In this episode of the OKRs Q&A Podcast, Tim Meinhardt interviews Vito Butta, Executive Vice President of Human Resources & OKR Champion for Diversant.
Some of you may have had the opportunity to listen to Vito’s original podcast interview (episode 2) that we recorded almost 2 years ago when we first launched the podcast!
Tim wanted to bring Vito back on the podcast so he could share what his journey has really looked like as he has been running the OKR program on his own for about a year and a half. Tim had the pleasure of mentoring Vito during his time at Diversant and as a refresher, or for those who haven’t listened to earlier episodes, Tim implemented OKRs with Diversant and ran their OKR program for 15 months while mentoring Vito.
Vito has done a masterful job at running a fantastic program as one of his many duties as their Executive Vice President of Human Resources. Their program is very popular and has proven itself to be a real cultural game changer.
This is really what long-term success looks like in an OKR program.
This interview will provide some wonderful context as Vito discusses his challenges that he has experienced while running a long-term OKR program and his advice to people looking to champion a program for their organization. He also shares why he enjoys his role and the satisfaction and contributions that he as a human resource executive now brings to his entire organization.
Interested in working with Atruity or downloading our e-book The Seven C’s to OKR Success? Click this link – https://linktr.ee/atruity
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 opportunity to spend some time with Vito Butta, Executive Vice President of Human Resources and an OKR Champion for Diversant. Now some of you may have had the opportunity to listen to his original podcast interview—episode number two—that we recorded almost two years ago when we first launched this podcast. I wanted to bring Vito back on the podcast so he could share with everyone what his journey has really looked like, as he has been running the OKR program for his organization for about a year and a half. I had the pleasure of mentoring Vito during my time at Diversant.
As a refresher, or for those who haven’t listened to earlier episodes, I implemented an OKR program with Diversant and ran their OKR program for 15 months while mentoring Vito. He has done a masterful job at running a fantastic program as only one of his many duties and responsibilities as Diversant’s Executive Vice President of Human Resources. Their program is extremely popular and has proven itself to be a real cultural gamechanger. This is really what long-term success looks like in an OKR program.
This interview will provide some wonderful context as Vito discusses his challenges that he’s experienced while running a long-term OKR program and his advice to people looking to champion a program for their organization. Finally, he shares why he enjoys his role and the satisfaction and contributions that he, as a human resource executive, now brings to his entire organization. So please, everyone, grab that favorite beverage, plug in those earbuds, and enjoy my delightful interview with a true OKR champion, Vito Butta.
So, Vito, welcome to the program again.
Vito Butta:
Thanks for having me.
Tim Meinhardt:
Yes, great. You’re a repeat OKR podcast and you know, I’m very excited to have you on the program today. So just briefly, let everyone know a little bit about yourself, Vito, and kind of what you’re doing these days and what you’re up to.
Vito Butta:
Sure, sure. My career, you know, has been H.R. from the beginning. I’ve been doing it from all different organizations, all different types of industries, and really, it’s just been focused on human resources for 24 years. I know I don’t look a day over, you know, 24 myself, and I don’t know how that’s possible. I’ve been doing that for 24 years, and it’s just a passion. It’s like, you know, I recall, you know, when I was first going to school, and I had said to my father, “I don’t know what I want to do. I have no idea.” And I’m not I’m not a sales guy. It’s not my forte, I really can’t do well at that. I tried doing it. Commission sales at Sears. We’re doing that. And then so and I was looking at marketing and he’s like, “It’s not what you think it is. Marketing is not going to be like, you know, all this glitz and glamor. You got to work on some of these lower accounts and stuff.” And maybe it’s not that. Then I was a lawyer. Like “I want to be a lawyer,” and he’s like, “Yeah, it’s a lot of schooling, Vito, and it’s not really up my up my alley.”
And then like you said, I said maybe a teacher, but my God, I can’t make any money. So he said, “Well, why don’t we combine all those all those things together?” You know, a lawyer. Yeah. Trainer, educator, business. He called it personnel because that’s what it was back then. It wasn’t called Human Resources. And then I was actually selling at Sears at a time and an opening came for the store trainer. And that was my step into Human Resources. 24 years ago, and you know, they say people change their careers like five times in their life. And not me. You know I love it, and now the past year and a half, two years, we introduced OKRs into my, you know, my tool belt. And it’s just opened up so many more avenues into the business. And really exciting for me. It refreshed, re-energized my excitement for the industry.
