summary ofMeasure What MattersBook by John Doerr

first KEY POINT

Create a successful global brand with OKRs

John Doerr recalls his 1999 encounter with young Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they pitched their ideas and convinced him to invest in Google. Although their presentation was concise and powerful, their search engine company was the eighteenth to enter the market, and that alone would discourage even the most optimistic of investors.However, John Doerr found in these two young men the clarity that could make the difference. They knew what they had and how big it could become. They had concrete goals but not the managerial experience to make it happen. And so, after investing $11 million in the startup, John Doerr visited the team to instill in them what he had learned through his years as an engineer at Intel. There, Andy Grove matched technological brilliance with impressive managerial skills.The tool that had worked all those years for Andy Grove is called OKRs, the acronym for Objectives and Key Results. According to John Doerr, “Objectives” are outlined goals, no more and no less. He has discovered that an enterprise's ability to define its objectives clearly would naturally help it sidestep the pitfalls of fuzzy executions. “Key Results” are the gauging tools for monitoring progress and how to attain objectives.

Together, these tools molded the tenacity and transparency that define Google. It values the role of all its employees while motivating them to view their actions as critical contributions to Google’s ultimate goals.OKRs are the glue that binds everything in the workplace together, ensuring that every department produces results. In other words, this business management strategy helps to choose a course of action and see it through.