ESG Seminar – Leadership Strategy – How to use OKRs to stimulate Creativity to become Future Leaders

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 9^th 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 10^th 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:

HKSTP - www.hkstp.org

Asia Pacific Institute for Strategy Limited (亞太策略研究所有限公司) – www.apifs.org