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Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRsMerchant Video

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Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs Hardcover – April 24, 2018

by John Doerr (Author), Larry Page (Foreword)

4.5 9,393 ratings

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#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.

From the Publisher

WARNING: California’s Proposition 65

Editorial Reviews

Review

“I’d recommend John’s book for anyone interested in becoming a better manager.”
—Bill Gates

“Whether you're a seasoned CEO or a first-time entrepreneur, you'll find valuable lessons, tools, and inspiration in the pages of Measure What Matters. I'm glad John invested the time to share these ideas with the world.”
—Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn and author of The Start-up of You

“Measure What Matters deserves to be fully embraced by every person responsible for performance, in any walk of life. John Doerr makes Andy Grove a mentor to us all. If every team, leader, and individual applied OKRs with rigor and imagination, all sectors of society could see an exponential increase in productivity and innovation.”
—Jim Collins, author of Good to Great

“John Doerr has taught a generation of entrepreneurs and philanthropists that execution is everything. Measure What Matters shows how any organization or team can aim high, move fast, and excel.”
—Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO and founder of LeanIn.org and OptionB.org

“In this indispensable book, the most important venture capitalist of our era reveals a key to business innovation and success. This crisp and colorful book combines fascinating case studies with insightful personal stories to show how OKRs can add magic to organizations of any size.”
—Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci

“I’m a big believer in John Doerr’s simple yet effective OKR system—I’ve seen it work firsthand! I encourage every business leader to read Measure What Matters in order to learn some real and practical secrets for success.”
—Anne Wojcicki, founder and CEO of 23andMe

“John Doerr has been the source of management magic for many of the most iconic companies in Silicon Valley that went on to change the world. Measure What Matters is a must read for anyone motivated to improve their organization.”
—Former Vice President Al Gore

“Measure What Matters takes you behind the scenes for the creation of Intel’s powerful OKR system—one of Andy Grove’s finest legacies.”
—Gordon Moore, cofounder of Intel

“Measure What Matters will transform your approach to setting goals for yourself and your organization. John Doerr pushes every leader to think deeply about creating a focused, purpose-driven business environment.”
—Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments

“John Doerr is a Silicon Valley legend. He explains how transparently setting objectives and defining key results can align organizations and motivate high performance.”
—Jonathan Levin, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Business

“Measure What Matters is a gift to every leader or entrepreneur who wants a more transparent, accountable, and effective team. It encourages the kind of big, bold bets that can transform an organization.”
—John Chambers, executive chairman of Cisco

“In addition to being a terrific personal history of tech in Silicon Valley, Measure What Matters is an essential handbook for both small and large organizations; the methods described will definitely drive great execution.”
—Diane Greene, CEO of Google Cloud

About the Author

John Doerr is an engineer, acclaimed venture capitalist, and the chairman of Kleiner Perkins. He was an original investor and board member at Google and Amazon, helping to create more than half a million jobs and the world's second and third most valuable companies. He's passionate about encouraging leaders to reimagine the future, from transforming healthcare to advancing applications of machine learning. Outside of Kleiner Perkins, John works with social entrepreneurs for change in public education, the climate crisis, and global poverty. John serves on the board of the Obama Foundation and ONE.org.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1

Google, Meet OKRs

If you don't know where you're going, you might not get there.

—Yogi Berra

On a fall day in 1999, in the heart of Silicon Valley, I arrived at a two-story, L-shaped structure off the 101 freeway. It was young Google's headquarters, and I'd come with a gift.

The company had leased the building two months earlier, outgrowing a space above an ice-cream parlor in downtown Palo Alto. Two months before that, I'd placed my biggest bet in nineteen years as a venture capitalist, an $11.8 million wager for 12 percent of a start-up by a pair of Stanford grad school dropouts. I joined Google's board. I was committed, financially and emotionally, to do all I could to help it succeed.

Barely a year after incorporating, Google had planted its flag: to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." That might have sounded grandiose, but I had confidence in Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They were self-assured, even brash, but also curious and thoughtful. They listened—and they delivered.