Tim Meinhardt:
Oh cool, you know, and for everyone, just to give a brief background on how Vito and I got connected together and why I’m having him back on the podcast, why I’m so excited to have him back and actually talk to Vito, is because early on, one of Atruity’s accounts was a company called Diversant, and Vito I met early on in all the discussions and they were kind enough to give us a shot and do some work for them, kind of running their OKR program so I got to meet Vito and some of the other senior leaders, and I convinced them to give us a shot.
And, you know, we never looked back, and one of the things that Vito was kind of in charge with, with regards to human resources, was getting his arms around the OKR program. So as we began to develop the OKR program and put it more into play within their organization, developing it up, I think we had 45 or close to 48 managers. Yeah, 45 managers at the time. Vito was my right-hand man, and he got a chance to listen to me facilitate, got a chance to ask questions. And Vito and I, we would laugh because we were doing four or five of these a day sometimes of getting people set up for the next quarter. And Vito and I would laugh because I would have certain phrases and things that I would use. And he’d say, “Tim, what do you think about this?” And he knew the word I was going to use it. So Vito and I, we literally had a blast doing this. And through all of that, there was a wonderful mentoring that was taking place. And after about five quarters Vito said, “I’m ready to go and I really want to do this.”
And so Vito’s been running their program now and been involved with probably for three years or so but been running the program for a year and a half on his own. And it’s just delightful that we catch up every once in a while. Vito has a program going on. We’re doing great, fantastic, and I’m so glad to hear that. So now that you’ve been running this program yourself over the last year, I mean, how really is it going with everything?
Vito Butta:
Well, I got to tell you, the team is bought in, which always makes it a lot easier. And when you have executive sponsors, that makes it a lot easier as well.
Tim Meinhardt:
Right, right.
Vito Butta:
You know, I’ve been doing this for a long time. And I have seen come and go different initiatives within organizations. And the main reason for that is there’s a lack of you know, executive sponsorship. But we have that with Diversant, and everybody is bought in. It’s very easy for the wheels to fall off of it or to get into a bad habit of not having meetings and all that, but it is going well. I got to say the past two years, in light of COVID and everything else, it’s our best in history. And I do attribute a lot of that to the OKRs and how we truly measure what matters.
Tim Meinhardt:
Yeah. I mean, and, you know, we went through that iterative process. If you remember that, Vito, the way we’re looking things as we were beginning to get started on the journey a little bit. “Hey, are we measuring the right things? Are we measuring them twice? You know, what’s the best way to really begin to look at those things?” And I think, you know, just to Diversant’s credit and into your credit, you know, we really, really talked about that and really dug into the things that were really important so that we can begin to really get to some really great right answers.
Vito Butta:
And as we progressed now, you know, we’re saying, “OK, we’ve accomplished that. We’ve gotten there.”. So we kind of do an informal SWOT to determine what’s next, right? You know, check that box. We did it, we hit the amount of deals that we need to do. We need to gross profit. We’ve done all that. How else can we improve our performance as an organization, and continue to push forward? And like I said, it’s the great thing about being part of this, especially in human resources, is it buys you time with the leaders.
Tim Meinhardt:
Yeah. Yeah. Talk about that.
Vito Butta:
So, in human resources, we’re constantly trying to be the business partner, right? And some managers or leaders are open to that. Some managers still look at us as the police or the boogeyman. Right? They don’t want us in there but as an HR leader in the organization, and you go through the OKR process, you are learning more about the business than you would any other way.
Tim Meinhardt:
Right? Oh, absolutely.
Vito Butta:
I have now become ingrained in the business. And the best part of it is, you know, Diversant’s a staffing firm, and we have different divisions just like any other organization. You have your recruiting, your sales, your enterprise accounts, and your corporate services groups. So I’m on I’m involved in all those readouts, all those builds. I can see commonality of issues or successes within those different groups. And I can help foster communications among those groups where there may not be currently, but I see “oh, I see this group is pointing to this issue” and so on and so forth. So we work together with that very well.
Tim Meinhardt:
Yeah. You know, I mean, even early on, you and I, we would talk a little bit about this, you know, and the nice thing about when we go ahead and we’ll externally program manage an organization is we really dig in. We know where the bodies are buried so to speak. We really get down and get to know what’s going on. And when you that I hear exactly what we feel is when we get in there as well, and yet from an HR perspective, you have that extra added punch to be able to have that longer term relationship with those people, to be able to start making those interesting connections that aren’t necessarily always vertically aligned, but it’s that horizontal alignment as well, Vito, that you and I discovered as we as we went through the program. SO what little tidbits or bits of insight do you have now since you’ve been kind of doing this? And have you grown in your own personal OKR journey as someone running an OKR program?
