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Inspired by Objectives and Key Results, Gtmhub's OKR software enables your enterprise to orchestrate strategy and deliver results.

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OKRs are simple but require a change in mindset and working practices. Team up with leading experts to adopt the methodology successfully.

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What is Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) in the Workplace? 

<figure class="table" style="width:468pt;"><table><tbody><tr><td style="border:1pt solid #000000;padding:20px;vertical-align:top;"><h2 style="margin-left:36pt;">10-Second Summary</h2><ul><li>The leadership role in a longstanding project or product team is a constant, but the person who fills that role is temporary.&nbsp; Part of succeeding in such a role is taking accountability for the mistakes of those who led previously.&nbsp;</li><li>Steward leadership is a form of leadership that focuses on other individuals and the community rather than the self.</li><li>Although it’s desirable to learn from the mistakes of others, there is no substitute for experience when it comes to switching to the OKR framework and developing OKRs.</li></ul></td></tr></tbody></table></figure><div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 200px; margin: 1rem 0rem;" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" strategy="lazy" src="https://gtmhub.com/share/podcasts/always-take-accountability"></iframe></div>&nbsp;Former Microsoft Head of Product Ryan McMinn describes how he uses OKRs to support the most important part of steward leadership—accountability.&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanmcminn/">Ryan McMinn</a> doesn’t mind taking the blame for mistakes others have made. Sometimes that’s just part of the job. &nbsp;Ryan, <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/">Microsoft’s</a> former Head of Product for OneNote and Sticky Notes, understands the importance of being held accountable. It doesn’t matter if the mistakes he’s on the hook for were committed by someone else. The mission is what matters most.&nbsp;&nbsp;“Everything you do is in service to others,” Ryan says. “If you really want to be a leader, the only thing that you own is accountability. Everything else should be going to other people.”&nbsp;Ryan discussed the importance of owning your mistakes (and the mistakes of those who came before you), the benefits of selfless leadership, and the important role of developing useful objectives and key results (OKRs) on an<a href="https://gtmhub.com/radio/always-take-accountability"> episode of the Dreams With Deadlines</a> podcast.&nbsp;<h2>Taking one for the team&nbsp; &nbsp;</h2>The most difficult part of managing other people is the fact that they’re, well, people.&nbsp;&nbsp;People want things to go smoothly. People want to get it right the first time around. They want the work they’ve done to matter. And when things don’t go to plan, people need someone to blame.&nbsp;&nbsp;That’s what Ryan’s team needed when it was forced to reverse the decision to do away with an older version of OneNote for Windows in favor of a new one. Instead, Microsoft would still ship the new version, but it would support both going forward.&nbsp;“When you reverse something, you want to blame somebody,” Ryan explains. “Even if the people who made the original decision are long gone, that doesn’t matter. You still have that feeling in you.”&nbsp;&nbsp;Ryan knew his team’s feelings of frustration needed to be addressed. Instead of allowing ill will to fester, Ryan gave his team a fun and civic-minded way to blow off steam.&nbsp;&nbsp;“As part of our give campaign for charity, we let anyone on the team come hit us in the face with a pie,” Ryan says. “We called it ‘I told you so’ because the engineers and PMs for years had been saying, what are we doing?”&nbsp;It didn’t matter that Ryan hadn’t always been OneNote’s Head of Product. He knew he wasn’t 100% responsible for the problem. After all, he wasn’t the first head of product to lead the OneNote team. But the change and frustration was still his pain point to absorb. Ryan knows that the role is a constant, including the assigned responsibilities and accountabilities. Who plays that role is temporary.&nbsp;&nbsp;And sometimes being the person in that role means taking a pie to the face.&nbsp;&nbsp;“What are the responsibilities of the role? That’s what I have to try to live up to,” Ryan says. “I never live up to it, but I try every day to live up to what I think that role needs to do. I try to do my best to fulfill the duties of that role so that whoever comes after me is hopefully happier with the way things are when they take over than I was when I took over.”