Interesting inputs: recent reading round-up

Happy Friday!

I've been in a deep working, curiously reading, and dot-connecting mode (which is one of my favorite places to be) while working on my practical guide to OKR book that went out to its first beta readers this week. So many interesting and thought-provoking resources have come across my screens in the last few weeks, so here are a few highlights from my "recently bookmarked" file.

Now, for a little thought-provocation to kick-start your weekend:

​(1) You have too many metrics, by Sean Byrnes​

“You’re running a business, and your goal is to make money, not track metrics.”
​
A great post by Sean Byrnes that supports the approach we’ve been taking with our Connected Strategy and OKR clients: to identify and focus on a small number of topline health measures and as few as possible Key Results to clarify our most important measures of success and progress.

​(2) Things could be better​

I can't stop thinking about this pre-print I found while stumbling around my new account on Mastodon.* It's worth the click and read, without any more explanation than that.

* If you're curious about Mastodon and would like a user account on a small server I host, you can use this sign-up link.

(3) Challenging perfectionism (multiple resources)

I've been struggling with hypervigilance and a recurrence of some of my perfectionist tendencies -- for me, they're trauma responses that I do loops of recovery around from time to time. But just this week I had a couple of conversations come across my desk about perfectionism as an element of white supremacy. That idea came up in a comment thread on LinkedIn alongside a share of this article from HBR which challenged my biased perspective of my own perfectionist tendencies; since then, I've done a bit more reading and have seen this resource on "White Supremacy Culture" cited more than any other, and I found it helpful for adding more reason for me to focus on managing and eliminating my own perfectionist tendencies. I've always worked to manage those tendencies because of the pain and limitations those behaviors impose on me; it's important to also recognize that those harms don't only extend to me, and that I have a responsibility to the people I work with to manage those behaviors for their sake.

And the latest from our team:

​Architecting Change: Rethinking Goal-setting to Achieve Necessary Change (replay)​

In case you missed it: I hosted a LinkedIn Live earlier today on the topic or Architecting Change, with some myths and facts about the connection between goal-setting practices and change in organizations. We'll do a Live session every other Thursday(ish) -- sometimes with prepared material, sometimes as an "office hours" for open Q&A / AMA -- so connect with me via LinkedIn at Sara Lobkovich to hear about these and other ways to learn with RCCO.

Thank you for reading, and have an excellent weekend!

​

-Sara

​

P.S. We just opened enrollment for our next No BS OKRs cohort, which kicks off on December 12th. Our focus for this cohort is on creating goals to achieve meaningful change. Participants start the week with a blank sheet of paper, and end with a finished set of OKRs. Want to shortcut your Objective and Key Result creation for 2023? I'd love to see you in that cohort! The schedule and syllabus is online now, and registration is open!