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> it was always a metric closely aligned with what customers want

liontwist 2y ago
All OKRs help customers, but not all customer help meets an OKR. Finding and fixing product problems requires decentralized decision making and trust.
- DrScientist 2y ago
  Indeed. What I find odd, is often the biggest proponents of the free market - with it's decentralised decision making process ( and redundancy of effort ), decide that total centralized, top down control is the best way to run their own company - as they think top down decisions and minimising waste through duplication is the way to go. As with all things - it's a balance of course.
  - zeroonetwothree 2y ago
    You might want to read "The Nature of the Firm", which discusses this.
    - DrScientist 2y ago
      That's a slightly different angle - if I understand correctly it's about why firms exist at all - and if I were to summarise it's because lack of trust costs - a firms boundaries are created to balance transactional costs ( within the firm it's low, between firms or individuals it can dominate ) versus the costs of perhaps not being market efficient. My argument above is about not what shapes a firm's boundary but how it operates internally - too much top down control potentially risks exacerbating the risks associated with being a company and also potentially increases internal transactional costs as well - worse of both worlds! - all that ceremony around decision making, time spent justifying existences, inability to just act. Obviously as I said above - it's a balance - just as it is with country/international systems.
  - liontwist 2y ago
    That’s an easy one to answer. Corporations don’t have police or taxation power and so have more limited impact on your individual freedom. In a “free market” you can choose what firms you work for and with, except the government. The government would be more efficient in an autocratic leadership. But government efficiency is not the societies efficiency and well being
    - DrScientist 2y ago
      > In a “free market” you can choose what firms you work for and with, except the government. Eh? Nobody ever leaves one country for another? > The government would be more efficient in an autocratic leadership. But government efficiency is not the societies efficiency and well being I think the free market proponents would say otherwise - one key problem is the myth of perfect information - you are imagining it's possible to concentrate all the required information to make any correct decision into a very small group of people at the top ( and assuming these people are competent and not corrupt). One of the ideas behind why distributed markets work is the information about what is needed is communicated by the mechanisms of the market itself. And to bring it back to the original post - does the CEO have all the information required to direct others to meet the customers need across all areas - or is it better to use the collective intelligence of the entire organisation?
- aurareturn 2y ago
  >Finding and fixing product problems requires decentralized decision making and trust. Which is exponentially harder in a large company - hence why OKRs are invented.
- jcgl 2y ago
  > All OKRs help customers And in the real world, not even this is true, due to the cost of satisfying OKRs--opportunity cost is one kind of cost, but optimizing an OKR can of course negatively impact other valuable things that aren't represented by OKRs.
makeitdouble 2y ago
Parent's point is that customers want more than single metrics, and the metrics you leave on the side to priorize the OKRs can be as critical. Put another way, if your client has 20 inherent metrics, you can't have 20 OKRs so you're always at risk to mess it when focusing on a smaller set.
- liontwist 2y ago
  Exactly. So a productive employee is one who identifies a problem and knows which of the following to do: - fix it themselves without anyone asking - bring it up to higher management - deprioritize it based on severity and leadership initiatives This is the pattern taught by Jethro to Moses in the Old Testament: every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.
  - devsda 2y ago
    > fix it themselves without anyone asking - bring it up to higher management No matter what your intentions are, doing this frequent enough will give you reputation of being a lonely wolf and trouble maker.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - liontwist 2y ago
      I’m sorry that’s your experience. But it can’t function any other way. You are a filter of small problems for everyone in the org higher than you. If you bring up everything up the chain your level may as well not exist.
      - marcosdumay 2y ago
        There are many places out there where individual contributors are agency-less executors. I don't think it ever worked. (Remember when Japan destroyed the world's car industry just by changing that single thing? And that's industry work, highly repetitive and formalized.) But that never stopped managers from doing something.

All OKRs help customers, but not all customer help meets an OKR. Finding and fixing product problems requires decentralized decision making and trust.

DrScientist 2y ago
Indeed. What I find odd, is often the biggest proponents of the free market - with it's decentralised decision making process ( and redundancy of effort ), decide that total centralized, top down control is the best way to run their own company - as they think top down decisions and minimising waste through duplication is the way to go. As with all things - it's a balance of course.
- zeroonetwothree 2y ago
  You might want to read "The Nature of the Firm", which discusses this.
  - DrScientist 2y ago
    That's a slightly different angle - if I understand correctly it's about why firms exist at all - and if I were to summarise it's because lack of trust costs - a firms boundaries are created to balance transactional costs ( within the firm it's low, between firms or individuals it can dominate ) versus the costs of perhaps not being market efficient. My argument above is about not what shapes a firm's boundary but how it operates internally - too much top down control potentially risks exacerbating the risks associated with being a company and also potentially increases internal transactional costs as well - worse of both worlds! - all that ceremony around decision making, time spent justifying existences, inability to just act. Obviously as I said above - it's a balance - just as it is with country/international systems.
- liontwist 2y ago
  That’s an easy one to answer. Corporations don’t have police or taxation power and so have more limited impact on your individual freedom. In a “free market” you can choose what firms you work for and with, except the government. The government would be more efficient in an autocratic leadership. But government efficiency is not the societies efficiency and well being
  - DrScientist 2y ago
    > In a “free market” you can choose what firms you work for and with, except the government. Eh? Nobody ever leaves one country for another? > The government would be more efficient in an autocratic leadership. But government efficiency is not the societies efficiency and well being I think the free market proponents would say otherwise - one key problem is the myth of perfect information - you are imagining it's possible to concentrate all the required information to make any correct decision into a very small group of people at the top ( and assuming these people are competent and not corrupt). One of the ideas behind why distributed markets work is the information about what is needed is communicated by the mechanisms of the market itself. And to bring it back to the original post - does the CEO have all the information required to direct others to meet the customers need across all areas - or is it better to use the collective intelligence of the entire organisation?
aurareturn 2y ago
>Finding and fixing product problems requires decentralized decision making and trust. Which is exponentially harder in a large company - hence why OKRs are invented.
jcgl 2y ago
> All OKRs help customers And in the real world, not even this is true, due to the cost of satisfying OKRs--opportunity cost is one kind of cost, but optimizing an OKR can of course negatively impact other valuable things that aren't represented by OKRs.

makeitdouble 2y ago

Parent's point is that customers want more than single metrics, and the metrics you leave on the side to priorize the OKRs can be as critical. Put another way, if your client has 20 inherent metrics, you can't have 20 OKRs so you're always at risk to mess it when focusing on a smaller set.

liontwist 2y ago
Exactly. So a productive employee is one who identifies a problem and knows which of the following to do: - fix it themselves without anyone asking - bring it up to higher management - deprioritize it based on severity and leadership initiatives This is the pattern taught by Jethro to Moses in the Old Testament: every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.
- devsda 2y ago
  > fix it themselves without anyone asking - bring it up to higher management No matter what your intentions are, doing this frequent enough will give you reputation of being a lonely wolf and trouble maker.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - liontwist 2y ago
    I’m sorry that’s your experience. But it can’t function any other way. You are a filter of small problems for everyone in the org higher than you. If you bring up everything up the chain your level may as well not exist.
    - marcosdumay 2y ago
      There are many places out there where individual contributors are agency-less executors. I don't think it ever worked. (Remember when Japan destroyed the world's car industry just by changing that single thing? And that's industry work, highly repetitive and formalized.) But that never stopped managers from doing something.