Here is another month of results, shared in public, so that I hold myself accountable.
This practice helps me reflect and learn about myself. I also want to inspire you to do the same.
Admittedly, this post is longer than usual and I hope you find the depth valuable.
By the way, OKRs are a leader’s secret productivity weapon.
Past dashboard results:
Students
I am happy with where things are. A number of applications have come in and I am confident that we can continue to grow the mastermind (both school and edupreneur cohorts). I enjoy one-on-one coaching, but with fewer leaders to serve I have more time. I have space to coach more, but will use this time to focus on my second book as well as launching a new website ?
Platforms
Email. I lost a few subscribers because I exercised my voice concerning Black Lives Matter, including creating an empowering antiracist podcast playlist. While a few subscribers headed for the doors, I saw an uptick on mastermind applications. Every new application mentioned equity and creating an inclusive space. Taking a stand resonates with the right people.
Podcast. Both podcasts have been cruising — two straight months of increased and record-breaking downloads (more on that below in the OKR reflection).
Book Sales. I consistently sell between 20-30 books a month. Nothing to retire off of but not bad for a first book, self-published. I desire a bigger impact.
For my second book, I’ve signed a contract with an established publisher. I’m doing the hard work now creating something special for the reader and hope to ship a more polished book. I need to 10x my monthly book sales to achieve a goal I have internally set for myself. Besides creating a quality piece of work and serving the BLBS tribe, I’m not sure how to get to that level just yet.
Website. Organic traffic was up for the third straight month meaning the hard work I am doing to create blog posts optimized for SEO is attracting leaders who do not know my work yet.
Productivity
My significant task completion rate was down this month, but is still above the minimum 80% threshold. The quarter completion rate was fantastic which is why I saw appropriate progress on my goals.
Q2 2020 OKR Results & Takeaways
Scoring
“The simplest, cleanest way to score an objective is by averaging the percentage of completion rates of its associated results.”
John Doerr in Measure What Matters
Google uses the following scale, so I stole like an artist and used it too:
- ? 0.7 – 1.0 = green (I delivered).
- ? 0.4 – 0.6 = yellow (I made progress, but fell short of completion).
- ? 0.0 – 0.3 = red (I failed to make real progress).
| ? OBJECTIVE 1: HELP MORE SCHOOL LEADERS LEVEL UP [70%] (0.9+0.5+0.5+0.9 = 2.8/4) |
| KEY RESULTS (Q2 2020) ? Grow school leader mastermind to 60 members by June 30 [0.9] ? Grow “Edupreneur” mastermind to 10 members by June 30 [0.5] ? Connect with 20 leaders from within my community each week [0.5] ? Watch 1-2 videos a week in WBECS [0.9] |
| ? OBJECTIVE 2: CREATE AMAZING CONTENT [97%] |
| KEY RESULTS (Q2 2020) ? Ship 4 SEO optimized, value-packed blog posts a month [1.0]. ? Write 2K words a day or 1 hour a day for book #2 [0.9] ? Write every day for the blog [1.0]. |
| ? OBJECTIVE 3: INCREASE BRAND AWARENESS [69%] |
| KEY RESULTS (Q2 2020) ? 50K downloads a month for BLBS by June 30 [0.7] ? 20K downloads a month for SLS by June 30 [0.7] ? 2500K organic visitors a month to website by June 30 [0.5] ? Grow email list to 5K by June 30 [0.45] ? Finish Stage to Scale by June 30 [0.8] ? Finish Brand Identity Coaching [1.0] |
Sell out live event by June 30 [.5] Document “the process” [1.0] Write all even talks Practive one event story a day |
| ? OBJECTIVE 5: MENTAL WELLBEING [74%] |
| KEY RESULTS (Q2 2020) ? Meditate every day [0.9] ? Do yoga at least 5x/wk [0.8] ? Read something uplifting every day for a minimum of 30 minutes [0.9] ? Check social media 2x/week [0.3] ? Check email once a day [0.8] |
Self-Assessment
Below I walk through all my objectives and give the quantitative numbers some heart with qualitative data.
