Goldmine Reads

This book summary and analysis was created for individuals who want to extract the essential contents and are too busy to go through the full version. This book is not intended to replace the original book. Instead, we highly encourage you to buy the full version.

John Doerr met with the founders of a startup to whom he gave $12.5 million in 1999. This was the biggest investment of his career. Larry Page and Sergey Brin had amazing technology, entrepreneurial energy, and great ambitions—but they had no real business plan. To change the world or even simply survive, Google had to make strong choices on priorities while keeping their team on track. They needed to know when to pull the plug or even fail fast. They needed timely, relevant data to monitor their progress—to measure what mattered.

Doerr helped them with a proven approach to operating excellence: Objectives and Key Results. He discovered OKRs in the 1970s when he was an engineer at Intel, where Andy Grove, the greatest manager of his era, drove the amazingly run company. As a venture capitalist, Doerr shared Grove’s brainchild with more than fifty companies and whenever it was faithfully practiced, it worked.

Objectives define what we want to achieve while key results are about how those goals will be attained through specific, measurable actions within a set time frame. Everyone’s goals—from entry-level to CEO are transparent to the whole company.

Its benefits are profound as OKRs help with an organization’s most important work—they focus their effort and foster coordination. They help keep employees on track and they link objectives across teams to strengthen the entire company. OKRs eventually also improve workplace satisfaction and employee retention.

Doerr shares a broad range of in-depth look into various companies including the Gates Foundation and Bono to show the focus, agility, and explosive growth that OKRs have created in the leading organizations. This book will create a new generation of leaders that capture the same magic.

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