Time to listen to Bono, the unlikely champion of OKRs…

OKRs – Objectives and Key Results – is a simple goal setting system that provides a structured way for teams and individuals to set and achieve their goals.

You’d think that U2’s Bono would be an unlikely exponent of the virtues of OKRs, but nothing could be further from the truth.  He has used OKRs for years to wage a global war against poverty and disease.

In 2004 Bono co-founded ‘ONE’, a global coalition of 11 organisations campaigning to end extreme poverty and preventable disease by 2030.

With such an ambitious goal and so many people involved, the ONE CEO David Lane rightly said:

“We needed a process of discipline to keep us from trying to do everything.”

ONE used OKRs to work out their key objective, measures and results and then shared them with everyone involved.

Bono believes strongly in OKRs:

“The OKR framework cultivates the madness, the chemistry contained inside it. It gives us an environment for risk, for trust, where failing is not a fireable offence. When you have that sort of structure and environment and the right people, magic is around the corner.”

So far, ONE has delivered nearly £40 billion in funding for health initiatives and has helped halve AIDS-related deaths and the number of HIV infections in children.

OKRs gave ONE a method to ensure focus and manage the chaos, as well as providing them with real, measurable and tangible direction.

How can you use this same OKR method to bring focus and clarity to a strategic priority within your business?

Why not put some time aside to work out your primary objective – brainstorm a number of ideas with your team and agree on the most important. Then work out together the key measures you need to enable you to achieve the objective.

You might get it wrong the first time, but this will be apparent as you are tracking and measuring results, allowing you to adjust where necessary and move forward to achieve your objective.