The Chief Excellence Officer Academy

25/07/2023

If an OKR implementation is not driven by frontline managers, there's a 99% chance it's going to fizzle out and fail.

I was Jenny Herald's guest on the Dreams with Deadlines podcast to discuss the mindset & toolset behind my OKR process

“If an OKR implementation is not driven by frontline managers, there's a 99% chance it's going to fizzle out and fail. I was Jenny Herald's guest on the Dreams with Deadlines podcast to discuss the mindset & toolset behind my OKR process”

18/06/2023

I fell for that bad advice 7 years ago.

The most popular OKR ever makes this mistake.

No wonder managers still struggle to create quality OKRs, as shown by this poll.

500+ OKRs later, I’ve created the OKR Quality Matrix as an antidote to this mistake.

18/06/2023

No OKR is better than bullsh*t OKRs

But 8 of every 10 OKR threads/posts spew one piece of bad advice that breeds bullsh*t OKRs that sabotage strategy ex*****on.

I’ll give you a pill to avoid that costly mistake for your team.

16/06/2023

As a manager, If you never want to worry whether your OKRs measure what really matters, then grab your copy of my OKR Quality Matrix here👇🏽

- it's as close to a stethoscope for OKRs as it gets.

Free Download The OKR Quality Matrix Guidebook   write high-quality OKRs transform mediocre → great OKRs know when to violate "outcomes over outputs" use chatGPT to diagnose ugly & bad OKRs Success! Name Email Download now Don't let a mediocre OKR ruin your team's hard work & creativity.

02/02/2023

"60 senior leaders + teams hate OKRs"

Disconcerting! Before crucifying OKRs, I'd like to know

🔸 Do these team track any kinds of metrics?
🔸 How were OKRs introduced to them?
🔸 Before OKRs, how did they measure results?

I came to OKRs from the worlds of

1) Lean Six Sigma
2) Theory of Constraints
3) The 4 Disciplines of Ex*****on

I often joke that " = -lite".

While I evangelise OKRs, they only make up 25% of my team's excellence.

Here's what learnt from Lean Six Sigma:

PROCESS measures drive RESULTS measures

Lesson: build Key Results from underperforming process measures and you'll be tracking and improving something that matters.

Here's what the Theory of Constraints taught me

There's no point in improving a system anywhere but at its constraint.

Lesson: if you don't craft your to address your systemic constraints, you're likely "decorating fish"

I use the North Star Framework for this.

And from the 4 Disciplines of Ex*****on, I learnt this:

🔸 Success is often defined through lagging indicators
🔸 Success is most assured by working on leading indicators

Lesson: Ensure some of your key results drive a leading indicator.

If someone hates , they're likely to

🔸 hate any form of accountability
🔸 complain about it but not replace it
🔸 think accountability = "micromanagement"

OKRs can't fix incompetent management,
and neither will whatever you try to fix

01/02/2023

The Chief Excellence Officer® is always in 1 of 3 dances

(1) The dance of CLARITY
(2) The dance of ACTION
(3) The dance of OWNERSHIP

CLARITY

The Chief Excellence Officer® always asks:

(1) "What needs to be done?"
(2) "What is right for the enterprise?"
(3) “What is good for the people who run things?”

“Clarity always precedes mastery” -

ACT

The Chief Excellence Officer® is biased towards action by

(3) Developing action plans.
(4) Running productive meetings.

OWN

The Chief Excellence Officer® owns the outcome by

(5) Owning decisions.
(6) Communicating the vision & strategy

6. They were focused on opportunities rather than problems.
8. They thought and said "we" rather than "I."

01/02/2023

How frontline managers can design a culture that guarantees both excellence and passion.

If you believe that one person can single-handedly design a successful culture alone, then I have a spaceship to sell to you.

• Yes, you can design culture.
• Yes, culture takes years to mature.
• Yes, there is ALWAYS a culture at play

Create the culture you want, or suffer from one.

Culture is the outcome of repeated patterns of behaviours driven by:

• team leadership
• expressed values
• governing policies

The manager's No 1 leadership job is to

(a) guide
(b) protect
(c) maintain
.. the culture by

• modelling the right behaviours
• coaching directs on the behaviours
• clearing policies that drive bad behaviour

In 2016, I suffered my first leadership failure.

I'd inadvertently fostered a culture of assholery that drove

• distrust
• incivility
• persistent conflict

which exploded after our biggest team accomplishment yet.

The root cause was my narrow obsession with excellence. That crisis inspired our most important OKR:

"Build a 🚫-Bullsh*t, 🚫-Asshole team culture."

Today, we have a high-trust culture that drives 70% of our success and the best part of all? I am no longer the custodian of this culture. Every team member now enforces it ... sometimes even on me 🙈

Here is what it looks like.
What unpopular addition would you make to it?

06/12/2022

In managing a team context is ... EVERYTHING

Here's why:
If you miss the context your strategies, goals and decisions are going to be wrong.

A tool we teach our clients to set the context for operational excellence.

It's like the business model canvas but for teams in established organisations.
Try it and let us know what you think.
And hit the follow button for content like this.

02/12/2022

For content on how to
- transform their strategies into key results.

-Get your team’s buy-in and focused

- Be the manager to call when there’s a mission impossible project

Follow us!

01/12/2022

Welcome to Perfexcellence!
We are The chief Excellence officer Academy of the frontline manager
- who is missing that link to transform their strategies into key results.

-Your team lacks focus and motivation

- You want to demonstrate objective success on your projects.

If you are this manager, get in touch