My new Objectives and Key Results (OKR) Leadership book (2019)
Please help me promote my new leadership book! The editing is nearly completed… Yeah!
Title: Objectives + Key Results (OKR) Leadership; How to apply Silicon Valley’s secret sauce to your career, team or organization.
1. The e-book digital release is available now. Pre-order here.
2. The paper and audible book releases will be available after 11.14.19. Please forward this page to your friends and colleagues today.
3. Share these testimonials:
“Doug’s leadership training of the OKR process has been received positively by my sales team due to the coaching being simple, engaging and very effective.” Terry Fortner, VP Sales and Marketing, North America LKQ Corporation.
“Doug Gray makes the complex understandable. More important, he makes it doable.” Craig E. Aronoff, Ph.D., author, Chairman and co-founder, The Family Business Consulting Group, Inc.
“John Doerr’s book “Measure What Matters” describes how OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) transformed Silicon Valley. With this new book, Doug builds on the OKR approach with practical and valuable guidance for individuals, teams and organizations. If you plan on implementing OKRs for your organization, you need this book.” John Mattox, PhD, author, Head of Talent Research, Metrics that Matter, Explorance
“The top five companies in Silicon Valley have an economic value as great as the United Kingdom. They must know something. Doug has uncovered their secrets in his OKR Leadership approach.” Jac Fitzenz, PhD, author, Founder Saratoga Institute and Human Capital Source
“Doug Gray provides readers with a ‘moment of truth’ concerning how we can transform lofty objectives into down-to-earth results.” James Dillon, co-Founder, Emerging Step
“Introducing the OKR framework has not only allowed us to align our company goals throughout the organization, but it has also provided an easy mechanism to give visibility into how we drive operational accountability. That visibility now exists for both our employees and supervisors. OKR Leadership has encouraged broader and more in-depth conversations about the right key results to drive individual or team objectives.” Justin Jude, Acting President, LKQ Corp, North America
“Doug’s new book challenges me to be a leader and to practice leadership. This book provides a practical framework that will make you a more successful leader.“ David Cardwell, SVP, IT Operations, F100 company
“Finally, a much needed leadership focus on the importance of clear objectives and specific, measurable results. This book will be useful not just for the present but throughout a practitioner’s career.“ Dave Vance, PhD, author, Executive Director, Center for Talent Reporting
“In his new and exciting book, OKR Leadership, Doug Gray shares how his proven techniques can help you move the needle to achieve the business outcomes you’ve been striving for. If you’re ready for a transformation, then OKR Leadership is a must read!” Sheri Bankston, VP, Alliance Safety Council
“History is littered with the graves of organizations who had the right strategy but were unable to execute. Lack of execution is a very real threat to every organization’s survival. This is a very practical look at the OKR system to accomplishing results. Written incredibly clearly, Doug Gray has brought OKR Leadership to life in a way that would benefit any organization.” Brian Underhill, Ph.D., author, Founder and CEO, CoachSource
4. Share this back cover:
Leaders practice leadership, just as physicians practice medicine and attorneys practice law. Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are the secret sauce that drives the largest migration of financial assets and technological innovation ever recorded in human history to Silicon Valley, California, USA, since the 1970s. OKR Leadership — the process for managers and leaders to practice what matters – is the secret sauce that drives transformational leadership, employee engagement and the next generation of management consulting. Join the OKR Leadership movement. See details at www.Action-Learning.com or www.OKRLeadership.com. This practical and valuable book will help you practice OKR Leadership in your career, team or organization immediately.
7. Download Chapter 1 as my gift to you (below.) Then write a review in your favorite social media platform. Then forward this page to your friends and colleagues.
How to make your next proposal better than your last one.
Let’s face it, of all the skills you can bring to bear to help your clients, the limiting factor is your ability to get proposals signed. You need to make money. You want to share your genius with the world world. You need to get your proposal written and sold. You need to deliver value at each step of the sales process. Here are three great ways to write coaching proposals that sell. You can be smarter than your competitors.
Less fluff, more value. Your job is to add value and solve your client’s problems. Nothing else matters. Your model, framework, tactic or magical gifts do NOT provide value to your client. Your solution is the value. Stay focused on the results you can deliver.
2. Fewer credentials, more results. Congratulations, your certification/ degree is a huge accomplishment. But nobody understands what it means. Make sure more space is devoted to results than credentials.
3. Make it easy to understand. If your buyer has to exercise their brain to realize how good your proposal is, then you haven’t done the work required to make it great. Keep the structure simple.