&nbsp;&nbsp;<h2>Steward leadership – accountability as a mindset&nbsp;</h2>&nbsp;Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Ryan is a fan of Navy SEAL Jocko Willinck’s “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0778HD44M/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">Extreme Ownership: How Navy SEALS Lead and Win</a>,” which argues that there are no bad team members, only bad leaders. According to the book, leaders “must accept total responsibility, own problems that inhibit performance, and develop solutions to those problems.”&nbsp; That’s a message that can seem counterintuitive to some people who are placed in leadership roles, particularly those who view themselves as the CEO of their own “little kingdom” within an organization.&nbsp;&nbsp;As a result, self-interested leaders often silo themselves from the rest of the organization to protect their own interests rather than working in the context of the bigger picture.&nbsp;&nbsp;Ryan sees that kind of thinking as a dangerous pitfall. He prefers the selfless approach of steward leadership, a form of leadership that focuses on others, the community, and society at large rather than the self.&nbsp;If a project or product leader must view themself as a CEO, a positive way to do so is to approach the work from a service perspective. The CEO takes full accountability, focusing on being a part of the solution to problems, and accepting blame instead of seeking to assign it to others. If something goes wrong, they get to work on fixing the problem. &nbsp;“Everything you do is in service to others,” Ryan says. “If you really want to be a leader, the only thing that you own is accountability. Everything else should be going to other people.” &nbsp;<h2>Seeking accountability through OKRs</h2>&nbsp;Of course, it’s not enough for a leader to hold oneself accountable. Leaders in business have turned to the management framework of OKRs to create and enforce accountability among their teams. Ryan says the process of defining OKRs has changed how his OneNote and Sticky Notes teams approach removing obstacles to success.&nbsp;&nbsp;“What I love about OKRs is they feel like an evolution of past ways of thinking versus this completely new thing,” Ryan says.&nbsp;&nbsp;For Ryan and his team, that meant evolving past the use of SMART goals by adopting the OKR framework. Some aspects of the switch were straightforward. Others didn’t come naturally. Sometimes it just meant defining an objective and assigning a due date.&nbsp;&nbsp;“They were more of a forcing function to get working code and iterative stuff happening,” Ryan says. “I think those are my least favorite. But that's the learning process we were going through.”&nbsp;&nbsp;The OneNote team created “core project” OKRs for the big things they wanted to deliver as a team. As the team adopted the new management framework, it learned to define OKRs to be more granular, more actionable and more understandable.&nbsp;&nbsp;“There's no shortcut to learning,” Ryan says. “You have to learn by doing and failing. You can learn a little bit from what other people do, but oftentimes you need to experience it.”<hr>&nbsp;This article is based on an episode of <a href="https://gtmhub.com/radio">Dreams With Deadlines</a> by <a href="https://gtmhub.com/">Gtmhub</a> — the strategy-meets-execution podcast where you'll hear of real trials and victories in business. The show is hosted by Jenny Herald, VP of Product Evangelism at Gtmhub. Subscribe via <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dreams-with-deadlines/id1503806940">Apple</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/4ivDip82oYz8VWBHM8smgf">Spotify,</a> or wherever you listen to podcasts to hear their discussions with thought leaders and learn how to shrink the gap between strategy and its day-to-day implementation.&nbsp; &nbsp;<h3>Top quotes:&nbsp;</h3><blockquote>[09:54] “There is a way you can approach acting like a CEO from a service perspective, which is positive, if you're taking accountability, because the CEO has full accountability. If you read it and go, Oh, that means I should be fully accountable for everything. But oftentimes, I found people read it as I get to make the decisions, I'm the boss. As soon as you voice those words, you've lost. If you really want to be a leader, the only thing that you own is accountability.”&nbsp;&nbsp;</blockquote>&nbsp;<blockquote>[28:00] “We started to break down the OKRs to more granularity based on what we were doing with the core projects. We started getting better at making the OKRs more actionable, more understandable, higher resolution. But it was hard for us to do that without going through this intermediary step.”</blockquote>&nbsp;<blockquote>[28:30] “What I love about OKRs is they really feel like an evolution of past ways of thinking versus this completely new thing.”</blockquote>&nbsp;<blockquote>[30:08] “There's no shortcut to learning. You have to learn by doing and failing. … You can learn a little bit from what other people do. But oftentimes, you need to experience it.” &nbsp;</blockquote>

