Explained by example

Let me explain the concept first before going into the theoretical details. With something almost everyone personally can relate to 'how to lose 15 pounds'.

All the credits to the podcast 'Chasing Excellence, '#116 Turning broad goals into concrete action' by Ben Bergeron. Stolen with pride. I have written down a part of his show, edited to improve readability.

Turn a broad goal into concrete actions

'How can you turn a broad goal into what you can do today to achieve it? How to have a system of accountability that allows you to be effective on a regular basis?'

'One of the solutions to make things happen is accountability.' 

First step 'Why'

'You begin with the higher level ideas. the ‘why’ behind it’. For example: ‘I want to get in shape’. Ask yourself 'Why do you want to get in shape?’

‘You have to answer that question first. You can’t leave it at that. Because what happens is that, if your 'why' doesn’t hurt enough, you are not going to do it.'

'You have to figure out, what it is you are trying to solve. How important is that to you? If it is something like ‘I need to get in shape because if I don’t …' or 'I need to change my lifestyle, if I don’t, the doctor said, I am going to die in six months.’ That’s a pretty big why. Most people in that situation change what they are doing.'

'You have to start with a really big thing, with a big why. If the why is not big enough you will not be as successful as you could be.'

'You need a big why to withstand some struggle and adversity along the way. And you are going to be excited to be held accountable along the way.' 

Second step 'get specific'

'From there you need to get specific. From motivational qualitative specific metrics (mission and vision) into specific objectives to narrow it down to one thing. What fires you up and gets you out of bed. From there, break it down into smart, measurable key results.'

'Have between 3 to 5 goals (and key results).'

'Then you break these goals into quarters, as landmarks. You can hold your attention for about three months. And at the end of these 90 days, you have a quarterly check-in and you ask yourself how you did. Schedule this in your google calendar en hold yourself accountable.'

'This is the magic. This is the accountability everyone else is missing when they make New Year's resolutions goals. They start and they are going for ten days and then the end of the year comes up and ‘I don’t really remember what they were…’

'Every single quarter you are going to check in to see if you are tracking to hit your one years’ and you can have different quarterlies along the way.'

Example: 'How to lose 15 pounds' and your why

'For example, you want to lose 15 pounds this year. The first question I ask is ‘why?’, Because what you created there is the metric. I don’t know if that really gets you geared up or not. So ‘why do you want to lose 15 pounds’?'

‘I want to lose 15 pounds because I want to look more confident on the beach.’

‘Why do you want to look more confident on the beach?’

‘Because I am looking for a romantic partner.’

‘Now we are getting to something, this is actually a meaningful thing. You want more confidence. It is not about those 15 pounds. What you want to do, is to have more confidence to find a potential partner. Now we are getting to your real ‘why’. What we do is to spend some time formulating this, that resonates, that’s real. Losing the 15 pounds is one of the things to get to your end goal, finding that romantic partner. Now we have the why behind that.'

We got two things now:

• the big overarching thing that makes it a bit sexier and rememberable: the why is to 'find a romantic partner'
• the specific objective is to ‘lose 15 pounds next year’

Objective and key results [OKR]

'From there what we do is to define ‘what do we believe we need to do in the next 90 days to get there’. Break it down into quarterly objective(s). And put these completely inside your control. 'You can’t just say I need to lose 5 pounds. We need to turn that objective into actionable and controllable things that are going to help you lose those 5 pounds, your key results. 

'The 90-day objective is to ‘lose 5 pounds.’

'The corresponding key results are what you need to make sure you do, to lose those 5 pounds in that quarter.'

 What are the things you must do that are totally in your control?' Your key results can be, like, ‘no desserts’ or ‘no eating out’ and ‘working out consistency’. Now, let’s make these three super-specific and measurable.

• ‘You are going to CrossFit 4 days a week’
• ‘you are going to eat out only once a week’
• ‘no desserts except for Saturday night’

The secret is the check-in

'Now we have this... Every single week, at the same time, we are going to check-in. With a coach, with a business partner or with yourself. We are going through your key results and track how did we last week. And you are going to hold yourself accountable.'

'It is amazing what checking a box does for people. It is amazing what social pressure can do. This is the secret sauce.'

'You go through the specific results: ‘done’ or ‘not done’. If you have a miss, talk about why you missed that. Now we are doing something, we are solving an issue. Than we are getting to that cause again, zoom out and ask ‘why’ you had a miss.

‘It was really tough.’

‘Why was it tough?’

Pull it back a few dominos and we might find things like obstacles we didn’t even realize; like ‘my schedule is this’, or ‘we are not grocery shopping enough’ or ... we might find so many things. Now we are solving things along the way to clear the obstacles that allow you to achieve your goal. And become accountable on a weekly basis.