The Feedback Process
EXPERT CONTRIBUTOR: Tom Stone
We all talk about feedback a lot. Most leaders think they do it well. But my opinion is that we simply don’t know how to give feedback well. The problem is our inability to give good feedback creates problems down the road.
A lack of feedback gives people unspoken approval for unacceptable behavior. This false approval encourages people to continue patterns of behavior that don’t help them or anyone else.
But it gets worse. Everyone in an organization is constantly evaluating competency. So a lack of feedback not only affects the person who needs to receive, but it also affects everybody else who knows that feedback should be given.
A leader is never out from under the microscope. Giving good feedback is one of the surest ways to encourage effective behavior and to demonstrate leadership competency. It is a skill that can be learned, and we can learn to teach it and demand it as part of our culture.
Feedback leads to learning.
The Leadership Wisdom of Dogs
EXPERT CONTRIBUTOR: Krissi Barr
The attributes, traits and characteristics that separate leaders from the rest of the pack can be clearly seen in the behavior of dogs: loyalty, perseverance, friendship, teamwork, honesty, bravery, ingenuity, playfulness, curiosity and an unflagging desire for more information.I call it the Fido Factor.
Faithful leaders earn the trust of their team and their customers by doing the right things and living up to their word.
Inspirational leaders move people to do the meaningful and the extraordinary.
Determined leaders combine perseverance with a dose of fearlessness to keep moving toward goals.
Observant leaders are committed to taking in as much information as possible in order to make the best decisions.
Our Credo: (if you like these beliefs, then you’ll love us)
1. Chaos in the marketplace for “professional coaching” can be reduced with outcome-based protocols.
2. The strengths of professional coaches (e.g., integrity, fairness, collaboration, leadership, bravery) can be leveraged to co-create the future of professional coaching.
3. Teams are stronger than individuals. Collaborative projects reduce individual risk and yield higher rewards.
4. Expert leadership coaches and authors will contribute best practices and attract more users or followers.
FACT:
There are over 50,000 “professional coaches” in a $7B global industry that lacks professionalism. Literally anyone with a business card can self-declare that they are a “professional coach.”
OPINION:
The result is chaos in the marketplace, unethical practices, and a market ripe for disruption and consolidation.
The Process is a community of expert leadership consultants and coaches. Join us.
Your Next Steps (How you can help):
1. Are you subscribed to the Process? If not, click here
2. Forward this email to ALL the leadership consultants you know.
3. Are you an expert? Yes, you are. Submit some expert content and share your genius with the world. Click here.
Recently I was asked this question by someone who desperately wanted to be certified as an “executive coach.”
Be careful. Here are the facts.
There is not one “best coaching certification or methodology for those who work with executives,” for several reasons.
1. Executive coaching is a new approach with a short history (about 20 years) within psychology (about 100 years). The protocols that would be “certifiable” have not yet been well defined. There is no external board or established practices, as in other professions such as healthcare, finance or law. I often ask, “Who certifies the certifiers?” (And I have been certified by several coaching providers for decades.) One example of certification based on my dissertation research with global professional coaches is here.
2. The coach training industry is estimated at 53,500 global coach practitioners and over $7B in annual revenue, with 115 accredited coach training programs (ICF, 2016). The reality is that coaching certifications and silly acronyms abound. I co-developed one back in 1999, when there were only about 20 ICF accredited coach training programs.
3. There is market confusion about definitions and coaching outcomes. The result is that vendors have responded to the market confusion. A gap exists between theory and practice because executive coaching lacks rigorous measurement, evidence-based protocols and standard processes. The largest organization, the International Coaching Federation (ICF) stated “the top future obstacles for coaching are (a) untrained individuals and (b) marketplace confusion (ICF, 2016).” That survey understates the confusion. Your question illustrates the desire by many to “get certified.”
4. In any marketplace vacuum, competitors emerge. Countless colleges and universities will declare that their certification programs define standards. Be careful. That archaic model presumes that academics know best, and we are increasingly aware of disruption in the marketplace. I like academics. My dissertation explored the competitive advantage of coaching protocols, using global professional coaches. As the “coaching profession” develops momentum, I encourage you to study the practical market demands for coaching protocols. You may want to be cautious. “The top future opportunities for coaching are (a) increased awareness of the benefits of coaching, and (b) credible data on ROI/ROE/outcomes (ICF, 2016)”. In short, we need to define protocols for outcome-based coaching, including useful certification programs.