| OKR | Progress | Score | Self-assessment |
| Help more leaders level up | 70% | 0.8 | I lost some mastermind and one-on-one leaders. They have different goals right now (e.g. one leader is pursuing his doctorate, another is sailing across the world!). With the turnover we experienced the school leader mastermind remained steady. I need to pay attention and consider how to grow the edupreneur mastermind. Some edupreneurs are scared to invest in themselves right now because their product or service does not translate to a digital space so they are really hurting. Those that were in the group and brainstormed with the mastermind how to serve in a digital space saw tremendous growth. I would like to add two one-on-one coaching clients. I found it difficult to connect with leaders in my community. I’m not making that a priority and I’m letting creative work take the majority of my time. I have been steady in consuming, taking notes, and applying what I’ve learned from WBECS. |
| Create amazing content | 97% | 1.0 | I’ve been in major focus mode on writing so my actual score and qualitative reflection are in alignment. I’ve worked on my second book for 19 days and have written over 21K words. I’ve been posting daily to the blog (weekdays) with short inspirational content. |
| Increase brand awareness | 69% | 0.8 | The online course, Stage to Scale, was average and I didn’t need to complete the entire course. I have a hard time walking away from things because of sunk cost bias as well as being an overachiever (which is stressful and caused by myself!). I am happy to see organic traffic picking up. The podcasts have been on fire shattering previous download records. BLBS eclipsed 40K downloads in a month for the first time and SLS past 16K. I am happy with the progress toward my goal. What seemed like a real stretch (50K downloads a month) seems absolutely doable now. I think creating some special episodes and curating an antiracist podcast playlist really served my listeners. I did some very hard work with a coach on brand identity and will be launching a new project in Q3 2020. I’m not sure how to grow email subscribers. I don’t think I offered enough valuable content for download. I probably should include a sign-up form for leaders who don’t want to miss any updates. I’m also questioning if this goal matters. My assumption is that if more leaders subscribed to emails than eventually more would join the mastermind. Maybe that assumption is false. I am thinking I should focus on talking frequently, clearly, and consistently on the podcast. If I did that and expressed the transformative power of the mastermind, I think that would lead to more leaders joining. I also read recently a story about AirBnB and making the host a success was a focus for the company. I want to consider how to do that for leaders I serve in addition to the mastermind. If I placed their success first, how would that impact mastermind enrollment? I also want to start sharing case studies of current mastermind members to make the group more relatable for leaders who are interested. |
| Launch live event | NA | NA | I postponed this event one year because of the pandemic. |
| Improve mental wellbeing | 74% | 0.5 | I checked the boxes but didn’t feel less stressed or more at peace. I blame social media for that. Truly, I am to blame. With incompetent leadership at the federal level amidst a pandemic and a pivotal moment of the USA responding to racism, I lost myself by engaging too much on social. |
Did I accomplish all of my objectives? If so, what contributed to my success?
I delivered on 3-of-4 goals. I know how to get stuff done. Time blocking, ideal weeks, and OKRs work for me.
If not, what obstacles did I encounter?
Social media was an obstacle to mental health. I waste time and get distracted like anyone else. I have been going to sleep too late and waking up late as a result. This causes me to lose hours in the morning. Each day I feel like I’m playing catch up. In some respects, it helps me really prioritize. But I’m not getting done everything I want; it is stressing me out; and I am judging myself for this lack of output.
If I were to rewrite a goal achieved in full, what would I change?
I delivered on many goals, but few were achieved 100% so there is work to do.
Going through this reflection process, I am going to edit my Q3 2020 content goal. I don’t need the accountability to write every day or ship 4 SEO focused blog posts. I do need to focus on shipping a first draft of my second book. I also want to work smarter, not harder, so I plan to repurpose content I write for the book and test some of it as micro content on the blog.
What have I learned that might alter my approach to the next cycle’s OKRs?
I think I might be putting attention into some goals that don’t matter (email subscribers). I also waste more time than I like to admit and do too many things I can hand off to my team. I have built a massive training/delegation doc, increased my assistant’s pay from an hourly wage to a fixed salary and will expect much more from her.
I wrote this the last two quarters and it still applies: I want to be mindful about how much I commit to this quarter.
Maybe I should look at how I might have fewer OKRs? As of right now I have more OKRs. I will be coaching the altMBA in July so this will add more work to my plate.
I want to see what happens if I go to bed on time and wake up at the right time. If I do that, then I should be able to accomplish what I set out to do.