Sergey was exuberant, mercurial, strongly opinionated, and able to leap intellectual chasms in a single bound. A Soviet-born immigrant, he was a canny, creative negotiator and a principled leader. Sergey was restless, always pushing for more; he might drop to the floor mid-meeting for a set of push-ups.

Larry was an engineer's engineer, the son of a computer science pioneer. He was a soft-spoken nonconformist, a rebel with a 10x cause: to make the internet exponentially more relevant. While Sergey crafted the commerce of technology, Larry toiled on the product and imagined the impossible. He was a blue-sky thinker with his feet on the ground.

Earlier that year, when the two of them came to my office to pitch me, their PowerPoint deck had just seventeen slides-and only two with numbers. (They added three cartoons just to flesh out the deck.) Though they'd made a small deal with the Washington Post, Google had yet to unlock the value of keyword-targeted ads. As the eighteenth search engine to arrive on the web, the company was way late to the party. Ceding the competition such a long head start was normally fatal, especially in technology.

But none of that stopped Larry from lecturing me on the poor quality of search in the market, and how much it could be improved, and how much bigger it would be tomorrow. He and Sergey had no doubt they would break through, never mind their lack of a business plan. Their PageRank algorithm was that much better than the competition, even in beta testing.

I asked them, "How big do you think this could be?" I'd already made my private calculation: If everything broke right, Google might reach a market cap of $1 billion. But I wanted to gauge their dreams.

And Larry responded, "Ten billion dollars."

Just to be sure, I said, "You mean market cap, right?"

And Larry shot back, "No, I don't mean market cap. I mean revenue."

I was floored. Assuming a normal growth rate for a profitable tech firm, $10 billion in revenue would imply a $100 billion market capitalization. That was the province of Microsoft and IBM and Intel. That was a creature rarer than a unicorn. There was no braggadocio to Larry, only calm, considered judgment. I didn't debate him; I was genuinely impressed. He and Sergey were determined to change the world, and I believed they had a shot.

Long before Gmail or Android or Chrome, Google brimmed with big ideas. The founders were quintessential visionaries, with extreme entrepreneurial energy. What they lacked was management experience. For Google to have real impact, or even to reach liftoff, they would have to learn to make tough choices and keep their team on track. Given their healthy appetite for risk, they'd need to pull the plug on losers-to fail fast.

Not least, they would need timely, relevant data. To track their progress. To measure what mattered.

And so: On that balmy day in Mountain View, I came with my present for Google, a sharp-edged tool for world-class execution. I'd first used it in the 1970s as an engineer at Intel, where Andy Grove, the greatest manager of his or any era, drove the best-run company I had ever seen. Since joining Kleiner Perkins, the Menlo Park VC firm, I had proselytized Grove's gospel far and wide, to fifty companies or more.

To be clear, I have the utmost reverence for entrepreneurs. I'm an inveterate techie who worships at the altar of innovation. But I'd also watched too many start-ups struggle with growth and scale and getting the right things done. So I'd come to a philosophy, a mantra:

Ideas are easy. Execution is everything.

In the early 1980s, I took a fourteen-month sabbatical from Kleiner to lead the desktop division at Sun Microsystems. Suddenly I found myself in charge of hundreds of people. I was terrified. Andy Grove's system was my bastion in a storm, a source of clarity in every meeting I led. It empowered my executive team and rallied the whole operation. Yes, we made our share of mistakes. But we also achieved amazing things, including a new RISC microprocessor architecture to secure Sun's lead in the workstation market. That was my personal proof point for what I was bringing, all these years later, to Google.

The practice that molded me at Intel and saved me at Sun-that still inspires me today-is called OKRs. Short for Objectives and Key Results, it's a collaborative goal-setting protocol for companies, teams, and individuals. Now, OKRs are not a silver bullet. They cannot substitute sound judgment, strong leadership, or a creative workplace culture. But if those fundamentals are in place, OKRs can guide you to the mountaintop.

