company culture

2. Preparing for the OKR Journey

In our first post, we explored why your company might want to adopt OKRs. Now, as we move forward, it’s time to focus on preparation. Just like building a home, laying a solid foundation is crucial before you start raising the walls. The same holds true for OKRs. A little preparation goes a long way in ensuring a successful implementation. And remember, OKRs are a journey, not a one-time event.

This guide is tailored to help home builders, trade contractors, suppliers, architects, engineers, and others in the housing industry adapt OKRs to your unique company culture. Most of us don’t have a Silicon Valley mindset, so adaptation is key. However, there are some basic questions every company should address to get started on the right path:

The Planning Phase

Who Will Champion OKRs?

Every successful OKR implementation starts with a passionate champion. This person, often a senior executive, must be deeply committed to rolling out the OKR strategy. Without this sponsorship, no initiative will survive. Who in your company has the drive and influence to lead this charge? Identify your champion, and make sure they have the backing they need to succeed.

What Is the Most Critical First Step?

Before diving into the nuts and bolts of OKRs, it’s essential to secure buy-in from your team. Everyone needs to be on board with the OKR program. This step isn’t just about understanding the framework, philosophy, and goals—it’s about fostering a collective commitment to the process. By the end of this series, you should feel confident in reviewing OKRs with your team and ready to get them excited about the journey ahead.

What Matters Most?

OKRs aren’t about doing everything; they’re about focusing on what’s most important. The beauty of OKRs lies in their ability to help you isolate the most critical business issues and dedicate your efforts to solving them. What are the fundamental priorities for your company right now? Your OKRs should zero in on these key areas, driving your business forward with purpose.

How Will We Create Transparency?

One of the greatest strengths of OKRs is their transparency. Ideally, OKRs should be visible throughout the organization, allowing everyone to see what’s being measured and provide feedback. This openness not only fuels collaboration but also ensures alignment and strategy execution across all levels of the company.

How Will We Live Our OKRs?

The real magic of OKRs comes from integrating them into the daily life of your company. They aren’t just set and forgotten—they should be part of your daily, weekly, and quarterly routines. From initial planning meetings to status updates and dashboards, OKRs need to be lived and breathed by your entire team.

The Development Phase

Once you’ve answered these foundational questions, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and start developing your first set of OKRs. Here’s how to approach this next phase:

Mission, Vision, and Strategy: Your OKRs should be deeply rooted in your company’s mission, vision, and strategy. These elements are the bedrock of your OKRs, driving the achievement of your long-term goals. Make sure they’re solid before moving forward.
Corporate-Level OKRs: Start at the top by creating OKRs at the corporate level. You might involve a small team, gather input from employees through surveys, or conduct executive interviews. However you approach it, the key is to ensure that these OKRs align with your broader strategy and are communicated clearly to the entire organization.
Presenting OKRs: Don’t just send out an email and call it a day. Use multiple channels to communicate your OKRs—share them electronically, post them on your intranet, and most importantly, discuss them in person. An all-hands meeting, for example, can be a great way to facilitate dialogue and ensure everyone understands the OKRs and the reasons behind them.
OKR Education: While OKRs are simple in theory, they require proper education to implement effectively. Take the time to educate your team not just on the fundamentals, but on why you’re choosing to use OKRs now, success stories from other firms, and what they can expect along the journey.
Monitoring OKRs: OKRs are not a “set it and forget it” tool. You need to monitor them regularly, using an OKR Scorecard and following a quarterly, monthly, or weekly schedule—whatever cadence works best for your organization.
Reporting Results: At the end of each quarter, score your OKRs and communicate the results across the organization. This isn’t just about accountability; it’s about learning and improving as you move forward.

The Strategy Alignment Phase

OKRs should never exist in isolation—they need to reflect your company’s broader purpose, long-term goals, and strategy. Here’s how to ensure alignment:

