I make no apologies for believing that Ben Lamorte is one of the most gifted business teachers and coaches I’ve ever encountered. While he’s the global go-to expert in OKRs and coaching other coaches, he could be that conversationalist who can inspire, educate, and inform on any business topic. In this episode, Ben is back to talk about OKRs. In this show, we address outcomes vs outputs and where KPIs fit in this conversation.
Who Is Ben Lamorte?
Ben Lamorte is the founder of OKRs.com, the premier coaching firm for growth-minded businesses and coaches who can become certified through their training.
Just a handful of their clients include 3M, Dun & Bradstreet, Booking.com, CareerBuilder, GoNoodle, and LIsten360.
Ben is the co-author of Objectives and Key Results and his newest book is The OKRs Field Book.
One thing we know about Ben that you may not realize–he’s a gifted and talented driver-based business modeler (correction, he’s exceptional).
Interview Highlights
- Explaining OKRs to an eleven-year-old
- Objectives with or without a timeframe
- Objectives and the context of business priorities
- Outputs vs Outcomes
- “Crawl, walk, run … nail it before you scale it.”
- OKRs vs KPIs
- The disconnect between strategy and OKRs
- OKRs and organizational health
Five Tips to Better OKRs
We ended our conversation with Ben as he discussed his approach to achieving greater outcomes with OKRs. Here are his five tips:
- Put a name next to each key result
- Each key result needs a baseline
- Reduce the number of OKRs
- Standardize scoring
- Write short objectives with a compelling ‘why’
Regarding the fifth item, Ben states objectives should begin with a verb. Objectives should be qualitative, not numeric. Measurability in the near term is required.
Books Mentioned
Did You Know?
This episode marks the third time Ben Lamorte has been on the show. His first appearance occurred early in the year of our launch, 2020. That episode remains the top-downloaded show on CFO Bookshelf.
Ben made another appearance the following year with another OKRs expert we both know and like a lot-Christina Wodtke. She’s the author of Radical Focus and delivered an outstanding presentation many years ago called The Executioner’s Tale.
Here are links to both episodes:
If you are interested in learning more about OKRs and the coaching platform at OKRs.com, feel free to reach out to Ben on LinkedIn. He’ll be happy to visit with you.
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