From twelve OKRs to three.
We were invited to work with the senior leadership team of Legal & General's insurance business, which covers life protection, critical illness cover and related products. When I arrived they had twelve OKRs: one for every person with a C-suite title. When we finished they had three.
You don't build OKRs on the org chart
You build the OKRs, then put the team around each one that is best fitted to deliver it. That is how cross-functional working stops being a slogan.
A big project is not an OKR
The framework was tested during COVID. The business had to move nearly 10,000 people in its Cardiff and Brighton offices to working from home, and the leadership team wanted to make the move an OKR. I pushed back. It was a big project, not an OKR. That caused a lot of consternation.
So we went deeper. What is the purpose of your customer success and customer support teams? Happy customers. The objective became:
Make this transition in how we work without reducing the levels of service we give our clients.
That was when the penny dropped. OKRs have to be outcome-focused.
It kept working
OKRs continued to work across the organisation, and Legal & General continued to work with us through COVID.