Vito Butta:
So tidbit wise, I would have to say to, Tim, that it’s consistency. We were talking off air. It’s the consistency of it. I was thinking beforehand, you know, I liken it to exercise. It’s like you can check off the box that you did a sit up right? Well, but what if you set a goal of 25? Maybe you’re not going to hit it, but if you hit the ten or 15, it’s far better off than you doing the two. It’s that consistency of keep trying and keep pushing. And as a facilitator, a champion of OKRs, it’s my job to make sure that everybody stays on, those meetings go off, they’re not phoning them in. You know they’re updating them beforehand, but my favorite thing to do is to call somebody out when they’re updating it because we’re doing a presentation and I can see it live as they’re updating their slide, so I like to call them out on that.
But it’s accountability for that. And so and what I also like to do is I like to try to engage the management. When we’re doing a read out, there’s multiple managers on an OKR readout, as you’re aware, but engage them in questioning each other. It doesn’t have to come from their division head. Question each other, hold each other accountable, be transparent. You know, you put a cupcake goal on there, that’s an easy one.
Tim Meinhardt:
You’ve got too much green, baby, you’re cupcaking.
Vito Butta:
So that’s really some of the tidbits, as you say. And just my own personal one is one, I don’t want to be the proverbial shoemaker with holes in my shoes. So I got to make sure that mine’s top notch better than everybody. So I put out, you know, some pretty, you know, far reaching goals on there. And am I going to hit them all? No, but I’m going to try my damndest to get out there and get them and really make a difference in the business.
Tim Meinhardt:
Yeah.
Vito Butta:
Now, too often H.R. is not seen as, you know, you’re just a cost you know, to the organization. Yeah. You’re risk avoidance and all that. But you’re not really affecting the business. They go to you if there’s problems. So thanks to OKRs, or partly because of OKRs, I’m able to be a part of the business with my own human resources OKRs and getting them tied into the organization.
Tim Meinhardt:
Yeah. No, I know that’s you know, when I was running your program, I’d be like, “Ok Vito, we’ve got to do yours.” The pressure. You know we talked pretty much, you know, about the program overall. But I’m just curious. I mean, you know, the program is going well and I’m very glad to hear that and that’s fantastic.
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:
Let’s talk a little bit about folks that either are beginning to want to kind of take a look at running a program themselves or someone that’s new to actually doing this, because people sometimes are thrust into this when they’re not prepared. They didn’t have the advantage of working with somebody like ourselves for a while to kind of get their, you know, their sea legs upon them. So what advice would you give someone new to running a program Vito, and what maybe are the pitfalls that they should try to avoid and some things they should try to emphasize?
Vito Butta:
Well, first top of the list is engage Atruity is probably the best thing that they can possibly do. But if they’re not able to do that, you’re booked, and they can’t do that, the most important thing that they could do is, and I’ve learned this from you, from watching you, is listen. As you’re doing the builds, you’re listening. And this is very difficult for me, as you probably can tell already. I’m a talker and I like to go at it but sitting quietly and not giving the manager the objective or the key result. They need to come up with it on their own. Because you could give a little, little hints or little directives and they’ll come up that on their own. But that’s not your job to actually draft them.
Tim Meinhardt:
Yeah. Right. Exactly. Give them the ability to think a little bit forward and what would that look like and kind of prompt them to be able to come up with it on their own. I couldn’t agree with you more.
Vito Butta:
So listening is probably one of the biggest priorities that we can do when starting off an OKR program in the organization. And you know, and just maintaining it, like I said before. Business changes on an hourly basis, right? Things come up, you know, especially in the world of human resources you’re a firefighter constantly. Many other roles, you do the same thing. But the beauty of OKRs, if you’re doing them the right way, is that it’ll help you to alleviate some of those fires. Because you’re building efficiencies and consistency and you’re putting things into play that are going to solve those problems, you know, prior to them occurring.
Tim Meinhardt:
Yeah. You know, it’s funny, when we educate people to run programs, that consistency is a really big deal. It’s harder than you think because it’s OK to be a one hit wonder, right? “Hey, we got it right this quarter.” And the next thing you know, things get started. People are talking about how they’re doing and OKRs and you know, they begin to, as they say, down the backstretch. Right. And all of a sudden, you’ve got a plan for the next quarter and if you don’t time it right, OK, if you’re behind the eight ball, the next quarter doesn’t kick off the way it should be. And then that level of inconsistency is where you give it a crack for people to start saying it’s management flavor of the month. Hey, this is not something that’s critically important.
