The only reason to implement OKRs is to improve strategy execution and drive peak organizational performance — to increase the predictability and probability that you achieve your long-range strategic ambition by concentrating attention on the most important outcomes. Here are 2 sources of confusion that get in the way of peak performance.
Business leaders are excited about GenAI's potential as a game changer in their commercial offerings and internal operations, but there is remarkably low interest or uptake in their organizations. Use these 6 tactics to reduce fear, increase familiarity and drive usage frequency across the organization.
The fastest way to improve as a leader is to get the foundations right. If you’re spinning trying to eke out 1% improvements, you’re probably missing the opportunity to transform your leadership and team’s performance. Here are 3 20-50% improvements you can make today.
Your role as a leader is not to manage everything and be on top of every detail. Rather, it is to build your team, translate the strategy, and then drive its execution by supporting the team, asking the right questions, and holding people accountable.
Your job as a leader is to translate the strategy and connect your team's work to it.
OKRs give managers the framework to test new ideas about how to translate the strategy and drive execution.
AI should be at the top of HR priorities this year. At HR West's 2024 conference, WorkBoard CEO Deidre Paknad shared 4 tips to help HR practitioners ramp up their impact.
In this technical blog, Bhavin Vyas, VP of Data Science & Engineering at WorkBoard, discusses how the company is leveraging GenAI, semantic search and vector databases to deliver impactful strategy execution insights to customers.
The management techniques that you've used in the past got you where you are now. This next decade will require a new management model designed for a world of continuous and substantial change.
In this keynote presentation from the Accelerate 2023 Conference in Scottsdale, AZ, WorkBoard CEO Deidre Paknad explores the future of AI in driving faster, more profitable Strategy Execution and how enterprises can their own historical results data to fuel smarter OKRs.
In this presentation from Accelerate EU 2023, Jeff Gothelf, business agility and OKR framework expert, shares his unique approach to cultivating a product-focused mindset across enterprise organizations. Jeff uncovers how agile organizations manage to outcomes - and more importantly, how leaders can empower their people with the right framework for autonomy, discovery, and learning.
As a seasoned tech founder, WorkBoard CTO and Co-Founder Daryoush Paknad has participated in several major technology shifts, from mainframes to client server, from data centers to cloud computing and more. Now he reflects on how artificial intelligence is transforming the workplace.
Getting everyone aligned on results going into next quarter is much faster and more fun with genAI in WorkBoard Co-Author. Learn how Co-Author can help teams quickly get to agreement on their best outcomes.
Leaders that consistently achieve their strategies are intentional about strategy execution and invested in ensuring their method, data set, and discipline is on par with the strategy itself. Learn the 6 strategy execution habits that set them apart from their peers.
When driving adoption of OKRs as a strategy execution framework, you can avoid losing sight of your business strategy amidst jargon and indirection by making a few simple changes in how you communicate.
This breakthrough in strategy execution ushers in a new era of high focus, efficiency, and agility for large enterprises that must execute well in dynamic markets despite resource constraints.
Infographic: Get a detailed overview of the capabilities you need in order to successfully execute your strategy.
You need a strategy worth executing and execution worthy of your strategy.
Display your team’s OKR progress on a single page, drive focused discussion on progress to plan & path forward, and shift focus to where it’s needed most. Drastically reduce the time and costs spent in business review preparation, and ensure data integrity by connecting directly to the source: your OKRs right in WorkBoard.
Get three practical tips that you and your team can use to run more effective and efficient meetings and better align your time to your intent.
Don't let the OKR process obscure its purpose, or lose sight of the fact that OKRs help teams agree on what matters and focus efforts there.
A leader's Chief of Staff can be a game-changer, and a key member of a leadership team, serving as a strategic advisor while managing day-to-day operations. Superstar Chiefs of Staff possess three common characteristics.
Using OKRs to align and achieve your best outcomes is quickly becoming a strategy execution norm... but this is not MBOs and KPIs with another name. WorkBoard CEO Deidre Paknad shares her first principles for OKR success.
Leaders need to make strategy and resource allocation decisions every quarter to adjust course in response to unforeseen macro issues. They need a common source of truth on what value and outcomes thousands of teams across the organization are driving in order to make decisions that drive both durability and advantage, and then rapidly bring those decisions to life.
