Giant Talk: Where Strategy Meets Results

In today's episode host Lawrence talks to Yaniv Bernstein COO at Airtasker in Australia.  Discussing why OKRs aren't a performance management tool, and linking this to why culture is so important.   If you have 3 minutes and would like to see how your goal setting/OKRs could have more impact, then why not give our maturity assessment a try?  It’s free, you get your results right away and you can a...

In today's live episode host Jenny talks to Lawrence and Matt from Koan about OKRs as a network and not a hierarchy. This is a subject that both There Be Giants and Koan feel passionately about. Check out the episode to find out why a network is critical to the success of OKRs.    If you have 3 minutes and would like to see how your goal setting/OKRs could have more impact, then why not give our m...

In this episode Lawrence talks to Kevin Kerl of SelectOne. Kevin is a fascinating guest, having worked across a range of industries, including chocolate manufacturing! Kevin joined Lawrence to drill down on metrics and why selecting great metrics really is the key to OKR success.    If you have 3 minutes and would like to see how your goal setting/OKRs could have more impact, then why not give our...

In this superb live episode of Giant Talk we have guest host Jenny Bowes discussing the importance of reflections, both personal and with your teams, and how these can lead to skyrocketing your performance. It is well known that election is a key performance habit for athletes and there is no reason this shouldn't transfer across to business. An enlightening discussion that is key to OKR success  ...

In this ep, Lawrence is joined by Brian Mallory from ACS Embrace. Brian is a self-confessed sales geek and change catalyst, having spent years honing not only his sales expertise, but also his ability to get the most out of his teams. Lawrence and Brian discuss the controversial topic of using OKRs in sales teams and practically how you can make this work in your business   If you have 3 minutes a...

We were lucky enough for this episode to have Roger Longden and Bart Den Haak join Lawrence in the Giant Talk studio - two OKR Consultants with a vast amount of knowledge in how to get it right, but also just as importantly - how you can make a complete mess of OKR implementation! Lawrence tasked the two of them with a simple question, tell us the top 3 mistakes you see organisations making, what...

Today we have Chris James joining us from Scaled Agile Inc to tell us all about the importance of reflection within your quarterly reviews and practically how this may start to manifest itself into your OKR routines. Chris also how they encourage their teams to pause and look for blockers that may cause them to not achieve their OKRs and how they can work around these. All in all a fascinating dis...

In this episode, Richard Knight tells us how you can redefine your company culture to obtain maximum OKR impact. It's a fascinating discussion in which Richard goes into real detail about the steps him and his business took and the lessons learned along the way.    Enjoy the episode!   If you have 3 minutes and would like to see how your goal setting/OKRs could have more impact, then why not give...

Last week Lawrence & Roger were joined by Matt & Scott from Koan to discuss what the future of work may look like once COVID-19 has settled back down. This led to a fab discussion with some fantastic questions thrown in from listeners, they explored in detail how remote employers will have to start responding to their employees' preferences and how Coronavirus has just been a catalyst for...

If you have listened to any of Giant Talk before, I'm sure you'll know how much we recommend having an Internal OKR Champion/Coach. This week Lawrence is joined by the enigmatic Pieter Mouton, a former OKR Champion to discuss why this role is so vital for an organisation to be successful with OKRs and the sorts of responsibilities they should be taking on.   If you have 3 minutes and would like to...

As you'll know by now, it is vital that precise metrics form part of your Key Results. In this episode, Lawrence is joined by Rich Tuckwell-Skuda - a huge evangelist of tracking data. The pair of them discuss why this is so important for OKRs and how it can be the foundation for success within any organisation.    If you have 3 minutes and would like to see how your goal setting/OKRs could have mo...

This week we dive into a problem that a lot of companies new to OKRs struggle with - how to get sales teams comfortable with stretch goals. Through a conversation with Michael Boren of Beck Technology, Lawrence dives into just why this is a common problem area and how Michael managed to overcome this hurdle with his teams. A great listen for everyone, whether facing this direct problem or otherwis...

This week Lawrence is joined by the fantastic Mathieu Cognac, Head of Strategy & Operations at Coursera. They discuss how to be agile when uncertainty hits and make sure everyone stays aligned so results are still hit, as well as how they pivoted certain parts of the organisation whilst others remained true to the original goals. A fascinating discussion that will be relevant to everyone in th...

