podcast. You know, OKRs provide such an excellent, agile framework which is critical for today’s business needs. It’s such a pleasure to have such wonderful people share their stories and journeys with us. Please, should you ever need assistance with your OKR journey, do not hesitate to reach out to us and contact us at www.atruity1.com, and make sure if you have a minute, to rate our show. Have a great week. Stay healthy. And of course, stay happy. Thanks, everyone.

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