The
Executive Study Group (ESG) seminar 2018 – Leadership Strategy named “How to use
OKRs to stimulate Creativity to become Future Leaders” was held by the ESG,
Asia Pacific Institute for Strategy Limited (APIFS) and the Hong Kong Science
and Technology Parks Corp (HKSTPC) on 5 March 2018, where OKRs stands for
Objectives & Key Results. It is the
9th year Dr. Mark Lee provided a seminar in Science Park. I would like to summarize the seminar for
sharing below.
In
the beginning, Dr. Mark Lee briefed some background of ESG and explained their
learning method was "Connect and Develop" as he usually quoted Steve
Jobs' statement that "Creativity is just connecting things." Then he
briefed the model of corporate consultancy included seven element that
separated into hard issues (e.g. Strategy, Structure & Systems) and soft
issues (Skills, Staff & Style). Then
he briefed the contents included "Global Innovation Index 2018",
"Management Structures Inhibit Innovation?", "OKRs", "The
Soul of OKRs - Aspirations", “Lack of Inspirations from KPI”, “Set
Aspiration to Inspire Innovation” and "Implementation steps of OKRs",
as well as “Group Discussion”.
Global
Innovation Index 2018
Firstly,
Dr. Mark Lee briefed the 12 Pillars of Global Competitive Index by World
Economic Forum on 26 Sep 2017. Then he
asked us to rank the 4 Dragons on innovation based on 12 Pillars. The result was found that Singapore was
number one, and then Taiwan ranted second and Korea was the third, as well as,
Hong Kong obviously the last. He also
shared the case from Singapore that their government launched of Professional
Services Industry Transformation Map in Jan 2018. The
most innovative companies 2018 was discussed and the top 10 list had 4
companies from Silicon Valley (they were Apple, Google, Tesla and Facebook) and
only one Chinese company in the 10th of innovative companies - “Alibaba”. Management Structures Inhibit Innovation?
Then, Dr. Mark Lee told a story about Google Founder – Larry Page who didn’t want to be another “Microsoft” and he believed a company with thousands of engineers that ran smoothly without “Manager” because “Conventional Company” would indulge the “Creative Impulses” of its people. He like small teams and flat organization; so that it could be fast-moving and bottom up. Unfortunately, he failed because engineers did want to be managed and learnt from senior! HR then started to hire managers again but they needed to be good culture fits and technical competence.
Objectives &
Key Results (OKRs)
John
Doerr joined the board of Google because of new VC and introduced what he
learnt from Intel for innovation management that was OKRs. He said “Ideas are precious, but they’ve relatively
easy. It’s execution that’s everything.” The video of OKRs by John Doerr is recorded
at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-yeDb7stlw .
After
that Dr. Lee explained how OKRs overcome the 6 barriers of innovation. Those
barriers were:
i)
Vague
Goal and Progress (Sol’n: quarterly OKRs and annual OKRs)
ii)
Risk-Avoidance
(Sol’n: Support to take risks, 70 scores is better than 100 scores)
iii)
Too
Slow to Discover, Learn & Adjust (Sol’n: Quarterly Review &
Mid-Quarterly check-point)
iv)
Get
Lost with the Leader (Sol’n: Full Transparency)
v)
Get
Lost with Teammates (Sol’n: Transparent on Colleagues’ tasks & outputs)
vi)
Short-sighted
(Sol’n: Aspiration-Driven OKRs)
For
item iv, Multiple Level alignment
-
Inspirations
for Lower Level
-
Self-motivated
Innovation in Next Level
Then
Dr. Lee quoted Jack Ma who spoked in World Economic Forum that "At first,
I knew nothing about technology. I knew nothing about management. But the thing
is, you don't have to know a lot of things. You have to find the people who are
smarter than you are. For so many years, I always tried to find the people
smarter than I am. And when you find so many smart people, my job is to
make sure the smart people can work together."
The Soul of OKRs
- Aspirations
Aspirations
were the key to motivate people to innovate.
(Remark:
My own ideas are combined Simon Sinek Golden Circle and John Doerr’s OKRs. I got the following sequence:
Simon
Sinek: Why à How à What (“People don’t buy “What” you do, but buy
“Why” you do.”)
John
Doerr: Aspiration (Why) à Objectives
(What) àKey Results
(How)
It
was observed that the most important was Aspiration (Why) whatever how and what
or what and how afterward.)
Lack of
Inspirations from KPI
Dr.
Lee said OKRs were suitable for uncertain business environment. If you operation was very stable, use KPIs
were more appropriate. The following diagram showed the different usage between
OKRs (Aspirations) and KPIs (Economics & Finance).
Set Aspiration
to Inspire Innovation
Dr.
Lee quoted two cases to explain it. One example was Apple and the other was
Vitasoy.
Apply:
Our DNA is as a consumer company for that individual customer who’s voting
thumbs up or thumbs down.
Vitasoy:
Funder (Dr. KS Lo) wanted to help the people in Hong Kong during the war by
bringing them aa nutritious, protein-rich soymilk at an affordable price.
Implementation
steps of OKRs
There
were 7 steps to implement OKRs as follows:
i)
Soul-Search
Your Aspirations (Motivational & Strategic)
ii)
Make
sure your Objectives Fit the Criteria
iii)
Set
only 3-5 Objectives Total
iv)
Ensure
the OKR process is 70% Bottom-up
v)
Check
on Progress Frequently Without Fail
vi)
Take
Ambitious Challenges
vii)
Specify
the Tactics that will achieve each Objectives.
During
the group discussion, we pointed out how many percentage employed OKRs and
KPIs. At the end, Dr. Mark Lee used the
Chinese old statement to conclude the talk “有志者事竟成”.
Reference:
Asia
Pacific Institute for Strategy Limited (亞太策略研究所有限公司) – www.apifs.org
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