So you know, playing that vital role Vito, that you do with that organization and keeping them literally to the clock, so to speak, that, you know, we’re going to reflect, we’re going to reset, and boom, we’re ready to go in the first part of the next quarter, I think is a really big challenge that when you take on this role and responsibility for an organization, that if it’s not done right, you can quickly watch a program slide out of control.
Vito Butta:
Before I think, you know, you’ve got to try to be the police of it, but you’ve got to handle in a certain fashion as well. Because you don’t want it to be almost like a punishment that you have to do your OKRs. So we make sure we handle that appropriately and we get everybody bought in.
Tim Meinhardt:
Yeah, and when you first get started, I mean, we’ve seen it, you know, we’ve seen when the people get on the first time, it’s let me talk about my key objectives. And I didn’t have that written down. And, you know, and so they stumble a little bit when they get going and when they get the hang of it, they’re almost happy. Like, OK, I’m getting the hang of this quick read out because, you know, we emphasize let’s do it in 3 minutes. You know, we put people to the clock. I remember people would finish, they’d go, “How’s that?” You know, come on, it should be fast. So but once they get the hang of it, you know, and then it’s keeping them to that and letting them know that you’re there to help, that, you know, that courtesy and respect that you’re giving the OKR program comes back to you in spades because everybody else is participating in that similar manner.
Any other thoughts on this? I’m going to jump to the next question. But I just think that, you know, people love to hear from people that have been doing this now for quite a while and what their insight is.
Vito Butta:
Well, another thing I thought was like the way we did it, the way we rolled it out is it’s not like here’s OKR, 46 managers, 45 managers do it. We started off at the exact level. And then and then we, you know, for one quarter, we got it, got it under our belt, and then we went down to the next level layer of management and then even lower. And now the momentum is there that some of those managers have actually implemented it with their staff level employees. And, and some of those managers and some of the staff have actually implemented OKRs in their personal lives as well.
Tim Meinhardt:
Oh, that’s so cool. Yeah. No, I remember there was a turnaround, I think it was Cathy Miller with your organization. We actually had her on a podcast to talk about that, that she said, “I’m going to take this down to my folks. We’re going to get ourselves rocking and rolling.” And they crushed it. And you had some great successes, too. Ryan Jacobs a great success putting this in and really growing that permanent placement practice. And you know, his podcast From 911 to 411, we still use that. I love that. So let’s take this on kind of a fun note here for a second. So what do you find, Vito, personally most enjoyable about doing this type of work for the organization?
Vito Butta:
I throw the term out there as not my favorite term because I know it’s not utilized properly throughout many organizations, but it is being a business partner. You know, a lot of times in Human Resources, there’s actually a job title, Human Resources Business Partner, but a lot of times your administrative, your paper pushing, they only call you when there’s a certain problem or like that. This makes you a true strategic business partner in the organization. You get to meet with the people, and we have a blast when we do this.
Tim Meinhardt:
Oh, I know.
Vito Butta:
We have the fun team names and we added pictures to the slides, and we have a great time with it. And we mock each other as we’re going through them right now. But we have a real good time, and we hold each other accountable to it. So I really love the culture that it helped to build as well. And so now I’m really seen as that strategic business advisor or partner within the organization. I’m not seen as the boogeyman.
Tim Meinhardt:
The OKR guy. So, you know, and I have to tell you that when we initially started doing OKR work, you know, putting in those, those pictures on the Foursquare that we use and coming up with team names, you know, I think I’ve shared this in a previous podcast, I had one group that actually came up with their own logo, you know, and so they had hats with their logos on, but you know, look, objectives and key results is what it is. It’s a way for you to set your goals and then be able to execute on what it is that’s most important. So why not have a little fun with it? I mean, we’re setting things that are audacious. We really want to set things out there. We’re really going for it.
And, you know, everybody talks with seriousness. You know, I believe there’s a little fun to it. And I think that with you all, you all embrace that right out of the gate and, you know, the lively nature and the inner workings to be able to have somebody say, “Hey, I like the team name, I’m going to come up with a better one. Hey, I’m going to change mine. Do you mind?” I go, “Yeah, of course. Let’s change the name.” I think it adds that element of fun and excitement to it that gives that little bit more of buy in that, “Hey, this is a fun part of what it is that I’m doing every day” and setting, you know, what it is that we’re really shooting for over the next 13 weeks because as you know, we ask people to really get after it. OK, we’re setting some really high, high watermarks here. And people are very focused, they’re very aligned, and trying to accomplish those things. So I just love that comment about culture and about fun. So Vito, and looking back, you know, how do you feel that we prepared you and Atruity prepared you to kind of run your own OKR program? Were there a couple key takeaway things that maybe helped you to become successful at doing this?