Larry and Sergey—with Marissa Mayer, Susan Wojcicki, Salar Kamangar, and thirty or so others, pretty much the whole company at the time—gathered to hear me out. They stood around the ping-pong table (which doubled as their boardroom table), or sprawled in beanbag chairs, dormitory style. My first PowerPoint slide defined OKRs: "A management methodology that helps to ensure that the company focuses efforts on the same important issues throughout the organization."

An OBJECTIVE, I explained, is simply WHAT is to be achieved, no more and no less. By definition, objectives are significant, concrete, action oriented, and (ideally) inspirational. When properly designed and deployed, they're a vaccine against fuzzy thinking-and fuzzy execution.

KEY RESULTS benchmark and monitor HOW we get to the objective. Effective KRs are specific and time-bound, aggressive yet realistic. Most of all, they are measurable and verifiable. (As prize pupil Marissa Mayer would say, "It's not a key result unless it has a number.") You either meet a key result's requirements or you don't; there is no gray area, no room for doubt. At the end of the designated period, typically a quarter, we declare the key result fulfilled or not. Where an objective can be long-lived, rolled over for a year or longer, key results evolve as the work progresses. Once they are all completed, the objective is necessarily achieved. (And if it isn't, the OKR was poorly designed in the first place.)

My objective that day, I told the band of young Googlers, was to build a planning model for their company, as measured by three key results:

KR #1: I would finish my presentation on time.

KR #2: We'd create a sample set of quarterly Google OKRs.

KR #3: I'd gain management agreement for a three-month OKR trial.

By way of illustration, I sketched two OKR scenarios. The first involved a fictional football team whose general manager cascades a top-level objective down through the franchise org chart. The second was a real-life drama to which I'd had a ringside seat: Operation Crush, the campaign to restore Intel's dominance in the microprocessor market. (We'll delve into both in detail later on.)

I closed by recapping a value proposition that is no less compelling today. OKRs surface your primary goals. They channel efforts and coordination. They link diverse operations, lending purpose and unity to the entire organization.

I stopped talking at the ninety-minute mark, right on time. Now it was up to Google.

--

In 2009, the Harvard Business School published a paper titled "Goals Gone Wild." It led with a catalog of examples of "destructive goal pursuit": exploding Ford Pinto fuel tanks, wholesale gouging by Sears auto repair centers, Enron's recklessly inflated sales targets, the 1996 Mount Everest disaster that left eight climbers dead. Goals, the authors cautioned, were "a prescription-strength medication that requires careful dosing . . . and close supervision." They even posted a warning label: "Goals may cause systematic problems in organizations due to narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased risk taking, decreased cooperation, and decreased motivation." The dark side of goal setting could swamp any benefits, or so their argument went.

The paper struck a chord and is still widely cited. Its caveat is not without merit. Like any management system, OKRs may be executed well or badly; the aim of this book is to help you use them well. But make no mistake. For anyone striving for high performance in the workplace, goals are very necessary things.

In 1968, the year Intel opened shop, a psychology professor at the University of Maryland cast a theory that surely influenced Andy Grove. First, said Edwin Locke, "hard goals" drive performance more effectively than easy goals. Second, specific hard goals "produce a higher level of output" than vaguely worded admonitions to do your best.

In the intervening half century, more than a thousand studies have confirmed Locke's discovery as "one of the most tested, and proven, ideas in the whole of management theory." Among experiments in the field, 90 percent confirm that productivity is enhanced by well-defined, challenging goals.

Year after year, Gallup surveys attest to a "worldwide employee engagement crisis." Less than a third of U.S. workers are "involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace." Of those disengaged millions, more than half would leave their company for a raise of 20 percent or less. In the technology sector, two out of three employees think they could find a better job inside of two months.

In business, alienation isn't an abstract, philosophical problem; it saps the bottom line. More highly engaged work groups generate more profit and less turnover. According to Deloitte, the management and leadership consulting firm, issues of "retention and engagement have risen to No. 2 in the minds of business leaders, second only to the challenge of building global leadership."