If you rinse, wash, repeat that process, 12 times over a quarter, we get to the end of the quarter and we do another check-in. Depending on the result, create the next set of accountabilities for the next quarter.

Find you why, define your goals and the specific actions within your control to get there. Track on a weekly basis. Figure it out the obstacles and solve them. Take ownership yourself. What is causing them and then make the changes.

The power is being accountable

The power is in the peer pressure. Being accountable to some else, to do this in person, look them in the eye and say ‘I didn’t do that’. We, human beings, feel the responsibility towards each other to follow through to our word. It creates a lot of accountability along the way. (Not saying you cannot do it on your own as well.)

This is the secret to get your business to move forward, This is the secret to get your yearly goals and resolutions, to move the needle for you personally. You need to answer on a weekly basis if you are doing these things to achieve quarterly objectives that stack up to your one year.

OKR theory explained

A simple goal setting system and to keep track of your progress is the ‘Objective and Key Results’ [OKR] methodology. It describes your ’what we think is important and why this is important’ plus ‘how do we get there’. In the meanwhile, it smashes those nasty departmental silos. 

In all honesty, the terminology 'OKR' falsely appears to be a buzz word. It is anything but. Continue to read and give it a go, it really works and moves the needle. From business objectives into personal objectives. I tried and tested with a project for the Olympics Tokyo 2020 and writing this book.

This OKR methodology blew my mind. I never heard about it and it feels like the best-kept secret. 

Simple and transparent

I like it because of its simplicity, transparency, openness and no-nonsense approach. It gives a tangible measurable direction with accountability and clarity. As all is written down, openly communicated and available for all employees in the company, everyone knows what everyone else is doing and can help each other.

‘With the eruption of social media, transparency is the default setting for our daily lives. It’s the express lane to operating excellence. Yet at most companies today, goals remain secrets.’ This OKR methodology embraces this transparency to enable the entire company to work towards the same goals. Everybody knows the projects the others are working on, therefor it also becomes easier to say ’no’ to requests that are not in line with your OKRs. It makes objectives objective, written down in black and white.

This is used by brands like AOL, BMW, Disney, Dropbox, Exxon, Google, Intel, LinkedIn, Oracle, Samsung, Slack, Spotify, and Twitter. If it works for them, for sure it can work for me and you. Described into detail by John Doerr in ‘Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs’.

Objective 'what'

You set your objective, ‘what’ is the most important for the next three, six or even twelve months. What will move the company — and you — forward. The attribution to the business value has to be clear, otherwise, there is no need to invest time and effort in the objective.

Ideally, you stick to 3 or a maximum of 5 objectives quarterly to keep your focus. Significant, concrete, action-oriented, and inspirational. And have one owner for the accountability. If your objective doesn’t fit in one line, it is not clear enough. If you wrote it down in 5 minutes they probably are not good, think.

First, you set the company OKR, than for the team followed by the individual OKRs. By being open and transparent on all objectives from top to down, the entire company can truly work as a team. And help each other.

Key Result 'how'

This is the ‘how’ you are going to get to the objective. Very detailed and specific and time-bound, aggressive yet realistic. Most of all, measurable and verifiable. Describe the desired outcome, not the activities. Mostly a maximum of five KR’s is what you need to reach the objective.

Four benefits

The four direct benefits of the OKR methodology is to bring focus and commit to priorities, to align and connect for teamwork, to track for accountability, and to stretch for amazing.

Time path

• 4–6 weeks before quarter: Brainstorm Annual and Q1 OKRs for Company. Senior leaders start brainstorming top-line company OKRs. If you’re setting OKRs for Q1, this is also the time to set your annual plan, which can help guide the direction of the company.
• 2 weeks before quarter: Communicate Company-wide OKRs for Upcoming Year and Q. Finalize company OKRs and communicate them to everyone.
• Start of quarter: Communicate Team Q1 OKRs. Based on the company’s OKRs, teams develop their own OKRs and share them at their meetings.
• 1 week after Start of quarter: Share Employee Q1 OKRs. One week after team OKRs are communicated, contributors share their own OKRs. This may require negotiation between contributors and their managers, typically in one-on-one settings.
• Throughout quarter: Employees Track Progress and Check-in. Throughout the quarter, employees measure and share their progress, checking in regularly with their managers.
• Near end of quarter: Employees Reflect and Score Q1 OKRs. Toward the end of the quarter, contributors score their OKRs, perform a self-assessment, and reflect on what they have accomplished.

An example by Intel

Objective: ‘Demonstrate the 8080’s superior performance as compared to the Motorola 6800’

Key Results:

• Deliver five benchmarks. Develop a demo.
• Develop sales training materials for the field force.
• Call on three customers to prove the material works.’