As the pandemic has fueled the growth of remote work and the pace of strategic planning, more companies are looking for greater transparency around goals and execution. In this discussion with McKinsey executive editor Daniel Eisenberg, Deidre Paknad, the co-founder and CEO of Workboard, shares how the company is growing a business that provides just that.
At TechCrunch Disrupt, WorkBoard CEO Deidre Paknad and leaders from Front and Mural talked about the challenges and opportunities of managing staff in a remote work world.
Jeff Gothelf, co-author of Lean UX and OKR expert, explains how teams that set their goals as OKRs have a unique competitive advantage in their market.
Product managers who take the time to collaborate with their teams on a few simple activities can expand their team’s influence and create a path towards sustainable results.
Far from a mere management fad, objectives and key results help companies focus on their most important goals and quickly adapt when circumstances change. In this article from Bain & Company, get answers to five common questions about OKRs.
CEO of Skyhigh Security (formerly McAfee Enterprise Cloud) Gee Rittenhouse cultivates learning organizations that consistently test their strategic hypotheses to reinforce accountability and build confidence. He shares how he leverages OKRs to drive accountability, strategy execution, and cultural transformation.
Deidre Paknad, CEO and co-founder of Workboard, Amy McGrath, retired Marine colonel and fighter pilot, and Admiral Sandy Stosz, first woman to lead a military service academy, share their experiences on the 'Grit Factor' podcast.
Albemarle's Chief Information & Digital Transformation Officer, Patrick Thompson, shares his experience of executing transformation strategies as a partner to CEOs and why a digital operating rhythm is crucial to speed and agility today.
Former Google president Margo Georgiadis, WorkBoard CEO Deidre Paknad, and GGV Capital Managing Partner Jeff Richards discuss how organizations can stay fast and nimble at scale.
WorkBoard's Growth Benchmarks for CEOs offers insights on how CEOs can leverage the power of a digital operating rhythm to enable transformation success.
WorkBoard ranked No. 162 among 500 fastest growing companies in North America.
Deidre Paknad, CEO and co-founder of Workboard, shares six key insights on how corporate cultures have transformed the management, and measurement, of trust and performance to drive faster growth.
WorkBoard is now embedded in Webex by Cisco Meetings and Messaging, creating less effort and higher impact for teams and high velocity on bold strategies for organizations.
3M Automotive & Aerospace Division president Steve Shafer shares his observations on the potency of momentum to accelerate transformation and outcomes.
In this excerpt from the Bloomberg Businessweek podcast, Deidre Paknad, CEO of WorkBoard, talks about why building diversity in companies and on corporate boards is both the right thing to do and financially smart.
It's great to know when you don’t have to worry about results. WorkBoard is introducing two new ways for customers to give colleagues transparency and get visibility.
According to Gartner, the success of enterprises that operationalize organizational clarity with OKRs is what is fueling the renaissance in the practice.
Drive better results by getting dynamic teams to collaborate effectively, even without proximity.
Like all new things, adoption of the OKR process takes time, effort and commitment and you can improve every quarter. Learn about the 5 most common pitfalls that can occur - and how to avoid them.
Deidre Paknad talks alignment with Maggie Crowley on “The OKR Episode” of her Build podcast.
In OKRs, as in life, talking about the hard things is vital to achieving your goals. While it’s important to celebrate what we’re doing well, targeting the areas that are blocked or need attention is where real growth happens.
Watermelon metrics look green on the outside when they’re red on the inside. Get five culture and behavior tips to help you measure what matters more effectively, and foster a growth and Outcome Mindset™ where people embrace facts and data to fuel their decisions.
Learn why it takes more than project goals to achieve the best possible enterprise results.
Video meetings alone really can't drive the business resilience and results that we need as an organization. To thrive now, people's work, results and the data about them need to be asynchronous, autonomous, automated, and accelerated.
Why asking for “KR updates” may be undermining your actual results.
Your revenue growth rate is the biggest driver of company value. Learn how successful companies are using OKRs and results platforms to create a sustainable growth advantage.
If you lead a team, coaching people and giving regular feedback — positive and constructive — is part of the job. Put people at the top of your priority list and elevate your 1on1s with these 5 topics.
WorkBoard CEO Deidre Paknad sat down with Marcin Kleczynski, CEO of Malwarebytes, to hear his incredible growth story and how they're using OKRs to accelerate growth.
Learn how to imagine the best possible outcomes and organize to achieve them.
Low performing teams are plagued by dysfunction and produce more frustration than progress. What undermines the performance of groups and teams?