But exactly how do you build engagement? A two-year Deloitte study found that no single factor has more impact than "clearly defined goals that are written down and shared freely. . . . Goals create alignment, clarity, and job satisfaction."

Goal setting isn't bulletproof: "When people have conflicting priorities or unclear, meaningless, or arbitrarily shifting goals, they become frustrated, cynical, and demotivated." An effective goal management system-an OKR system-links goals to a team's broader mission. It respects targets and deadlines while adapting to circumstances. It promotes feedback and celebrates wins, large and small. Most important, it expands our limits. It moves us to strive for what might seem beyond our reach.

As even the "Goals Gone Wild" crowd conceded, goals "can inspire employees and improve performance." That, in a nutshell, was my message for Larry and Sergey and company.

As I opened the floor for questions, my audience seemed intrigued. I guessed they might give OKRs a try, though I couldn't have foreseen the depth of their resolve. Sergey said, "Well, we need to have some organizing principle. We don't have one, and this might as well be it." But the marriage of Google and OKRs was anything but random. It was a great impedance match, a seamless gene transcription into Google's messenger RNA. OKRs were an elastic, data-driven apparatus for a freewheeling, data-worshipping enterprise. They promised transparency for a team that defaulted to open-open source, open systems, open web. They rewarded "good fails" and daring for two of the boldest thinkers of their time.

Google, meet OKRs: a perfect fit.

--

While Larry and Sergey had few preconceptions about running a business, they knew that writing goals down would make them real. They loved the notion of laying out what mattered most to them-on one or two succinct pages-and making it public to everyone at Google. They intuitively grasped how OKRs could keep an organization on course through the gales of competition or the tumult of a hockey-stick growth curve.

Along with Eric Schmidt, who two years later became Google's CEO, Larry and Sergey would be tenacious, insistent, even confrontational in their use of OKRs. As Schmidt told author Steven Levy, "Google's objective is to be the systematic innovator of scale. Innovator means new stuff. And scale means big, systematic ways of looking at things done in a way that's reproducible." Together, the triumvirate brought a decisive ingredient for OKR success: conviction and buy-in at the top.

--

As an investor, I am long on OKRs. As Google and Intel alumni continue to migrate and spread the good word, hundreds of companies of all types and sizes are committing to structured goal setting. OKRs are Swiss Army knives, suited to any environment. We've seen their broadest adoption in tech, where agility and teamwork are absolute imperatives. (In addition to the firms given the floor in this book, OKR adherents include AOL, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Oracle, Slack, Spotify, and Twitter.) But the system has also been adopted by household names far beyond Silicon Valley: Anheuser-Busch, BMW, Disney, Exxon, Samsung. In today's economy, change is a fact of life. We cannot cling to what's worked and hope for the best. We need a trusty scythe to carve a path ahead of the curve.

At smaller start-ups, where people absolutely need to be pulling in the same direction, OKRs are a survival tool. In the tech sector, in particular, young companies must grow quickly to get funding before their capital runs dry. Structured goals give backers a yardstick for success: We're going to build this product, and we've certified the market by talking to twenty-five customers, and here's how much they're willing to pay. At medium-size, rapidly scaling organizations, OKRs are a shared language for execution. They clarify expectations: What do we need to get done (and fast), and who's working on it? They keep employees aligned, vertically and horizontally.

In larger enterprises, OKRs are neon-lit road signs. They demolish silos and cultivate connections among far-flung contributors. By igniting frontline autonomy, they give rise to fresh solutions. And they keep even the most successful organizations stretching for more.

