Hi team! Last month, we looked at the sibling to OKRs: CFRs, which stands for Conversations, Feedback, and Recognition. We touched on the importance of having honest conversations in your 1:1 meetings and how to use OKRs as a blueprint to build and maintain company culture.

Feedback can be the elephant in the room, but not today. Let’s talk about it.

As we’re now in August, I am confident that you have had many opportunities to give feedback — positive and negative — in your 1:1 and team meetings. If you’ve had to re-think an OKR in the last six months, you’ve had to give feedback. 
 

📃The F in CFRs: Feedback

How do you feel about feedback? Does the term leave you cold? Giving or receiving feedback can be difficult for some people. However, when done well, it leads to engaged and confident teams.

Frequent feedback removes ambiguity and creates clarity by comparing ‘how we’re actually doing’ against ‘how we should be doing.‘ Giving feedback also reinforces the importance of individual contributions to the success of the organization as a whole.
 
Your 1:1 meetings are an ideal place to check in with each member of your team and find out how they’re progressing against their goals and activities. Asking for and giving feedback enables both individuals to gauge progress and course-correct in real-time or to fail fast without judgment and move on.

Providing feedback to your team shouldn’t be an awkward or uncomfortable experience. If done well, it can boost morale and improve overall team performance. Allow the feedback process to work for you by being transparent and having an open dialogue about expectations and outcomes. Provide feedback proactively, fairly, and purposefully. And never miss an opportunity to thank employees for their contributions.

Here are some helpful links to give feedback to employees or to give feedback to peers.
 

💁 It’s a Two-way Street

Often, feedback is a one-way transaction. But, when you use CFRs hand-in-hand with OKRs, feedback becomes an equal exchange of information and ideas and an essential dialogue between manager and employee. 

OKRs ensure that conversations focus more on the work and goals, rather than subjective feelings. When reviewing OKRs, it becomes easier to center feedback on what was learned rather than singling people out for mistakes.

Together, OKRs and CFRs are the backbone of continuous performance management. As John Doerr says, they form “a complete delivery system for measuring what matters.”

🛑 What about negative feedback?

When you use OKRs and CFRs together, there’s no such thing as genuinely negative feedback, just problems to solve. Asking for feedback in a 1:1 is a great opportunity for a manager or employee to say, “What do you need from me to be successful? And now let me tell you what I need from you.” 

By relying on OKRs, feedback isn’t driven by emotion or blame. They become roadmaps for progress and growth. In my experience, shifting the focus from a review to a conversation on OKRs leads to higher performing teams. 

In September, we’ll look ahead to the end of the quarter and discuss how to grade your Q3 OKRs. But for now, stay focused on your 1:1 meetings. If you have any ‘difficult’ feedback conversations coming up, try framing them around OKRs. I’d love to know if you find it helpful. 

Keep up the momentum - you’re doing great. 

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