- The Beat by Rockstar CMO
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Welcome to The Beat by Rockstar CMO. I’m Ian Truscott, a CMO, trusted advisor, strategy consultant, and Chief Bottle Washer at Rockstar CMO. In this newsletter, I’d like to share a mix of what’s caught my eye, topics from our podcast, and our street knowledge blog.
Happy Monday!
Firstly, thanks for opening this email, and I hope you’ve enjoyed a bit of a break and maybe you’ve still got your “out of office” set for another week.
Over the holidays, while catching up on some reading, I came across a quote from Bono, the frontman of the legendary band U2, who passionately shares the value of creating OKRs (Objectives & Key Results).
So this “Twixtmas” newsletter has pretty much written itself. Here’s a bonafide rock star that even the Workday Ads would allow us to call a rock star, talking about a topic we often touch on in our work and on our podcast. It’s also very timely as we plan for 2025, and his tunes give me the gift of a subject line.
So.. here we go.
Let me assure you that this could have written itself with a crank of the AI handle, but it really didn’t :-)
In this splendid TED Talk by John Doerr, there is a recording of Bono (at 6:46) saying:
“So you’re passionate? How passionate? What actions does your passion lead you to do? If the heart doesn’t find a perfect rhyme with the head, then your passion means nothing. The OKR framework cultivates the madness, the chemistry contained inside it. It gives us an environment for risk, for trust, where failing is not a fireable offense. And when you have that sort of structure and environment and the right people, magic is around the corner.”
This is a traditional time to think about goals, and here at Rockstar CMO, we are fans of this goal-setting framework that is designed to align teams and individuals around clear, measurable objectives.
If you are unfamiliar with it, it consists of defining Objectives—qualitative, aspirational goals that set a clear direction—and Key Results, which are specific, measurable outcomes that indicate progress toward achieving those objectives.
As you can imagine, the measurable element of this is very important, and when you create Objectives with Key Results in mind, it focuses you on how you frame these objectives. It is a bit like the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) goals methodology that you might also be familiar with.
The other thing we like to see is when OKRs start at the top and then ladder down into the organization. For example, a C-suite business goal could be a revenue target, the OKRs below that would then define how the company will reach that goal, and these OKRs would be set in sales, product, or whatever teams will influence this objective.
The advantage of this, is that everyone up and down the business, from the C-Suite evaluating the performance of the business to individual employees looking at their own performance, can see the contribution to the business goals.
And as this Bono chap has written a tune or two, so there is plenty to choose from to give me a subject line, but there is only one obvious candidate for the last newsletter of this year - New Years Day.
I might consider this newsletter perfectly timed, with a relevant topic and a fab tune, the downside is you are probably digging through a heap of post-holiday emails, so I really appreciate you opening this one.
If you are goal setting right now, hopefully you’ll find the links below useful, and if you’d like some help or a chat about your objectives, please give me a shout (just reply to this email).
Cheers!
Ian
Ian Truscott | Chief Bottle Washer Rockstar CMO
Say hello, reply to this email or find me on LinkedIn or my personal website.
This week’s podcast…
The week’s street knowledge….
The OKR Ted Talk
A motivational Ted Talk, focusing on goals and OKRs….
Get your Monday Marketing Mojo Working
A classic to say cheerio to 2024 and kick-off 202,