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Measure What Matters

How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs

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Measure What Matters

Written by: John Doerr, Larry Page - foreword
Narrated by: John Doerr, full cast, Julia Collins, Jini Kim, Mike Lee, Atticus Tysen, Patti Stonesifer, Susan Wojcicki, Cristos Goodrow, Alex Garden, Joseph Suzuki, Various
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About this listen

Legendary venture capitalist John Doerr reveals how the goal-setting system of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) has helped tech giants from Intel to Google achieve explosive growth - and how it can help any organization thrive.

In the fall of 1999, John Doerr met with the founders of a start-up whom he'd just given $12.5 million, the biggest investment of his career. Larry Page and Sergey Brin had amazing technology, entrepreneurial energy, and sky-high ambitions, but no real business plan. For Google to change the world (or even to survive), Page and Brin had to learn how to make tough choices on priorities while keeping their team on track. They'd have to know when to pull the plug on losing propositions, to fail fast. And they needed timely, relevant data to track their progress - to measure what mattered.

Doerr taught them about a proven approach to operating excellence: Objectives and Key Results. He had first discovered OKRs in the 1970s as an engineer at Intel, where the legendary Andy Grove ("the greatest manager of his or any era") drove the best-run company Doerr had ever seen. Later, as a venture capitalist, Doerr shared Grove's brainchild with more than 50 companies. Wherever the process was faithfully practiced, it worked.

In this goal-setting system, objectives define what we seek to achieve; key results are how those top-priority goals will be attained with specific, measurable actions within a set time frame. Everyone's goals, from entry level to CEO, are transparent to the entire organization.

The benefits are profound. OKRs surface an organization's most important work. They focus effort and foster coordination. They keep employees on track. They link objectives across silos to unify and strengthen the entire company. Along the way, OKRs enhance workplace satisfaction and boost retention.

In Measure What Matters, Doerr shares a broad range of first-person, behind-the-scenes case studies, with narrators including Bono and Bill Gates, to demonstrate the focus, agility, and explosive growth that OKRs have spurred at so many great organizations. This book will help a new generation of leaders capture the same magic.

Read by John Doerr, William Davidow, Brett Kopf, Jini Kim, Mike Lee, Atticus Tysen, Patti Stonesifer, Susan Wojcicki, Cristos Goodrow, Julia Collins, Alex Garden, Joseph Suzuki, Andrew Cole, Bono, and others

©2018 John Doerr (P)2018 Penguin Audio
Management & Leadership Small Business & Entrepreneurship Workplace & Organizational Behaviour Business Employment Innovation Career Project Management Strategic Planning Product Strategy
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What the critics say

“I’d recommend John’s book for anyone interested in becoming a better manager.” (Bill Gates)

“Whether you're a seasoned CEO or a first-time entrepreneur, you'll find valuable lessons, tools, and inspiration in the pages of Measure What Matters. I'm glad John invested the time to share these ideas with the world.” (Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn and author of The Start-Up of You)

Measure What Matters deserves to be fully embraced by every person responsible for performance, in any walk of life. John Doerr makes Andy Grove a mentor to us all. If every team, leader, and individual applied OKRs with rigor and imagination, all sectors of society could see an exponential increase in productivity and innovation.” (Jim Collins, author of Good to Great)

What listeners say about Measure What Matters

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Good read. Nice takeaways.

A good introduction to OKRs with some good examples and explanations. This book is a solid initial resources on what to start with and what to think about while adapting and expanding your OKR initiative.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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The best and genuine book to learn about OKRs

Contents and narration of high quality. For anyone who's into OKRs for personal or business purposes.

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  • Overall
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a little slow narration but a great book

a little slow narration but a great book. For business or if you love business success history. you'll live the book.

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  • Overall
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Highly recommend this!

A client introduced this to me and it was definitely well worth the listen #Audible1

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Book for every fledgling entrepreneur

I loved the book, the story telling made it memorable and very enjoyable. The goal setting strategy: OKR , is an indispensable tool for success.

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    4 out of 5 stars

Thought-provoking and practical

I was introduced to this book my a new employer who implements the OKR system. As someone who values thoughtful, intentional planning and execution I found this book challenged me to think about those topics in a different way. It teaches you, through interesting story telling, how to be a more effective contributor and how to rally a team around better execution. #Amazon1

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    4 out of 5 stars

Great intro to OKRs

The books is a really good introduction to the concept of OKRs (Outcomes & Key Results) and how they can benefit your company. I particularly liked the use of multiple narrators, it kept the material more interesting. It isn't necessarily a really deep book, but if you want to learn about OKRs and how they have helped numerous companies it is worth listening to. #Audible1

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Loved it!

Insightful and worth a read/listen especially if you’re looking to grow your business. Two thumbs up.

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Good book although material gets repetitve

I like the material and appreciate the value the book is trying to deliver.

Measurable objective is a game changer for solid progress. Also it is important to be able to validate how can you do things better. The way the book put it is reflecting on the experience what gets us to learn not the experience itself.

However, the book seems repetitive in a way. Many of the experiences shared felt too high level and just repeating over and over the OKR value. Although some experiences that shared had some unique attributes.

If OKR was a brand the book makes you feel like it is advertising for it. Sometimes even in a cheesy way.

The book tried to look outside Intel which is important. I would suggest to expand that part with deeper digging. The individual who shared their experiences felt like hit or miss. I would prefer if they were asked particular questions to navigate their experience better. The same way Andrew Grove recommended in his book to keep the flow of information flowing until getting to the real issue when a manager meet with subordinate. I wish the experiences examples flow was similar instead of leaving it to the person sharing to capture values.

Definitely worth a read. I gave it 4 stars for repetitiveness while the author had access to more materials of a value with the individuals contributing. He just had to figure out a way to extract it.

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Simple and effective

Enthusiastic stories that were spearheaded by great people, and OKRs made them executable/achievable. Very good reading

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