If the best antidote to a volatile market is to have unique offerings, what is the best way to ensure your business is equipped and performs consistently? Business leaders would agree that a comprehensive goal setting is the foundation to achieving the mission. Objectives and key results (OKR) is a goal-setting framework that helps organizations achieve their business objectives. The main advantage of OKR goal setting is its ability to help team members achieve set objectives in a time-bound and quantifiable manner. It allows organizations to align corporate objectives with operational tasks, ensuring that top priorities do not take a back seat.
Art of OKR Goal Setting
Many corporate executives need to know that OKR goal setting requires a rigorous implementation plan to be effective. Careful planning, commitment, and diligence are necessary to achieve the degree of success attained by successful brands. So, you can’t just set your OKRs and forget about it. If you do so, you will lose out on all the potential benefits.
If your company wants to adopt OKRs, you must first understand the potential OKR challenges – and how to prevent them. Knowing the various challenges and ways to cope with them will help you enhance your OKR journey and set your organization up for success.
8 challenges of setting OKRs and how to fix them
OKRs are simple to understand but tough to master and apply. Well, isn’t that the case with most people-first strategies that actually work? This article has covered the top OKR challenges and what you can do to avoid them.
1. Setting unachievable objectives
It is one thing to be ambitious and set aggressive business objectives, but you should not create goals that are so huge that they are unachievable. The goal is to encourage employees rather than demotivate them. Setting unattainable objectives from the start will only result in frustration.
How to fix this: Collaborate with employees to set challenging yet attainable objectives. That way, even if they do not reach 100% success, they will have made progress without feeling discouraged.
2. Setting only top-down objectives
While certain OKRs should have cascading goals, others should originate from the bottom -up. Setting only top-down objectives will stifle motivation and innovation. Giving employees some autonomy enhances independence and facilitates growth opportunities.
How to fix this: Your employees understand what their priority must be to achieve success. Allow them to participate in the OKR process. Just make sure that their objectives complement corporate goals. As long as this happens, making OKR setting a collaborative approach is advantageous since it encourages buy-in and commitment.
3. Failing to track progress weekly
One of the reasons OKRs are so effective is that they make it simple for leaders to track progress. The catch is that they must check in frequently to ensure discipline and improvement. If your team establishes targets at the start of the quarter during quarterly planning, but you do not check in on progress for several weeks, you will likely discover that only a little has been accomplished.
How to fix this: To maintain consistency in progress, you must have a brief review with each of your team members every week. For example, if you are utilizing quarterly OKRs, encourage employees to aim for 15% completion each week. This provides a timeline that allows them to finish their OKRs, even with a 2-3 week grace period.
4. Setting too many objectives
You will set your team up for failure if you do not establish a limit on OKRs. Employees lose focus, get overwhelmed, and eventually disconnect from their work when there is simply too much to accomplish.
Many leaders make the mistake of promoting more OKRs to motivate their people to achieve more, but this usually backfires. Employees should exceed expectations with fewer objectives rather than struggle with many.
How to fix this: We recommend creating at most 3-5 objectives within a quarterly time frame and even fewer when initially introducing them. If your team routinely meets all of its targets in their totality each quarter, try adding one or two more for the next period.
5. Inefficient resource allocation
One of the worst OKR mistakes employers can make is encouraging employees to take on something without providing them with the necessary resources. Employees will be frustrated and resentful, and they will be unable to get much work done.
How to fix this:
Before final OKR approval for the following quarter, ensure you are providing your employees with the necessary resources. The resources can include the following:
- Providing more time for completion
- Enabling the employee to delegate tasks so they can focus on objectives
- Offering additional training and assistance
If this is not possible, think about reorganizing the OKRs to require fewer resources or see if you can offer creative solutions.
6. Lack of clarity in Key Results
Without clear and measurable Key Results (KRs), teams may struggle to understand what success looks like. Vague KRs create confusion and make it difficult for employees to track their progress or understand what’s expected of them.
How to fix this: Ensure each Key Result is specific and measurable. Use quantifiable metrics to track progress, so your employees know when they’re on the right path. A well-written KR should answer the question, “How will I know when this objective is achieved?”
7. Not aligning OKRs with long-term strategy
If OKRs are disconnected from the long-term strategy of the organization, employees may focus on short-term wins that do not contribute to sustainable growth. This results in wasted efforts that don’t align with the bigger picture.
How to fix this:
Regularly revisit your company’s mission and long-term objectives when setting OKRs. Make sure that team and individual OKRs align with these strategic goals. This alignment ensures everyone’s efforts contribute to the company’s broader vision.
8. Poor communication around OKRs
When OKRs are not clearly communicated, employees may be unaware of how their contributions fit into the overall business goals. This lack of communication leads to misaligned efforts and missed opportunities for collaboration.
How to fix this: Make communication a priority. Use OKR software to give everyone visibility into each other’s objectives and progress. Hold regular meetings to discuss OKRs and foster collaboration across teams, ensuring everyone is on the same page and working toward shared goals.
Common OKR mistakes
Are you using OKRs to set your organization up for success?
In the words of Benjamin Franklin, “For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.” When done correctly, OKR goal setting has the potential to help your teams achieve extraordinary results. While there may be a few minor hiccups initially, resolving them will help enhance the entire process. Once you’ve established a routine, you’ll see how successful the OKR process is and how it can help improve and grow.
Synergita’s OKR tool has periodic reviews, training recommendations, promotions, etc., which will help drive your teams’ productivity. The tool aligns employee and team objectives with corporate goals and tracks milestones, progress, and completion. If you want to avoid all these OKR challenges and set your organization up for success.