Microsoft Head of Product Ryan McMinn describes how he uses OKRs to support the most important part of steward leadership—accountability. 


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OKRs, Steward Leadership and Accountability: Why Take a Pie to the Face

<figure class="table" style="width:468pt;"><table><tbody><tr><td style="border:1pt solid #000000;padding:20px;vertical-align:top;"><h2 style="margin-left:36pt;">10-Second Summary</h2><ul><li>The networking and organic connections that happen in an office don't occur so naturally in a remote work environment. Your organization needs to be thoughtful about how to encourage a culture of connection, whether hybrid or completely remote.&nbsp;</li><li>Alexis Monville, Chief of Staff to the CTO at Red Hat, believes strongly in team-based incentives, having seen firsthand how individual incentives and achievement can directly discourage collaboration.</li><li>Impact Mapping is a four-step approach to using your “why” to identify priorities and establish OKRs.</li></ul></td></tr></tbody></table></figure><div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 200px; margin: 1rem 0rem;" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" strategy="lazy" src="https://gtmhub.com/share/podcasts/make-hybrid-work-really-work"></iframe></div>&nbsp;How can impact mapping and other flexibility-based hybrid work models help increase workplace connection in a modern world?Remote work remains a hot topic. Approaches to hybrid work differ as widely as the individuals who actually work in a hybrid model.<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexismonville/">Alexis Monville</a>, Chief of Staff to the CTO at <a href="https://www.redhat.com/en">Red Hat</a>, was no stranger to distributed engineering teams when the pandemic hit. But the company soon realized just how much it had to learn when it went from 40% of the organization working remotely to 100% remote during COVID-19.&nbsp;Now, Red Hat has taken steps to help its employees work in a flexible and customized hybrid model that works for individuals — and fosters connection.&nbsp;On <a href="https://gtmhub.com/radio/make-hybrid-work-really-work">a recent episode of Gtmhub’s podcast, Dreams with Deadlines</a>, Alexis sits down with Jenny Herald, VP of Product Evangelism at Gtmhub, to share about Red Hat’s hybrid model, and other ways to build better teams.Keep reading to learn more about making workplace connections, incentives and using impact mapping to determine OKRs.&nbsp;<h2>Building hybrid work that works</h2>If you are staying connected to the global conversation about work models, you might have noticed that everyone defines hybrid work a little differently.&nbsp;But no matter the words you use to describe hybrid work, the bottom line is that hybrid work should be designed for your team members. The remote aspects of work should be set up to empower team members to collaborate and produce their work effectively. Moreover, the in-person components should be set up for connection and customization.&nbsp;At Red Hat, working models used to be cut-and-dry. Remote workers were remote. n-person workers were assigned to their seats in an office location.&nbsp;Now, Red Hat’s hybrid model is built around offering flexibility to workers. For in-person work, individuals still have a designated office location, but they can choose when to go into the office and build a custom in-person experience based on their needs. Workers coming into the office can also opt to request features like a standing desk or a workspace with two computer monitors.&nbsp;This kind of system acknowledges the motivation for coming into the office. “Some people wanted to come back, but not necessarily be at their desk,” says Alexis. “They usually wanted to come back to meet with other people.”&nbsp;<h3>Welcoming workplace connections</h3>One of the keys to remote and hybrid work success is intention.An in-person environment might offer perks like free coffee or snacks in the kitchen. But Alexis points out that these aren’t the primary motivators for workers to come into the office. Most workers visit common spaces to bump into other people.&nbsp;Alexis recalls how passersby used to comment on his whiteboard notes at his desk, which would lead to new and random connections. But what Alexis calls “the old way” of meeting coworkers in the office doesn’t happen randomly in a virtual environment.&nbsp;The question then becomes, How do you build your network without these organic, in-person connections?For an extrovert or natural people person, the intention to form virtual connections may come easily. But for others, networking with coworkers might not come so organically.According to Alexis, this intention needs to be built into the company culture.