Similar benefits accrue in the not-for-profit world. At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a $20 billion start-up, OKRs deliver the real-time data Bill Gates needs to wage war against malaria, polio, and HIV. Sylvia Mathews Burwell, a Gates alumna, ported the process to the federal Office of Management and Budget and later to the Department of Health and Human Services, where it helped the U.S. government fight Ebola.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Portfolio; Second Printing edition (April 24, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0525536221
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0525536222
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.85 x 1.1 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #5,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #9 in Systems & Planning
- #75 in Business Management (Books)
- #116 in Leadership & Motivation

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4.5 9,393 ratings

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John Doerr

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John Doerr is an engineer, acclaimed venture capitalist, and the chairman of Kleiner Perkins.

For 37 years, John has served entrepreneurs with ingenuity and optimism, helping them build disruptive companies and bold teams. In 2018, he authored Measure What Matters, a handbook for setting and achieving audacious goals. Through his book and platform, WhatMatters.com, he shares valuable lessons from some of the most fearless innovators of our time.

John was an original investor and board member at Google and Amazon, helping to create more than half a million jobs and the world’s second and third most valuable companies. He’s passionate about encouraging leaders to reimagine the future, from transforming healthcare to advancing applications of machine learning. Outside of Kleiner Perkins, John works with social entrepreneurs for change in public education, the climate crisis, and global poverty. John serves on the board of the Obama Foundation and ONE.org.

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Customers say

Customers find the book helpful for goal setting and communicating. They find it easy to read and understand, with straightforward concepts and a simple execution template. The stories are relatable and insightful, based on real-life experiences of people and companies. The book provides an effective way to improve performance and objectively measure success.

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Book content Readability Ease of use Story quality Performance Measurableness Depth Pacing

222 customers mention "Book content"197 positive25 negative

Customers find the book helpful for goal setting. They appreciate the simple framework for setting goals and communicating throughout. The book provides useful examples and case studies that are clearly communicated. It is considered one of the best books on management and useful for fledgling companies.

"...My favorite #quotes from this book: "Good ideas with great execution are how you make magic." @Larry Page "Ideas are easy...." Read more

"...skillfully intertwines real-world examples and case studies, offering valuable insights into the transformative impact of OKRs on focus, alignment,..." Read more

"...Any process that leads to transparent, cohesive goals for an organization is useful, and Objectives+Key-Results (OKR) as described in this book are..." Read more

"...I particularly liked that as the book progresses, it provides clear examples of how to overcome the nuances of implementing OKRs...." Read more

159 customers mention "Readability"159 positive0 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and recommend it for helping teams focus. They appreciate the case studies and John's personal history of tech in Silicon Valley. The book is thought-provoking and inspiring.

"...All in all, this is a good idea, but the book would have benefitted from some additional how-to chapters and a little less marketing." Read more

"...This is a must read. I've had Andy Grove's High Output Management on my list for about 2 years now. I must go read that too!" Read more

"...I enjoyed reading the case studies in the book and about John’s personal history of tech in Silicon Valley...." Read more

"...To conclude, the book is a great and engrossing read. It lit multiple bulbs in my brain from the get-go...." Read more

73 customers mention "Ease of use"65 positive8 negative

Customers find the book easy to understand and motivating. They appreciate the straightforward, simple execution template that is usable by any size. The book presents a methodology to use inside their own company that captures the essence of the business. They also like the simple way of setting objectives and measuring them.

"...releases have an OKR tracker embedded in the package that makes implementation easier if you are using MS Office...." Read more

"...and the book provides clear examples of how OKRs were successfully implemented by startups, large corporations, and non-profit organizations...." Read more

"...Goals create alignment, clarity, and job satisfaction..." Read more

"...It goes into pretty good detail about how this system helps companies achieve audacious goals, keep employees happy, companies churning, and produce..." Read more

56 customers mention "Story quality"50 positive6 negative

Customers find the stories meaningful, relatable, and insightful. They appreciate the compelling showcase of real-life experiences of people and companies. The storytelling structure is appreciated by readers. It reinforces the concept of OKRs and CFRs and provides a good explanation of the thinking behind them.