Vito Butta:
Well, being attached at your hip, whether it be virtually or right here in the office when we were doing these. It was, you know, so valuable. You know, I still use the line but maybe I won’t share it here because you still use it.
Tim Meinhardt:
Operationalized.
Vito Butta:
How are we going to operationalize that? That one, and I use the, it’s at the end of the quarter, we’re having a beer. How did you do? So that whole story. I use a lot of yours…I’ll send you some royalties in the mail. But having you there to help explain it, to help get the buy in, to show that this is not a difficult thing to do. OKRs are not difficult, which is why, you know, when you presented us, which is why we selected to go with OKRs. There’s hundreds of goal setting mechanisms out there that you could go with. And I’ve done a few of them in past organizations and I knew that the type of organization Diversant is, the type of people that we have there, the fast paced, sales driven type of organization, those type of mechanisms are not going to work here.
You know, and you showing the OKRs, the simplicity of them, but also stressing the importance of them, really was helpful with that, and what I really like is the challenge aspect. And I told you that from the beginning. I said, “I like watching you challenged them to come up with their own objectives and key result, but to push the needle, keep pushing it. Keep pushing it. You want to close, you know, 15 deals a week. How do we make it 20? Why wouldn’t you do 20?” You know, get them going and just settle at 18 or whatever. But you really show that there’s an artwork to that. It’s not easy, I can just throw out “Yeah, I want you to 20.”
Tim Meinhardt:
You kind of inch them along a little bit. What would it feel like, what would it feel like if we could get to 20? How would that make you feel. What would, what would that look like? We’d probably have to change some things. But we could we take a shot at that. You know and I love when people go “Yeah, we could do that,” you know and you know we want to get them away from that cupcaking feel that, and for those in our audience, cupcake is where you don’t set something that’s very aggressive, OK so the term cupcaking is a favorite term of ours and we see people with all green, “Hey, I’m ten out of ten. I feel great,” you know, and it’s like, “Well, maybe you haven’t pushed yourself hard enough.” What would it look like for us to get to seven, you know, or six out of ten, but really, really push the apple cart a little bit? And, you know, developing that, you know, that kind of camaraderie of sorts, Vito, where, look, I did take a push and I’m doing the best I can and I’m only at 60 or 70. And, you know, people recognize that and people are there to help, you know, throughout the organization. So yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Vito Butta:
We have it now that people are setting goals or objectives and key results, and they are hitting them halfway through the quarter. And so what they’re doing is they’re resetting and they’re pushing them out further and they may have to do it two or three times. And how great of a feeling is that for that manager? “Listen, I pushed it and I got to it and now I need to go even further and further.” So it’s really, really good to see that. And like you said, you’ve got to hold them accountable to it. No cupcakes.
Tim Meinhardt:
Yeah, no cupcaking. And, you know, and you’re right, sometimes people hit it quicker than they thought, some things went their way and then it’s like, but I really like the ability for someone to say, “You know what? We’re going to go further. I’m going to recognize that I may have put this where I wanted, I felt comfortable with the first part, even though it’s a little aggressive. But, hey, I can be really aggressive here and let’s go for it.” So I love that, Vito, I think it’s fantastic. You know, I really do. Well, I want to tell you, this has been just a delightful conversation, as it always is with you, my friend.
Vito Butta:
I enjoyed it.
Tim Meinhardt:
Yeah. And I wish you and your organization all of the success to keep it going because it’s so wonderful to hear a program that’s running successfully and continuing to run successfully and those necessary components that are in place so that it becomes part of your culture. And I think it’s fantastic.
Vito Butta:
Well we owe it all to you for kicking us off and getting us on the right track with that. So it’s really appreciated. I love doing this, this podcast. So I’ll be back again next week.
Tim Meinhardt:
Yes, that’s right.
Vito Butta:
We’ll do it again.
Tim Meinhardt:
You’ll be the Triple Crown winner, you know that. I’ll have you on again.
Vito Butta:
We should have some musical guest, though, too.
Tim Meinhardt:
That’s right. We should do a Corral, okay, or and OKR Corral where we get a couple people involved. We don’t do enough of the OKR Corrals, which I think are a lot of fun as well. But Vito, this has been wonderful today. And I thank you so much. And again, I’m wishing you all the success as we lean into the summertime here and through the fall. So have a wonderful successful year and we’ll talk soon.
Vito Butta:
Great. Thank you very much.
Tim Meinhardt:
You got it.
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.