&nbsp;Enter: Culture on a Plate.For Red Hat, this system serves as a coworker “matchmaking” service, pairing up individuals from different parts of the company for 30-minute meetings when both people are available.&nbsp; These meetings take place around lunchtime, with attendees encouraged to eat “together” on-camera — hence, the plate in its name.Not every organization will be able to deliver virtual connections on a silver platter. But encouraging this kind of intention through organized events or structured networking can help distributed teams stay invested in company culture.&nbsp;<h2>Incentivizing sales success through teams</h2>Many, if not most, teams focus on offering individual performance incentives, such as financial bonuses for achieving sales goals or customer satisfaction metrics.But Alexis feels strongly that the root cause of many collaboration problems is not attitude, personality, or lack of investment in company success. Rather, individual incentives tend to drive anti-collaboration behaviors.Alexis shares an example about sales teams within a small start-up. Early hires have the chance to learn the product from the start and achieve initial sales goals. As the company grows and seeks to hire and onboard additional salespeople into a new field, the best trainers for these new hires are seasoned salespeople.But even if leadership instructs these experienced salespeople to help the newcomers, these high achievers will still be motivated by individual incentives. Over time, a small percentage of the sales team will likely close the vast majority of sales, while the majority of salespeople close a much smaller proportion of company sales.To combat what he saw as a common roadblock for sales teams, Alexis recommended an experiment for one organization. He suggested splitting sales into pods, or teams of three people. This would focus incentives outside the individuals, and would instead drive team-based motivation to achieve goals.When salespeople were able to pick their own pods, they were more willing to agree to the arrangement. And the results were astounding. The pods were supporting and supplementing each other’s skillsets. Customers got to know multiple salespeople on their accounts and appreciated those relationships. Sales team members were even taking PTO at the close of the quarter without issue.The team-based incentives were working, and this approach allowed the organization to onboard new salespeople, increase sales quotas and maximize impact.&nbsp;<h2>Impact mapping to create OKRs</h2>What is impact mapping, and why is it important?One of the biggest hurdles to establishing Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) for teams is misaligned priorities, especially at the leadership level. When you ask multiple people what is currently most important, if everyone gives a different answer, collaboration will not be successful. In fact, the misalignment will almost certainly lead to friction within the team.For teams that are having an especially difficult time establishing priorities to help determine OKRs, Alexis recommends a four-step approach called Impact Mapping. Impact Mapping allows you to start with the end goal. By determining the desired outcome or impact, you can prioritize more effectively.&nbsp;&nbsp;<h3>Step 1: Find the ‘why’</h3>The impact map is divided into four columns. In the first column, you should start by determining the why. Your why is the ultimate goal of the project. This will play heavily into the rest of the impact map, so be sure that your team is completely aligned on what is most important to achieve.Alexis uses a why example of “to plan a fantastic picnic.” Moving forward, any decisions you make should align with the why, and support this initially established goal.&nbsp;<h3>Step 2: Determine the ‘who’</h3>The next step in impact mapping is establishing who the key players or actors are. This list includes those who can help you achieve your why, such as potential partners or leaders. It also includes those people who pose a challenge or obstacle to the why, and those who might prevent you from achieving it.&nbsp;When deciding on your who, you should start to consider how these actors will affect the why. In the picnic example, the who includes both your companion who will share the picnic and, perhaps, mosquitoes. Mosquitoes could prevent your picnic from being pleasant.&nbsp;<h3>Step 3: Establish the ‘how’</h3>Next up, decide on the how. The how answers the question, What kind of behaviors do you want the actors to adopt so that you can have your why? In our impact map, this column helps us understand what it would look like for us to achieve the why.