The summary statement from this book is that businesses and teams should be focussed on ‘OKR’s (Objectives and Key Results) over bullet point goals or check marks. Goal setting for any institution should be utilized by every team or business. The question therefore becomes on how to effectively do that. 

In my opinion, I felt like this book was more of a testimonial over how to create really good OKRs or goals. I’m not saying validation or social proof is not important, it’s just not especially helpful with the mechanics of setting goals, especially if the examples used were not really relevant and hard to relate to. For instance, having Bono there discussing OKRs for eradicating AIDs was impressive, just not very helpful in relation to me trying to figure out how we get to a bowl game this year or how my business can grow from 1-3 gyms in 1 year. 

This speaks volumes in regards to how there is no direct blueprint. There are only ideas and frameworks to leverage on a case by case basis. There has to be something to learn from how Google sets a culture of OKRs with everyone from Sales to Engineering. There is also a lot to learn from their mistakes. 

There is a term I learned since owning a Small Business – Productive Procrastination. There are so many things you need to do, but instead we just fill our day with the stuff we want to do. This is a problem with all professions. We all have a somewhat lack of clear direction, and so we occupy our time with things that are not relevant. We are busy, just not productive. The problem is that we have no idea how to determine what is necessary and so we just stay busy with no apparent objective. 

This is where OKRs should be interjected into any situation. It could be a completely incorrect Objective, but what it does is give clear boundaries with Key Results of what is needed versus unnecessary. With Objectives, we create a hierarchy of what is important. How much weight a task holds relative to its objective determines the Key Result’s significance. 

Our Objective as a business is to have the highest retention rate in the fitness industry. Industry standard for group based fitness is impressively low: 20%. This number is indicative of several factors such as pay by the class, co-op memberships like Class Pass, watered down HIIT programs. This is a glaringly weak spot of the fitness industry. Can we create better results through more consistent interactions? 

Our Objective is 100% Retention. We want you and then we want you to stay forever. This is not an easy task. This is why we need really good Key Results. In order to figure out Key Results, we need to do a pre-mortem to determine why we may not reach 100% Retention. There can be a lot of subjectivity involved in both business and training; this is a zero sum game. Measure what Matters is a poignant line in that it obviously states: Do Not Measure what Does Not Matter. 

What matters is objective. Injuries are objective. We know that 100% of people injured are more likely to stop coming and leave their respective gym if they are hurt during training. Key Result 1: Safety. Things like execution, work to rest management, tracking, Lateralizations/Regressions are all strategies we work on for Key Result 1. We know if people do not improve, they will not stay with a gym or program. As simple as it sounds, it is often overlooked. So Key Result 2: Improve. Tracking, coaching, and motivating are all things we constantly work on to improve each of our members. We also know if people do not enjoy what they are doing, who they are doing it with, and where they are doing it, they won’t stick around. Key Result 3: Enjoy. Great customer service, constantly striving for better product delivery, supporting and encouraging everyone including staff and customers are massive for delivering on an engaging product. 

OKR’s are just an example of what to do. You could go through outcome goals versus or process goals. The point is that you do something to perform and not waste time. Wasting time is more dangerous when we do not even know we are wasting time. Having Objectives is crucial to delineating what is needed and what is not.