5. Certification programs exist. I favor the ROI methodology described at the ROI Institute, and a 2-level executive coaching certification process. Last week the co-founder, Patti Phillips, and I discussed certification programs that moved beyond knowledge to practical demonstrations of mastery. She encouraged me to focus on practical applications. (Disclosure: I trademarked the AD-FIT coaching protocol when some F500 clients asked “How do you operationalize what works?” Those details are at Products Archive – Action Learning (https://actionlearnin.wpengine.com/products/) and throughout this website. The fact is that “Many professional consultants or coaches do not adhere to evidence-based protocols (Foster & Auerbach, 2015; MacKie, 2014. Citation sources available upon request.)
6. Organizational clients may design their own executive coaching certification programs. They are cost-effective and foster cultural expectations. (Disclosure: I also serve as an engagement manager and executive coach at CoachSource | Executive Coaching Excellence (http://coachsource.com/), the largest global provider of executive coaching.) Those internal coaching certification programs are customized internally, with expertise from coaches like me, for specific business outcomes that are proprietary.
Bottom line: Certification for executive coaching implies a mature profession with protocols that satisfy a market demand.
If useful, please contact me here. I’d love to discuss your interest in executive coaching certification programs.
Recently I was asked to speak at the Human Resource conference for the State of Tennessee. They wanted four sessions on “How to increase employee engagement.”
Studies continue to show that employee engagement in the workplace remains low- around the 30% range. Low levels of employee engagement have a negative impact on achieving organizational goals, and create a workplace that does not encourage high performance. During this session, we will answer the three key questions of employee engagement: 1) What do we know from evidence-based science? 2) How can I apply that science to increase my personal level of engagement? 3) How can I improve the engagement levels of others? This course introduces a new model based on positive psychology practices, called the AD-FIT%TM model, that you can apply immediately.
This course provides leaders at all levels with an introduction into the science and practice of employee engagement. Any manager or leader with a growth mindset can apply this course content to lead individual, group or organizational change in your business. This content has been distributed to thousands of leaders in governments, private and nonprofit organizations, as well as individuals.
The content of this course is gleaned from thousands of our leadership consulting clients since 1997, and the presenter’s dissertation research on positive psychology.
The goal of this course is to introduce leaders like you to world-class techniques so that you gain competitive advantage.
Learning objectives:
Recognize key variables that influence employee engagement
Discover how to measure employee engagement
Identify how to increase individual employee engagement
Identify how to develop organizational employee engagement
Please contact us for the handout before viewing the video section of this course.
When 5” of powder blessed Breckenridge, CO, yesterday, I took this stunning video and wrote these thoughts. Here are three short perspectives on skiing above treeline, and strategic leadership.
Flow is designed. Flow can be defined as that timeless psychological state when challenge and skill are in balance. Most people cannot imagine skiing double-black diamond runs down 1,500’. Most people should never try extreme skiing. Skiing above treeline, like any hobby, is an opportunity to experience ekstasis, that state of being literally outside of time and space. Flow occurs when we take one turn at a time. We live in the moment. We proceed to a new place. Yes, you can design flow into your life. There are seven contributing variables for designing flow. Contact me for details or read this book or this book.
2. Leaders are creators. Leaders build products or services. Doubt me? Then read any biography. Only those extraordinary leaders with an obsessive focus make the history books. Average leaders do not warrant attention in the history books or the biographies. How about you? By definition, leaders create value for their followers. And all significant leaders create great teams. If you were to say “yes” to that idea, or create something new, or delight a client, today, then you would see for yourself. One example of a significant leadership event in Nashville, TN is here.
3. Technology follows goals. Many years ago I climbed this mountain using backcountry ski mountaineering gear. It took all day. My goal was to experience grandeur. The adventure was exhausting but wonderful. Two years ago new lift lines made it possible to ascend to the same elevation without sweating. The technology followed my goals. Ironically, those ski trails are now called “Wonderland”, “Bliss” and “Euphoria.” Get the point? There is plenty of grandeur to be found when we ski above treeline.
March is a great season for strategic thinking.
March is the season of heavy snowfalls, springtime flowers, new birth, opportunity, and clear intentions.
You may never ski above treeline. But you can certainly make smarter decisions about your professional and personal goals.
Some coaching questions include: (1) How can you design flow in your life or business? (2) What can you create today? (3) What goals will inspire grandeur?
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