Sound Bites

Focus is the Key to Great Results

with Deidre Paknad, WorkBoard CEO

Deidre Paknad
Deidre Paknad, WorkBoard CEO

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Deidre Paknad, WorkBoard CEO: What we're seeing across your peer companies is really great results at a very meaningful scale in just two quarters.

The first traunch of results you see on the left is that in a first quarter where an on average, 70 teams with 800 members align on outcomes. Those seventy teams on average achieve 72% of what they set out to achieve. Now they set out to achieve their best possible outcomes, not their minimum bid. And so they reached higher and harder, and the results reflect that focus and that energy in the second quarter, your peer cohort, then at 120 teams with 2100 people achieve 77% of what they have set out to achieve on their best possible outcomes in the 90 day period. Now, of course they are each of them learning each subsequent quarter, and you can expect to see that curve go up, but as people reach towards their best possible outcomes, you never want to see it at a hundred percent, or you know you lost your ambition.

The middle set of results there is that teaming unlocks results — in fact cross-functional teaming unlocks even better results. So cross-functional teams do on average 10% better quarter over quarter than single function teams. If, in the first quarter, the average outcomes were 72% across the whole population of teams, the cross-functional teams achieved 82% of what they set out to achieve.

In your peer cluster, about 40% of teams are cross-functional after the second quarter. And what we see is increasingly — once they realize how much better cross-functional teams do — organizations encourage and unlock and accelerate more cross-functional teaming, more self forming teams, to tap into that uplift.

The other thing we see on teaming is the teams that focus week to week on the outcomes they are driving do 19% better than teams that focus every other week or once a month. And that focus has a double benefit. It both drives better results and drives higher employee engagement. The gap between the teams that focus the most and the teams that focus the least on their outcomes over a quarter period is 33%. Your least focused teams do a third less than your most focused teams. It's an enormous opportunity and incredible data to unlock higher results in your org.

And the last point, employees who are managing their OKRs and doing that in WorkBoard and paying attention week to week have 12% higher employee engagement because they know what they're working towards. They're part of something, they know they're part of something, and they feel that.

You see that impact on employees and the voices here. This is from the first and second quarter learning cycle where teams stepped back and looked at what they learned over their first and second quarters. They felt better aligned. And the comments say so much: "This was the most effective and aligned I've ever seen the executive team and the leaders." They want you to be aligned. It's important to them. "This is the closest we've been as a team."

They feel empowered: "Makes me feel like CEO of my own results." It's brought a new sense of urgency and they learned about their own ability to achieve: "Better priorities helped us drive better results." "We hesitated to set our best possible targets, but once we did it energized us to achieve three times more than we thought we could." And the heartbreaking one: "I was frustrated and going to quit, but I'm actually excited now." These are really potent examples of the power of Outcome Mindset™, the power of teaming in a different way, and your ability to unlock ambition in your organization.