"...the practical application of OKRs, particularly through the compelling showcase of how notable companies like Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation..." Read more

"This is a very business focused book. There are some great perspectives, but personally it felt like the same things about OKRs..." Read more

"...I appreciate the specificity and instructive nature of the early content. Too many application narratives for my needs." Read more

"...The author states this powerful phrase “People watch what you do more than what you say”..." Read more

20 customers mention "Performance"20 positive0 negative

Customers find the book's performance effective. They mention it provides a systematic way to improve performance in commercial teams, objectively measure success, and track progress. The book is an excellent introduction into the world of performance alignment and stretch goal development.

"...impact of OKRs on focus, alignment, and overall performance within diverse business settings...." Read more

"...Tracking your performance throughout, ownership of mistakes, praising often, all contribute to better performance. This is a must read...." Read more

"...OKRs are how you track progress, create alignment, and encourage engagement around measurable goals...." Read more

"...had a significant amount of pages dedicated to WHY OKRs are helpful, effective, etc. If I'm reading the book, I'm already bought into the concept...." Read more

17 customers mention "Measurableness"17 positive0 negative

Customers find the book helpful for setting clear, impactful measurable goals. It explains that while traditional measurements are useful, OKRs help you stay focused. The book makes an excellent case for having measurement systems in place and applies to any organization size. It defines goal setting and motivates with goals.

"...examples of how OKRs were successfully implemented by startups, large corporations, and non-profit organizations...." Read more

"...used by teams and individuals to set challenging, ambitious goals with measurable results...." Read more

"...Results compare and monitor how to reach the objective, so they are measurable and verifiable, aka OKR...." Read more

"...types of top-down objectives, and how to set up objectives that are measurable, make people accountable, and help keep people aligned...." Read more

11 customers mention "Depth"11 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's depth. They find it effective in explaining OKRs and how they work. The book provides good insights into OKR history and success stories. Readers also appreciate the deep dive into committed, aspirational, and CFRs.

"A great deal of insights into how Google and number of other businesses (many in tech it not all) have adopted a forms OKR..." Read more

"This book is good at explaining the history of OKRs and sharing some success stories...." Read more

"...But this was a great book, really appreciated the deep dive into committed OKRs, aspirational OKRs and CFRs..." Read more

"...Excellent starting point on the journey with OKRs." Read more

27 customers mention "Pacing"3 positive24 negative

Customers find the book's pacing slow. They find the examples repetitive and boring at times. The book seems unimaginative, overly complicated, and superficial.

"...give some clues as to how issues like diversity, harrassment, inapppropriate content, hate speech etc can keep occurring on Google sites like..." Read more

"...The only downside to this I would say is that there are too many stories of 'apparent’ success and not enough of failures...." Read more

"...There are many good points, and some great examples, but the book just drags on and on...." Read more

"...For some weird reasons, I did not enjoy reading the examples very much...." Read more

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Sal P.
Great Execution Book!
Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2018
Verified Purchase
I just finished "Measure What Matters" by John Doerr. Such a great book full of advice for companies struggling with #execution.
My favorite #quotes from this book:
"Good ideas with great execution are how you make magic." @Larry Page
"Ideas are easy. Execution is everything."
"I view this year's failure as next year's opportunity to try it again." @Gordon Moore
"Specific hard goals produce a higher level of output than vaguely worded ones."
"Set goals from bottom up."
"Dare to fail."
"... four OKR superpowers: focus, alignment, tracking, and stretching."
"Bad companies are destroyed by crisis. Good companies survive them. Great companies are improved by them." @Andy Grove
"When you are tired of saying it, people are starting to hear it." Jeff Weiner
"Done is better than perfect." Sheryl Sandberg
"... if we try to focus on everything, we focus on nothing."
"Growth costs money."
"... you can only do one big thing at a time really well, and so you better know what that one is."
"Doing too much too soon will definitely end in pain."
"To inspire true commitment, leaders must practice what they teach"
"Transparency seeds collaboration."
"Having a good mission is not enough. You need a concrete objective, and to need to know how you're going to get there."
"... my favorite definition of entrepreneurs: Those who do more than anyone thinks possible ... with less than anyone thinks possible."
"If you set a crazy, ambitious goal and miss it, you'll still achieve something remarkable." @Larry Page
"Stretch goals can be crushing if people do not believe they're achievable. That's where the art of framing comes in."
"Feedback is an opinion, grounded in observations and experiences, which allows us to know what impression we make on others." Sheryl Sandberg
"Feedback can be highly constructive- but only if it is specific."
"Continuous recognition is a powerful driver of engagement."
"... a really good company values different opinions."
"... behavior defines a company more meaningfully than product lines or market share."
"Vision-based leadership beats command-and-control."
"People watch what you do more than what you say."
"Time is the enemy of transformation."
"... there was no shame in trying your hardest and failing, not when OKRs help you fail smart and fail fast."
"Goal setting is more art than science."

