Measure What Matters

OKRs: The Simple Idea That Drives 10x Growth

By: John Doerr

Narrated by: Alex Garden, Andrew Cole, Atticus Tysen, Bono, Brett Kopf, Cristos Goodrow, Jini Kim, John Doerr, Joseph Suzuki, Julia Collins, Mike Lee, Patti Stonesifer, Susan Wojcicki, William Davidow

Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Instant New York Times best seller.

The revolutionary movement behind the explosive growth of Intel, Google, Amazon and Uber. 

With a foreword by Larry Page and contributions from Bono and Bill Gates.

Measure What Matters is about using Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), a revolutionary approach to goal-setting, to make tough choices in business. 

In 1999, legendary venture capitalist John Doerr invested nearly $12 million in a startup that had amazing technology, entrepreneurial energy and sky-high ambitions, but no real business plan. Doerr introduced the founders to OKRs and with them at the foundation of their management, the startup grew from 40 employees to more than 70,000 with a market cap exceeding $600 billion. The startup was Google.

Since then Doerr has introduced OKRs to more than 50 companies, helping tech giants and charities exceed all expectations. In the OKR model objectives define what we seek to achieve and key results are how those top priority goals will be attained. OKRs focus effort, foster coordination and enhance workplace satisfaction. They surface an organisation's most important work as everyone's goals from entry-level to CEO are transparent to the entire institution. 

In Measure What Matters, Doerr shares a broad range of first-person, behind-the-scenes case studies, with narrators including Bono and Bill Gates, to demonstrate the focus, agility and explosive growth that OKRs have spurred at so many great organisations. 

This audiobook will show you how to collect timely, relevant data to track progress - to measure what matters. It will help any organisation or team aim high, move fast, and excel. 

©2018 John Doerr (P)2018 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"I'd recommend John's book for anyone interested in becoming a better manager." (Bill Gates)  

Only real 5 out of 5

This is the only true 5 out of 5 book. This is my first read, but about to buy the paper copy to do a deep dive and become an “evangelist”.

A must read for all transformators

If you ever thought about having a role in the transformation of a band of people into high productivity teams, this is a must read for you.

The cadence, examples and situations described give you a clear view of how to implement, test, scale and take advantage of this methodology.

Simple, uncluttered and direct

Such a helpful listen in a way that is easy to digest. Well with the time investment, it will pay you back BIG time!

many aha moments

This book brought me a great clarity. super useful and practical. can use it right away

Solid Business Book - well worth the read

Enjoyed the book - a fresh approach to transparent objective setting and execution. Good case studies included. Not overly complicated or lengthy. In short, well worth the read.

Great Read! Well narrated

Interesting stories and insights to master OKRs. Well researched and has some great practical insight that helps a professional achieve greatness through OKRs

Could have been a blog post

Nothing truly groundbreaking here. It’s just a simple process of setting actionable and somewhat measurable goals. A secondary idea is weekly one on one meetings between managers and their direct reports. This wasn’t novel even 10 years ago. I wouldn’t bother with this book. If you get the basic concept of OKRs — and you can get it in about 500 words — then this book doesn’t any further nuance or insight.

Great tips from world's top managers

Intellectual workers demand modern treatment.
More human.
2021 and still most companies still apply factory methodologies for management.
It is simple : happier = more productive.
Dont turn your company into a modern slavery.
Here's a guide how you can operate differently

Fantastic insights & practical methods.

I really loved this book. so much insight. I can't wait to read it again and implement.

I live how they had specific examples from different business and it was also really nice that they got those people to read their sections.

I want to read it again so I don't miss a thing.

MWM:-

Absolutely wonderful...! The content of the book was really insightful. Performance, although different was good.

Too many anecdotes

Most of this book it's taken up with anecdotes of various companies having implemented the system. That's great to know but the whole book is filled with it, chapter after chapter.
My advice is to skip to the last chapter as it then finally actually tells you how to implement the system. But only listen to the first half of that chapter though as the last half is literally just the author thanking all of the contributors!

objectives, key results

culture is the medium for okrs and cfrs to thrive. need to take good care where the organization lean the ladder on the wall. if it is not the right wall you lead the team to wrong direction. okrs are not the silver bullet. sound business judgment and engagement lead to success.

OKRs and how to make them work in detail

Great narration, enjoyed the many voices of contributors telling their own (companies') stories. The book offered a steep learning curve in the beginning, filling in smaller details towards the end.

Well worth a listen

Being relatively new to this approach, I’m a big fan of OKRs. I’ve watched some of John’s YouTube stuff and love his approach and his extensive knowledge. His delivery/recording of the book is surprisingly shoddy but get over it, it’s not so distracting that you can’t listen to it and there is some good stories in here, albeit a bit repetitive in message.
Enjoy it.

Read the High Output Management rather than this b

I run a small business and was keen to learn more about OKRs. However, this book disappointed as it was essentially just a long winded introduction into original source - Andy Grove's book "High Output Management". The book praises the method but I have no idea how to approach it in practice. It is also a bit ironic that Zume is presented as a great success while the company has nosedived since the book was published. I have to credit narration of the book though as multiple voices give it an extra spin.

Good but overly long

Decent explanation of the premise but then anecdote after anecdote from mainly large silicon valley forms. You could remove probably a third of this book and lose none of the value.

Transformative

Incredibly powerful story backed with real examples and guest contributions. A must-read for entrepreneurial minds.

Great audiobook however difficult to use without physical book

I would have liked to have read this to make notes. Hard to do so while listening in car!

Ideas are easy. Execution is everything.

Ideas are easy.
Execution is everything.

Agree.

We do not learn from experience.
We learn from reflecting on experience.

Agree.

Innovation tends to dwell less at the centre of an organisation than at its edges.

Been there.

If you set a crazy, ambitious goal and miss it, you’ll still achieve something remarkable.

Done that. Hit and missed plenty of them over the years.

Learned a lot along the way.

Actions - and data - speak louder than words.

Indeed.

Peak performance is the product of collaboration and accountability.

So many insights.

So many valuable nuggets.

Things I tried.
Things I've done.
Things I now need to do.

I'd vote for you John Doerr

“In God we trust; all others must bring data."
W. Edwards Deming”

Second book recommendation of the week: Measure What Matters by John Doerr

#innovation #experience #collaboration #data

Many good practical examples

The book insists that KPIs are the key to success (almost the most important thing) - it's a discussable point. However it's really useful because there are many good examples and best practices, including recommendations on how to run 1 on 1s with our team members. Really useful!