9 Comments

When you say, "admitting OKRs aren't working..." do you mean some particular metrics?

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I had similar questions about the exact same comment "admitting OKRs aren't working". Is that mean that some people/organizations have come to conclusions that OKRs aren't working? If that's the case, how to prevent chasing outputs?

Would love to know more on this.

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This is such a beautiful piece that no one talks about often John. Sharing with my product and design team.

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It's like earning more money and finding yourself adding new useless stuff into your house (and into your life).

Such a simple realization that often "less is more" and yet with such a profound impact. John, you just blew my mind with this one.

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Taking the analogy forward, Maria.. perhaps we need a "Marie Kondo" in all parts of our lives :)

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There is a proven cognitive bias at work here, that when presented with a situation, process, idea, object etc. that requires improvement people tend to come up with additive rather than subtractive solutions. There’s was a really interesting paper published on it Nature back in 2021 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03380-y

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There's some research which backs this: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/04/brains-prefer-adding-sustainability/

Also, not sure if you saw Bob Sutton's brilliant article talking about similar themes: https://www.wsj.com/articles/bosses-staff-employees-less-work-11663790432

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Love it. We do seem to have a neurological blindspot to subtractive change. The best part is no part. The best step is no step.

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I really like the analogy of pruning in terms of its role in growth.

I think typical incentive structures at organizations more easily reward additive changes over subtractive changes. Additive changes are seen, subtractive changes are felt. As a result, we naturally bias towards the visible and apparent... and worse, performative changes.

A balanced plate of the two feels like the right aspiration to work with, especially for leaders who *should* be able to look past the optics.

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