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Joel S.
Unlocking Success: A Deep Dive into OKRs
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2024
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"Measure What Matters" by John Doerr is an insightful exploration of the power of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) in driving organizational success.

The book proves to be immensely helpful in understanding the practical application of OKRs, particularly through the compelling showcase of how notable companies like Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation have harnessed this goal-setting framework to achieve remarkable results.

Doerr's narrative skillfully intertwines real-world examples and case studies, offering valuable insights into the transformative impact of OKRs on focus, alignment, and overall performance within diverse business settings.

Whether you're a business leader, entrepreneur, or anyone interested in effective goal-setting strategies, "Measure What Matters" serves as an inspirational and instructive guide, demonstrating the tangible benefits of adopting OKRs in driving success and innovation.

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Reasonable Reviewer
A good idea, but a little over-stated
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2023
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I am a fan of business process books, and this book Measure What Matters, comes highly recommended.

Any process that leads to transparent, cohesive goals for an organization is useful, and Objectives+Key-Results (OKR) as described in this book are a fine way of working towards that goal.

The process is relatively simple, pick an objective and then key-results that will contribute to that objective.

One of the nice aspects of OKR is that recent Microsoft (MS) Office releases have an OKR tracker embedded in the package that makes implementation easier if you are using MS Office.

The book was good, but a few nits ... it has a lot of "marketing" material in the book, and some of the examples seem over-stated. When Intel decided to go after Motorola, the book says that everyone in the company worked on the objective, but Intel was a large company with a lot of support personnel. It is hard to believe that the janitorial staff, the admin sections, etc. all chipped in on that one objective. I understand that general idea, but it detracts from the book's credibility.

The book does not spend a lot of time on giving examples of how to develop OKRs. It has a lot of illustrative examples of businesses that used OKRs and had miraculous turn-arounds, but the book spends little time on how to actually find and instantiate. A chapter or three that talked through the process with some simple examples would have been welcomed.

Finally, I'm at a start-up now that is using the OKR methodology, and the book implies that you need to be "all in" on OKRs. We are finding that you need to find a way to work into OKR. The everywhere all at once approach the book advocates can be wildly impractical.

All in all, this is a good idea, but the book would have benefitted from some additional how-to chapters and a little less marketing.

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Reasonable Reviewer

A good idea, but a little over-stated
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2023
I am a fan of business process books, and this book Measure What Matters, comes highly recommended.

Any process that leads to transparent, cohesive goals for an organization is useful, and Objectives+Key-Results (OKR) as described in this book are a fine way of working towards that goal.

The process is relatively simple, pick an objective and then key-results that will contribute to that objective.

One of the nice aspects of OKR is that recent Microsoft (MS) Office releases have an OKR tracker embedded in the package that makes implementation easier if you are using MS Office.

The book was good, but a few nits ... it has a lot of "marketing" material in the book, and some of the examples seem over-stated. When Intel decided to go after Motorola, the book says that everyone in the company worked on the objective, but Intel was a large company with a lot of support personnel. It is hard to believe that the janitorial staff, the admin sections, etc. all chipped in on that one objective. I understand that general idea, but it detracts from the book's credibility.

