What are OKRs that make them so miraculous? OKRs = Objectives by Key Results = Management by Objectives and Key Results. In short, OKRs are summarized in just one sentence: “Do what is most ESSENTIAL”.
Last week, we implemented OKRs for the entire leadership level of EQuest. The interesting thing is that the teachers and faculty welcomed this very eagerly. One might think teachers are conservative, but as it turned out, no. They were extremely enthusiastic and applied it immediately in their work. The Higher Education/College division alone has implemented the OKR management application down to every department. Meanwhile, the K12 division at Newton, Alpha, and Victory Experimental requested experts to come to each school to re-teach it in order to implement it school-wide.
In a year, a business needs to select a few of the most ESSENTIAL objectives, and select a few key results to achieve those objectives. After that, it must focus on achieving that target by all means. Do not wander off thinking about other things.
Any business that has too many objectives will find it very difficult to concentrate resources. The same goes for individuals; one should only choose a few important things to do in a day, a month, or a year, rather than trying to take on too much work.
For educators, it is very necessary to identify what is essential. There are hundreds of tasks pouring onto teachers’ heads. Statistics show that more than 50% of teachers’ time is spent on futile tasks that produce no real impact on students. For example: lesson planning, syllabus drafting, administrative reporting, grading, handling trivial incidents, complying with (unnecessary) regulations of the Department/Ministry, etc. Meanwhile, time spent on teaching, inspiring, researching good teaching methods, and providing feedback to students is not very much. (And that is not even mentioning time for family).
OKRs are a technique that allows teachers to increase educational efficiency by focusing on what is most important to teaching. For example, a group of teachers who participated in learning about OKRs wrote down the following:
Objective: 80% of final-year students’ average English scores reach above 8/10 compared to 50% last year.
And to achieve that objective, they provided several key results (Key Result = KR) as follows:
- KR1: 100% of students complete 70% of homework with scores above 8/10
- KR2: 100% of students write at least one essay a week with teacher feedback
- KR3: 90% of students read at least one 50-page book in English every month.
Below are the personal OKRs of an employee at EQuest. He set his determination as follows (within 03 months).
- Objective: Reduce 03kg of (belly) fat within 03 months.
To achieve this Objective, he set out 03 key results:
- KR1: Do not eat anything after 9 PM;
- KR2: Jog 3 times/week, at least 5 km each time; and
- KR3: Drink beer a maximum of 01 time per week.
With these 03 key results, he will reduce 3kg of (belly) fat.
In short, I highly encourage organizations and individuals to manage work and life in the spirit of OKRs. An organization or an individual will find life much brighter and clearer if they know clearly what the boss wants, what is most essential to the boss and the organization; what they themselves want, and what is the core/most especially important thing to themselves. Knowing where to go and where to head is already 1/3 of the success!
Nguyen Quoc Toan