OKR Coach Sameera Moinpour shares insights from recent team retros that can help your team achieve its best possible results this quarter.
An interview with Anna Birch, Chief of Staff for Cisco Security Business.
High performing teams seem to generate their own energy and elevate everyone on the team to their full potential. What sets these teams apart from the rest?
WorkBoard's Director of Product Solutions shares first-hand experience on how the practice and structure of OKRs have improved since he first worked at Google in 2010.
The applications of artificial intelligence are endless. Learn how you can use artificial intelligence in business to become a better manager.
Change agents and their ideas are the life force of organizations, but not all employees thrive on change. How you communicate new ideas plays a huge role in how well they're received and how quickly they're adopted. Use these 5 questions to prepare and communicate your vision for innovation.
In this episode of the ScaleUp Valley Podcast, WorkBoard CEO Deidre Paknad discusses strategies for leading a fast-growing startup and driving growth at enterprise scale.
Now is the perfect time to experience gratitude. It’s the ultimate win/win: we feel great when we experience gratitude and, when we share it, other people feel great too.
For any leader wanting a results-oriented team, that team must operate in synergy. Learn the three 'foundations' that must be in place for synergy to occur.
In many ways, setting goals is similar to dreaming of success. But achieving goals is infinitely harder and more complex. Consider these four tips for using your energy and capacity to achieve greater professional success.
The formula for achieving goals is straightforward: apply team, time and budget to the specific work needed to reach the right results. Very successful people achieve goals faster and with fewer resources than peers; their execution velocity is high, which raises their career velocity.
The OKR approach to setting goals is key at high growth Silicon Valley companies. Coach, consultant and guest velocity guru Christina Wodtke offers a template for masterful goal achievement.
Leadership is a personal quality and behavior, not a role or title. And while it’s always been important for senior managers and executives to lead, it’s never been more important for front line managers to do so.
Organizations whose employees are actively engaged in goal achievement have 3x greater operating margins than companies with lower engagement levels. Use these eight tactics to inspire and align your team's efforts to achieve your goals.
How are your planned outcomes versus actuals monitored week over week and how much does your approach vary over the course of the year? Without a consistent execution framework, it’s easy to lose time and hard to achieve ambitious goals.
Objectives and Key Results or OKRs have helped hyper-growth Internet companies like Google achieve phenomenal success. Use OKRs to embolden your goals, define how success is measured and achieve execution excellence.
Corporate recruiters and executives are saying that their organizations have difficulty managing millennials. Keep these tips in mind to smooth out the differences and engage your young, talented team members.
Discover how to use OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) to create team alignment that improves your company growth.
Work can push all our stress buttons. While too much stress isn’t good, the sensation of stress is an important business signal — it can help us identify what needs our attention.
At your next set of performance reviews, you may discuss what goals were met, next year’s objectives, or where performance needs improvement. But new research suggests that more than fixing flaws, managers should be concerned with building on strengths.
While feedback on what we do well is gratifying, feedback on what we can do better helps us improve. By viewing feedback as learning and leading opportunities, we maximize career and team velocity.
The start of each quarter is goal setting time, and many of us also self-assess accomplishments against the previous quarter's goals. Nail your next quarter with these 3 tactics for goal achievement.
When individuals lose focus on the organization's goals, both team and personal aspirations can suffer. These 8 tactics can help prevent career and goal gaps between managers and team members.
Bold OKRs are adopted by companies for one of three key reasons: Focus, Alignment, or Acceleration. Learn how to use stretch goals to encourage employees to continually push the envelope towards great achievement.
Execution and velocity guru Christina Wodtke discusses the value of status emails as a way for teams connect and support each other.
Work stresses people out — fear of failing, pressure to achieve, having to reply on others for our own success, overload, self-doubt and more. These 4 tips can help you achieve more success and keep your balance, even when things get stressful!
Ironically, it’s hard to spend time on product or strategic thinking, but easy to spend too much time thinking about regrets or fears. Follow these tips to deepen good thinking and avoid wasting energy on negative thinking.
Velocity to goal determines career velocity — the speed and degree of career growth. These 5 strategies can help you increase your speed and efficiency.
The benefits of opportunity creators, coaches and mentors are immense at any stage of your career. Learn how to engage mentors and make the most of the growth opportunities they provide.
