Measure What Matters - John Doerr

Measure What Matters

By John Doerr

  • Release Date: 2018-04-24
  • Genre: Management & Leadership
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 318 Ratings

Description

#1 New York Times Bestseller

Legendary venture capitalist John Doerr reveals how the goal-setting system of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) has helped tech giants from Intel to Google achieve explosive growth—and how it can help any organization thrive.


In the fall of 1999, John Doerr met with the founders of a start-up whom he'd just given $12.5 million, the biggest investment of his career. Larry Page and Sergey Brin had amazing technology, entrepreneurial energy, and sky-high ambitions, but no real business plan. For Google to change the world (or even to survive), Page and Brin had to learn how to make tough choices on priorities while keeping their team on track. They'd have to know when to pull the plug on losing propositions, to fail fast. And they needed timely, relevant data to track their progress—to measure what mattered.

Doerr taught them about a proven approach to operating excellence: Objectives and Key Results. He had first discovered OKRs in the 1970s as an engineer at Intel, where the legendary Andy Grove ("the greatest manager of his or any era") drove the best-run company Doerr had ever seen. Later, as a venture capitalist, Doerr shared Grove's brainchild with more than fifty companies. Wherever the process was faithfully practiced, it worked.

In this goal-setting system, objectives define what we seek to achieve; key results are how those top-priority goals will be attained with specific, measurable actions within a set time frame. Everyone's goals, from entry level to CEO, are transparent to the entire organization.

The benefits are profound. OKRs surface an organization's most important work. They focus effort and foster coordination. They keep employees on track. They link objectives across silos to unify and strengthen the entire company. Along the way, OKRs enhance workplace satisfaction and boost retention.

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 organizations. This book will help a new generation of leaders capture the same magic.

Reviews

  • Very cool book

    5
    By xlth
    This book helped me a lot!
  • Great book, very practical.

    5
    By Orlando O. Spencer I™
    Great audiobook and a wonderful book by John Doerr. I find that the book was filled with a lot of helpful testimonials from successful companies and individuals who have made OKRs there own. I personally have been doing goal setting for the past 10 years, now in our young company, we have started to build our very own organically grown OOSKR™️ system because of this book. This system will grow with us as we scale or company. One thing I did find about CFR's. I find that CFRs was made to seem a little route by setting specific question to ask in a Review, we believe that our review session should not have any Specific questions at all, but allow the sessions to flow Naturally following a set of guidelines rather than a specific set of questions. All in all, I and the C-Suite team of our company completely love this book And is now in the process of making OKRs and CFRs a part of our company's DNA. Thank you, John. Orlando O. Spencer I™
  • A Perfect Companion to Leaders Looking to Grow

    5
    By @jtpush2
    As a lifelong fan of process, when my colleague Alex Moore recommended this book I suspected I’d love it (which I did). What I didn’t expect was the elegant simplicity of OKRs and the great care taken to account for the contributor levels of a company in particular. It combines structured goal setting in a very down-to-earth and humanizing way.
  • Every Leader Should Read

    5
    By TEAM NEW YORK
    Outstanding! Summarizing it up for you is like spoiling a good movie! READ IT!!!!