The book does not spend a lot of time on giving examples of how to develop OKRs. It has a lot of illustrative examples of businesses that used OKRs and had miraculous turn-arounds, but the book spends little time on how to actually find and instantiate. A chapter or three that talked through the process with some simple examples would have been welcomed.

Finally, I'm at a start-up now that is using the OKR methodology, and the book implies that you need to be "all in" on OKRs. We are finding that you need to find a way to work into OKR. The everywhere all at once approach the book advocates can be wildly impractical.

All in all, this is a good idea, but the book would have benefitted from some additional how-to chapters and a little less marketing.

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JG Araujo
This book is life changing
Reviewed in Brazil on July 17, 2023
Verified Purchase
Read it and comment bellow if it is not.
As a manager we commonly fall for lack of vision from the top.
This book clearly illustrates what an on sync enterprise can accomplish.
Totally worth the time.

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Pepe
Muy bien
Reviewed in Spain on July 9, 2024
Verified Purchase
Todo llegó muy bien y rápido

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Reader
👌
Reviewed in India on April 9, 2024
Verified Purchase
Fantastic book. Wish I had read it a lot earlier in my career. Simplifies a very complicated process. Lovely examples as well.

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N Mehta
Excellent book - Strongly recommend
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 4, 2021
Verified Purchase
I really enjoyed reading this book. Everything explained very well by author with good case studies.

Great to know regarding Google case study and some other case studies.

There is a lot to learn from this book. All the organisations from small, medium to large need to read this book.

I strongly recommend this book to read to take your organisation to a new heights.

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Marc
Herausragendes Business Buch zum Thema OKR's
Reviewed in Germany on January 28, 2021
Verified Purchase
Da viele Rezensionen hier verhältnismäßig negativ sind, fühle ich mich gezwungen ein paar Worte zu dem Buch zu schreiben. Ich bin der Meinung, dass dieses Buch ist, was man daraus macht, wie so vieles im Leben. Persönlich halte ich das Buch für wahnsinnig gut und brilliant.

Was man Wissen sollte, aber bereits der Einband hergibt, es handelt sich mit Sicherheit nicht um eine wissenschaftliche Abhandlung oder Anleitung um all seine Probleme zu lösen und das perfekte Unternehmen aufzubauen. Hier werde OKRs dargestellt, ein simples, aber brilliantes Tool zur strategischen Zielsetzung in Unternehmen. Um dieses Tool zu veranschaulichen, gibt es viele Beispiele, die zumeist ein Kapitel umfassen, von Google, über die Melinda and Bill Gates Stiftung bis zu ONE ist alles dabei. Die Kapitel sind kurz gehalten und daher sehr gut leserlich. Als Ressourcen sind dann auch noch ein Auszug von Googles OKR Prozess gegeben, was mit Sicherheit eine gute Orientierung ist. Als kleines i-Tüpfelchen sehe ich noch die vielen Geschichten und persönlichen Erzählungen des Autors und des gesamten Silicon Valley.

Alles in allem halte ich dieses Buch für sehr gelungen um OKRs und die sich ergebenden Möglichkeiten zu verstehen. Die persönlichen Noten des Autors machen dieses Buch zu etwa besonderem unter den Business Ratgebern. Ich werde dieses Buch mit Sicherheit weiterempfehlen und kann daher auch hier nur zu einem Kauf raten.

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Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs Hardcover – April 24, 2018

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5.0 out of 5 stars Great Execution Book!

5.0 out of 5 stars Unlocking Success: A Deep Dive into OKRs

4.0 out of 5 stars A good idea, but a little over-stated

Top reviews from other countries

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is life changing

5.0 out of 5 stars Muy bien

5.0 out of 5 stars 👌

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book - Strongly recommend

5.0 out of 5 stars Herausragendes Business Buch zum Thema OKR's

Great Execution Book!

Unlocking Success: A Deep Dive into OKRs

A good idea, but a little over-stated

This book is life changing

Muy bien

👌

Excellent book - Strongly recommend

Herausragendes Business Buch zum Thema OKR's