Another example

Objective ‘Win the Indy 500’

Key Results:

• Increase average lap speed by 2 percent
• Test at wind tunnel ten times
• Reduce average pit stop time by one second
• Reduce pit stop errors by 50 percent
• Practice pit stops one hour per day

Read the book

This is just scratching the surface with the essence described in a nutshell. On my personal recommendation, read this book, try it for yourself and never look back. ‘Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs’ by John Doerr

Definition newsroom

In short: it is the central place where all news-related content comes together. The objective of this content is to inform, not to sell. Hence, originally the target audience for the newsroom is a bit different than for the .com. It used to be focused on the press. You feed the journalists with news with the objective the write about you. However, the world has changed.

From .press to .newsroom

In our digital days, the audience for the newsroom and for both departments is broader. Your external communications are not limited to the power of the press anymore. As a brand, you become your own publisher. Communicating with the broadest audience thinkable. From the traditional press, financial stakeholders, to interested customers, fans and followers, up to the skeptic frenemies. No need to further explain this, is there?

The impact on how you communicate is accordingly. You use your newsroom to show and tell your passion and why you do what you do as a brand. The most convenient way to bring structure to your newsroom is to use the topics within your content structure.

Nike newsroom

A great example by Nike with about.nike.com linking to news.nike.com. In the ‘about’ they bring their passion and their ‘why’ to live and explain what it means for them. Clicking on e.g. the topic ‘innovation’, it brings you to the latest news in the newsroom, arranged by tags.

Airbnb newsroom

Another best practice is news.airbnb.com. Mentioned before, they are doing an amazing job by arranging their content with tags. Up to date with recent content. Easy to digest and navigate, and written in a consumer and press-friendly tone of voice. Next to all this, their newsroom is alive and breathing. Keeping an eye on them for several years, I notice changes in their tags and how they bring structure to their (news) content. In line with slight changes in brand identity, they adjusted their newsroom accordingly.

Have fun

A newsroom never is written in stone. You have your content structure as the fundament. Improve and optimize by learning and doing. If some tags do not fulfill the needs of your audience or by you, simply change them. Play around, have fun in publishing your news and capturing your audiences’ hearts.

Requirements for your newsroom

To get yourself going on the newsroom, a few basics have to be in place:

• Your content structure with tags, themes or topics.
• A modern and digital content savvy corporate communications and public relations department. Sounds like a no-brainer, in practice these two departments often tend to be a bit more traditional.
• A silo-agnostic mindset and culture. Use, abuse and re-use the content produced by all departments. You will be surprised how much of the content from marketing is relevant for corp or pr and vice versa. The same goes for HR and talent recruitment. Join the efforts with a central overview.
• A tool. You can build a newsroom yourself, or get some SAAS software for a fraction of the price. In all honesty, a bit biased, I a big fan of PressPage. I stumbled upon them in my search for newsroom software and pleasantly surprised by the platform and features. It takes a few weeks to set up your own design and UX, some days to learn all the tricks and then you can start publishing right away. From start to finish you can be live within 6 to 8 weeks.
• Distribution. The great thing about a tool like PressPage is that you can integrate your distribution in one-click-go. And you can make use of their worldwide press database, GDPR compliant.

Visual mindset for newsroom content

Publishing via a newsroom needs a different mindset and assets. It is visual. Therefore you need visuals. And getting engaging qualitative visuals can be a burden. And to combine the visual with the text, that's a skill. One that makes the difference.

This all sounds pretty simple and straight forward. In reality, it is a shift in mindset and ways of working. This takes time to learn, yet is absolutely worth the effort. And please... please stay away from the stock. Using the usual suspect stock photography does more harm than good. Insider tip: give communities like pexels.com or unsplash.com a try for free amazing visuals.

As you are sending out your news, use this moment to inspire your audience in the broadest way. Not only with your news item itself, but you can also combine it with related relevant content items. To touch, to educate and sometimes even to sell. For example, if you send news about a new travel destination, combine it with the top 10 tips for great restaurants at the same destination. Or combine with a long read on the cultural history of the destination. Easy does it. The more information you provide your (press) audience, the easier it is for them to write about you.

Next step

Once you have made the internal decision to embrace this new way news distribution, just start. Inspire the corp comms and public relations department with those best practices. Deep dive in the PressPage information to educate yourself.

Setup the requirements as mentioned above. Get a dedicated content consultant on board to get you started. After the newsroom and structure have been set up, this consultant is obsolete and can hand over the work to the daily team.

Steal with pride, learn from the best, and copy-past what works for you.

Not affiliated

In all honesty, I am a bit biased. As I publish my content via the PressPage platform. They provide me with their software for thinklikeapublisher.com. Yet, me being enthusiastic about their services, is not affiliated in any way. There is no fee, no kickback or any financial compensation other than me being the lucky bastard using their software for free.

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