SPECIAL REPORTS

By now, everyone has heard about it: The Great Resignation. Employees in

every kind of business have decided not to return to their jobs after shutdowns

during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is one of the greatest challenges that

businesses have faced in decades. As employees reconsider how they spend

their time and reassess their values, millions have come to understand that

time is a precious commodity -- many lost loved ones -- and now they realize

they have been spending their time doing things that don’t have value.

In many of today’s organizations, the left-hand simply doesn’t know what the

right-hand is doing. There is duplication of efforts across different parts of the

organization, while everyone thinks different work is being done. Meanwhile,

leaders have high expectations and are relying on a variety of items to be

addressed across the board.

The real heart of the biggest challenge I’m seeing business owners face today

is that their people aren't empowered to make day-to-day decisions that are

aligned to the strategy. Business owners and leaders are hoping people

understand the strategy, yet there's a lack of cohesive and consistent

messaging that trickles out of the boardroom. We know that strategy is

created in the boardroom. Business owners know they can't give the whole

strategy to everyone, but they expect their people to make decisions as if they

do know the whole strategy.

In our first report, we discussed the Great Resignation, a term that everyone by

now is very familiar with. Linked to employee burnout or disengagement, is

now another phrase that has recently become very popular on social media

platforms called ‘quiet quitting’.1 This is when employees decide to stop going

the extra mile at work or putting in any further effort than is required to do

their job, due to lack of motivation or appreciation from their employers. This

creates a downward spiraling effect on the employee and employer. OKRs can

help many organizations address this problem.

Businesses of every size, shape and purpose are experiencing some of the

greatest challenges in history today. Even prior to the global pandemic,

companies and their employees were starting to feel the impact of the

challenges that are now coming to light in every industry. Companies have felt

the blow delivered by the “great resignation” once employees were told they

could return to work, and a massive number of employees didn’t return. And

now, businesses are experiencing what we referred to in our previous special

report, “quiet quitting,” a trend where their employees are doing the bare

minimum at work. This is very likely a response to burnout and stress and a

way for employees to regain balance in their lives. But there is also something

else that is a contributing factor to the stress, the burnout and the

disengagement employees feel.

In working with companies around the world of every size and in every

industry, Denise Kanfield and I, through OKR Cohort, are discovering that

the delivery of companies’ high value products and services is too slow for

customers’ expectations. Organizations are missing the mark. They are not

able to keep up with customer demands. This is a huge problem that exists

in companies both large and small!

In our work as founders of OKR Cohort, Nizar Khoja and I have found that a

lack of connection to purpose exists in many business organizations today.

This lack of connection is rarely recognized by leaders, yet it is one of the main

reasons that chaos and confusion exist in companies large and small today.

What we see is that employee’s day-to-day work is not intentionally connected

to the purpose of the organization. So, it's easy to get lost. However, when

connecting the purpose and strategy of the organization to the work of each

team and individual, you get so much more done. So, this lack of connection

presents a big problem for organizations today. Business leaders and

managers alike see so many impacts from this lack of connection to purpose.

In our work as co-founders of OKR Cohort, Denise Kanfield and I work with

businesses around the world, of every size and across all industries, to address

challenges that lead to chaos and confusion instead of harmony and growth.

Today, I’m sharing how we help these businesses make a shift that leads to a

greater customer experience and improved customer service.

When you have poor communication in an organization, plain and simple, it’s

hurting your organization. Communication is the key to all relationships

whether personal or professional. And communication in many cases is at the

heart of any problems there are. In our work with organizations of every size,

my business partner, Nizar Khoja, and I find that poor communication is

rampant, and most business owners, managers and leaders simply don’t

know this is at the root of many of their organization’s problems.

In our recent podcast, my business partner and Co-Founder of OKR Cohort,

Denise Kanfield, and I addressed a challenge that many organizations are

faced with today, the duplication of efforts. It can occur when multiple

individuals or teams are working on the same task without being aware of

each other’s work. This can lead to the complete waste of time and resources

as the work may need to be redone or significant efforts have been invested

in unnecessary tasks.

Broken organizational culture is a huge challenge that my business partner and

Co-Founder of OKR Cohort, Nizar Khoja, and I see organizations facing more

and more frequently. In fact, we’ve both lived through stints in our individual

careers where we’ve been in organizations with broken cultures. A broken

culture within your organization stems from people lacking clarity and

cohesiveness. It’s a lack of direction on how to unify within the culture.

Culture is the relationship an organization has with its people. Everybody wants

to have a healthy culture within their organization because a healthy culture

represents their values and is foundational for delivering results, attracting, and

retaining the right people. The thing is, like any relationship, it takes time and

effort to create and maintain a healthy culture.

The problem I’m addressing here is when you know your company culture is

broken and you want to have a healthy culture. I’m going to cover ways in

which OKRs can help you reboot your company culture and unify your

organization no matter the size or what kind of products or services your

company provides.

Many organizations are stuck in their old ways, unsure of how to embrace new

methods and drive the kind of innovation that leads to market disruption. This

is something my business partner and Co-Founder of OKR Cohort, Denise

Kanfield, and I see far too often. Rather than taking an innovative approach

towards a new, more impactful, solution, organizations fall into the status quo

and lose sight of a bigger future.

The key to addressing this challenge is to adopt a mindset of continuous

improvement and to set ambitious objectives that inspire teams to think

outside the box.

The issue we want to address is what’s stopping your organization from

disrupting that status quo and rallying their people towards the