&nbsp;Then, consider what actions you could take to lead the actors to behave in the way that would help you achieve your why.For our picnic example, we establish that we want mosquitoes to be repelled and to not show up at the picnic. As a secondary behavior, you might also determine that, if they do show up, you want them not to bite you and your companion. Already, you might be thinking about how you might achieve these desired behaviors, like avoiding stagnant water, planting repellant foliage, or using a spray or lotion that repels insects.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<h3>Step 4: Identify the ‘what’</h3>The final step of the impact mapping process is determining the specific actions you could take to encourage behaviors that support your why. This will be your what, or the first thing that you will be focusing on. A critical component of this step involves establishing priorities based on what is feasible and what you can do right away.&nbsp;For instance, if your picnic is in less than a week, planting foliage is unrealistic. You might have already decided on a location that does have still water. So you can now prioritize and choose to act on using lotion or spray that is an insect repellant. This is doable and a feasible action step to prioritize.The end game of Impact Mapping is establishing OKRs through identifying specific steps that will help you to achieve your goals. Set priorities based on what you can start doing now and what will be most effective to achieve the why, rather than getting bogged down in hundreds of possible action steps that may or may not be connected to your why.By determining the ultimate desired impact first, you can be creative to find specific, established action steps that will help you achieve that impact.&nbsp;<hr>&nbsp;This article is based on an episode of <a href="https://gtmhub.com/radio">Dreams With Deadlines</a> by <a href="https://gtmhub.com/">Gtmhub</a> — the strategy-meets-execution podcast where you'll hear of real trials and victories in business. The show is hosted by Jenny Herald, VP of Product Evangelism at Gtmhub. Subscribe via <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dreams-with-deadlines/id1503806940">Apple</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/4ivDip82oYz8VWBHM8smgf">Spotify</a> or wherever you listen to podcasts to hear their discussions with thought leaders and learn how to shrink the gap between strategy and its day-to-day implementation.&nbsp; &nbsp;<h3>Top quotes:&nbsp;</h3><blockquote>[10:49] “When you book a space in the office, you book whatever you want. We added that flexibility because yes, some people wanted to come back, but not necessarily to work at their desk. They usually wanted to come back to meet with other people.”</blockquote><blockquote>[12:42] “People cannot collaborate if they don’t know that they are working in the same direction. Each time, it creates friction if they are not.”</blockquote><blockquote>[15:19] “Priority is not a word that was meant to be used in the plural form. There should be one priority. … To do that, you need to work on the impact [that the priority] will create. How do you define the impact? How do you identify the impact? That’s why impact mapping is so cool.”</blockquote><blockquote>[30:28] “The real problem behind the lack of collaboration wasn’t because they didn’t know how to do it. It was not because they weren’t nice people, because they didn’t want to, or because they didn’t want the success of the company. No, it was because of their individual incentives. Their system was driving their behavior, and their behavior was not to collaborate with others.”</blockquote><blockquote>[35:56] “I strongly believe that people have the ability to impact more than they think. …Sometimes, we need to look outside ourselves to grow our leadership skills, so we can really increase our impact. …That will increase not only your impact, but also your satisfaction.”</blockquote> &nbsp;

Impact mapping and incentives help teams collaborate however and wherever they're working. Learn how organization-wide intention, from OKRs to working models, can build thoughtful connections. 


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How Red Hat Uses Incentives and Impact Mapping To Help Remote Teams Thrive

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Everything we've learned from successful OKR implementations at dozens of companies, distilled into a single Playbook. 

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