It's good to consider our roles as managers in helping people achieve their potential. In addition to assessing what they've done, take the time to consider what you've done — and can do — to help them achieve.
We tend to work on the last 20 items in our email inbox whether or not they’re worth working on. Without a persistent list of strategic priority work and clear goals, it’s impossible to execute well.
Customers who love your company and product are generous with ideas, perspectives, praise, and referrals, and forgiving of the occasional bug. Inspire crazy love to improve your company’s financial success, your customers' success and your cultural health.
Our verbal and listening habits have a direct effect on our productivity and our professional outcomes. When ideas and facts flow easily and teams engage in authentic business-driven discussions, productivity and results soar.
Without clear thinking, fear of failure and failure itself can undermine our leadership styles, performance, judgment and even our happiness. Here are three tips for embracing fear and failure and getting value from them.
Executive coach and guest velocity guru Cherie Healey offers more guidance on building Brand YOU — ways to move beyond obstacles, build your personal brand, and harness your full leadership potential.
Author and blogger Michael Hyatt recently laid out three essential ingredients that turn a person’s vocation into their calling: you must love what you do, you must be talented at what you do, and you must be able to make a living doing it.
Short cuts like corporate acronyms are great when they help you get to the intended goal faster, but here are three ways they undermine communication and how to break the habit.
Everyone understands why a business needs a solid brand — it distinguishes the company and conveys its essence. Likewise, the people who take the time to build their personal brand stand out in a crowd of talent.
Studies show that when you’re great at your job, the results are high employee engagement, higher profits, and better customer service. This infographic celebrates great bosses and the five things they do that make their teams and their organizations very successful.
Time is the greatest lever we have to achieve business goals, yet most leaders don’t manage it as scarce capacity — setting up employee engagement challenges and fatigued thinking.
Millennials are disrupting norms in the best and worst possible ways, and the future rests on their frighteningly fickle shoulders. Invest on developing these talented young people: you will be developing the next great workforce.
If you're ready for an awesome year — one where you make a big impact and grow your business or career — start it off right with clear, inspiring Q1 goals that people really care about.
Great teams are intentional about driving clarity, alignment and conversation, — the keys to high performance. To help everyone operate at their best, young team members and senior managers can benefit from these five tips.
If you lead a team, coaching people and giving regular feedback — positive and constructive — is part of the job. Prioritizing 1on1s and doing the “soft stuff” that builds morale, culture and people are strategic elements of leadership. Elevate your 1on1s by covering these five topics for more impact.
It’s mid-year review time and if you're like many people, you haven’t thought about goals in 5.5 months. Not a great moment for manager or team member, but it’s a common one. These five steps will help you be more successful and get more recognition at your year-end review.
Functional boundaries and formal hierarchies that served us well for decades now inhibit our organization’s ability to compete with more nimble competitors. Today, dynamic teaming and leading across every level and organization are essential. Follow these 5 tips to create the dynamics that improve organization agility and velocity.
Use OKRs to achieve clarity, motivate your team to achieve great results, and experience transformational shift.
Is your company transforming the market? Learn how market disruption is creating exciting opportunities for CIOs that rise to the occasion.
Language used to forecast relationship or project failure is called the “Glossary of Failure.” Learn to use specific, clear language to increase accountability and strengthen the accountability culture within your organization.
True leaders demonstrate servant leadership which requires time and lots of it. Here is a list of acts of leadership that are true gifts to employees receiving them.
Clear language and communication is key to driving your team's success. Follow these tips to set clear expectations before the start of every project.
Elite athletes practice getting themselves to the top of their performance game, so that when they get on the field, the court or the track they are fully prepared to WIN. What if we did that at work?
Regular 1on1 meetings increase engagement and have a positive effect on productivity. Improve your outcomes with open and consistent communication between leadership and the workforce.
Coaching can be an extremely rewarding experience, but there are times when the coaching relationship can become frustrating to you and/or the coachee. So what could be causing your frustration?
Great leaders and organizations always have a "team behind the team" — those individuals that support, encourage, coach, question and push them towards greatness. Make your "team behind the team" instrumental to your next epic win.
True leaders demonstrate servant leadership which requires time and lots of it. Here is a list of acts of leadership that are true gifts to employees receiving them.
Coaching has become a critical competency for today’s leaders, and has been shown to deliver a number of benefits including: increased performance, communication skills, and better work relationships. Here are six techniques to use during your coaching conversations to make them productive.