For this week's episode, Lawrence is joined by Gustavo Ramos, of CoBlue. CoBlue are a dedicated piece of OKR software targeting the Brazilian market, which has led to an interesting amount of experiences as they try and tackle some real cultural differences. Gustavo has headed up many OKR implementations in companies of various shapes and sizes and has got some fantastic stories to share, especial...

For this episode, Lawrence is joined by the ace Alex Rifman of Anomali based in San Fran. Alex has years of experience using OKRs, both in mega-corps and in start-up environments and really has learned the Do's & Dont's first-hand. He shares these with us but also discusses with Lawrence the best way to pivot your OKRs when faced with unprecedented circumstances, such as the ones many of us ar...

If you've not heard of Marty Cagan, then you probably don't work in "product."  Marty is something of a thought leader in the Silicon Valley Product Group and he recently published a highly provocative  blog  on OKRs. TBG received many requests for comment on it as he stated that he felt unable to recommend OKRs any more as a goal management approach.   We extended an invite to Marty to join us on...

The world has changed a lot in the last 7 days, but some things haven't changed... We still need teamwork We still need alignment We still need goals to strive for We still need to challenge ourselves Perhaps now more than ever OKRs have always done this, and we shouldn't let them go now that we're facing hard times. So, myself and Roger will be joined by Brett Knowles of pm2 Consulting and Matt T...

So, here you have it... the final chapter in our awesome mini-series with Brett Knowles. In this episode we take all our learnings from E1 & E2 on Ability & Motivation (if you haven't listened to these first I'd highly recommend doing so before listening to this one!) and discuss how businesses can set a 'Prompt Strategy' in order to be able to implement OKRs faster, better, cheaper &...

For this episode, I'm joined by Mark Greenley from Victoria Plum. I'm sure most of our British listeners will be aware who Victoria Plum are, but for our global friends, VP are a market-leading online bathroom supplier, manufacturer and fitter. Perhaps not your typical OKR user, you might think, but they are actually incredibly tech-enabled and have put OKRs to great use! We discuss why it is so i...

Lawrence & Brett are back with the second part of this fab mini-series. This time digging into the different factors of ability and how as a business leader you can influence these to achieve resounding results with your OKRs. If you want to gain real traction with your OKRs then you really must listen to this mini-series, but we would hugely advise taking a listen to the first part of the min...

This is the first in a mini-series I'm running with Brett Knowles of PM2 Consulting, who brought us the fab episode back at the start of Season 2! Brett is an OKR oracle and has recently written a fascinating article on BJ Fogg's Behaviour Change Model and its relevance to OKRs ( https://www.klipfolio.com/blog/implementing-okrs-better-and-faster ). In this episode, we talk about motivators (both i...

For this week's episode, Lawrence is joined by the awesome Ian Harvey at Elsevier who is a massive evangelist of OKRs. Elsevier is a 7000 person organisation who have recently rolled out OKRs. As I'm sure you can imagine, in implementing OKRs in such a large organisation Ian has encountered pretty much every stumbling block and has some fascinating lessons to share for businesses of all shapes and...

In this awesome episode, we take OKRs one step further. In a fab chat with Beth Lang, Lawrence uncovers how her agency sets OKRs with their clients driving a huge increase in the impact they have for them. It's a fascinating use of OKRs that we hadn't come across before and the benefits Beth reveals are quite staggering.    If you have 3 minutes and would like to see how your goal setting/OKRs cou...

In this episode I am joined by the enigmatic Scott diValerio, of Spiceworks. We discuss the importance of living and breathing your values (and not letting them become something just stuck on your wall!). We also talk about the interplay between OKRs and values and how you can start to assess individuals' performance against each of these attributes.    If you have 3 minutes and would like to see...

In this episode I speak to the amazing Emma Lo Russo from Digivizer all about the steps you need to take to get slick with your OKRs Just like us here at TBG, Digivizer have put a huge focus on the retospectives they run at the end of each OKR cycle. Emma and I discuss the importance of these and how it has helped Digivizer transform their growth.    If you have 3 minutes and would like to see how...