What is your OKR?
I have known about KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) my entire life. In the past,I have also set my KPIs. Along those lines, workplaces can set your KPIs by telling you the requirements for a job, promotions, and rewards. Some are realistic, others are not. This is one reason people are questioning the whole idea of KPIs. Some suggest KPIs are hegemonic and draw on some white (juSupremacist) concepts of competence, excellence, merit, and achievement. I vacillate on where I stand on this argument. However, I am learning not to judge myself by whether I meet anyone's KPIs but by whether I meet my own OKR.
In the way I think about it, OKR (Objective Key Result) is shaped by individual capacities, skills, and competencies combined with understanding the systems, structure and context in which you operate. For instance, I am always trying to be physically active because of the nature of my work. When I am at the gym, I see people running on treadmills like they have something they are catching up with. I look at them and continue with my benchmark (OKR) rather than trying to outdo them. Sometimes, I give them the bombastic side eye, or in my Nigerianness, I would think," Where are you running to?''.
What are your OKRs? How do you determine it and know when you reach it? You have heard the acronym SMART in goal-setting. As we plan the new year, including myself, I am learning to plan based on many SMART rubrics. One is to plan based on skills and strategy, not prophecy. Nothing is wrong with prophecy. But if you must work with prophecy, have a strategy. To unpack this last sentence, look out for my post in the coming week on "discretion is advice.". In my view, your OKR should give you relative peace instead of the viral end-of-the-year videos where you change from buying a car to buying a cat.
One time, I felt extremely low and burned out, and there was so much to do. One of my ancestors, with whom I have a Non-disclosure agreement (NDA), said to me, "omolara, I have the solution". I slow down my pace to hear this revered soul. I heard the following instruction in distinct terms: "you go to the refrigerator, bring out that Ila-alasepo that went to Harvard via Wisconsin that you said you do not have an appetite for, make Eba, put it inside the fridge to be cold, shower, bring the Eba and Ila-alasepo out, eat and wait for the breeze of your ancestors to blow on you and sleep. There is no better OKR for you than this at the moment". I complied and am thankful for it because I woke up more refreshed and ready to go.
Again, what are your OKRs? or do you still do KPIs?
Posted on Facebook on December 16, 2023.