Company Mission: Your mission statement defines your core purpose—why your company exists. It’s your organization’s guiding light, constantly pursued but never fully achieved. Aligning your OKRs with this mission ensures that the work you do today contributes to your long-term purpose.
Your mission isn’t just a lofty ideal—it’s the compass that guides every decision your company makes. It reflects why your employees show up every day and serves as a reminder of the bigger picture, the greater good your company is striving to achieve. Whether it’s building homes that stand the test of time or creating communities where families thrive, your mission should be the foundation upon which your OKRs are built.
Unlike a vision or a strategy that may evolve over time, your mission remains a constant. It’s the steady north star that ensures every OKR you set is aligned with the core purpose of your organization. When your mission is clear and compelling, it’s much easier to steer the company in the right direction, keeping your OKRs in sync with the ultimate goal.
Long-Term Vision: While your mission defines your company’s purpose, your vision paints a picture of where you want to be in the future. This vision is the bridge between your mission and your strategy—it’s the destination on the horizon that everyone in your organization is working toward.
Your vision statement should be a vivid, concrete picture of your desired future state, whether it’s five, ten, or fifteen years down the line. It’s not just about imagining a better tomorrow; it’s about providing a clear, tangible target that informs your strategy and your OKRs. Without this vision, your team might work hard, but without a clear direction, their efforts could be scattered and less impactful.
When your vision is well-defined, it fuels motivation and aligns your team’s efforts. Every OKR should serve as a stepping stone towards achieving this vision, ensuring that your short-term actions contribute to long-term success. It’s this alignment that transforms a collection of individual goals into a cohesive, strategic push towards a shared future.
Annual Strategy: Your strategy is your game plan for achieving your vision. It’s about making tough decisions—choosing which markets to target, which customers to serve, and which opportunities to pursue or pass on. This is where the power of “No” becomes critical. Not every opportunity is worth chasing, and your strategy helps you focus on what matters most.
An effective strategy clarifies your priorities and sets the stage for your OKRs. It answers the critical questions: What are our preferred markets? Who are our optimal customers? What are their most pressing needs? By addressing these, your strategy guides the creation of OKRs that not only align with your vision but also address the real-world challenges and opportunities your company faces.
When your OKRs are directly tied to your annual strategy, they become a powerful tool for executing that strategy. They provide clarity, focus, and a roadmap for achieving your strategic goals, ensuring that every part of the organization is working in harmony towards the same objectives.
Finally, remember that a great strategy isn’t static—it evolves as your market changes, as new challenges arise, and as you learn from your successes and setbacks. Your OKRs should reflect this dynamism, allowing your company to remain agile and responsive while staying true to your mission and vision.

Ready to start developing your OKRs? With a clear understanding of your most critical objectives and how to adapt OKRs to fit your company’s culture, you’re now ready to take action!

Next up… Crafting Great OKRs – Part 1.

Bill Gelbaugh is one of our Senior Partners here at Outhouse and champions our OKR efforts.

Pants Optional is a series focused on advice to company Owners, Managers and Employees on how to be successful in a Work-From-Home business model.

Online work at home. A young man typing on a laptop sitting at a table at home.

Before 2020, deciding to become a Work From Home (WFH) company was exactly that; a decision. When the pandemic hit, many companies had this decision made for them – Become a WFH company or risk losing some staff or your company altogether. For those of you who survived the nightmare of shifting to a WFH business model, practically overnight, you sincerely have my undying respect and admiration. If you have already, or intend to, bring everybody back to the office to continue ‘business as usual’ the Pants Optional series may not be of much value to you. Those who will benefit most from this series are:

Business Owners forced into a WFH business model with a desire to continue doing so.
Business Owners considering moving to a permanent WFH business model from scratch.
Managers wanting to develop and improve WFH policies, procedures, and communication.
Workers looking for support and advice on how to navigate the surprisingly complex WFH transition.
Anybody already working in a WFH environment open to learning more tips and tricks as this work/lifestyle evolves.

So… Where do I start? Seeing as every business is different, the steps Outhouse went through may not apply to what you will need to follow, but the overall goals will likely be the same or very similar. The primary categories all companies will need to focus on are Technology, Operations, and Culture and that is what this episode will cover.

As an owner, I often found myself the cause of delays because I had stretched myself too thin… “

First, give yourself as much time as possible to plan and research. I started entertaining the idea of going remote 24 months before doing so with some light research 18-months before the move I got very serious putting mostly my own time into researching a transition; then at T-minus 12-months I formed a team of my smartest employees to help make it happen, with me still deeply involved in every aspect. My biggest recommendation is to form a team early, even if it means hiring consultants to do most of the heavy lifting. I sacrificed way more of my own hours towards research, planning and executing than I anticipated or frankly needed. As an owner, I often found myself the cause of delays because I had stretched myself too thin, neglecting other responsibilities. Do not do the same to yourself.

Technology

Hardware/software, file sharing, security, backups and redundancies, internal and external communications are going to be your biggest concerns with many unforeseen obstacles along the way.

File sharing was my company’s biggest challenge. We maintain roughly 1.5 million files (15 terabytes) in our active libraries and projects. With 40 people sharing files across 10 states, we still have frequent hiccups and have not figured it out 100%.

Another challenge was IT troubleshooting and hardware issues. To help solve this we moved to outsourcing 24-hour IT support and maintenance. Today, every employee has nearly instant online support for software issues. For hardware failures we utilize Amazon’s same-day/next-day deliveries or in emergencies send workers to pick up hardware at their local electronics stores. It’s rare anything takes longer than 24-hours to fix with most issues being resolved within 4-6 hours.

If you are technology heavy, do not be surprised if your expenses go up instead of down. Outsourcing IT support may be one of those areas. You may also spend more on upgraded cloud software, backup subscriptions, filesharing services, additional hardware for home-office systems, Zoom, etc.

Operations

Standard operating procedures, office space, project management, team dynamics, vendor relations, meetings, working with customers and so much more. Operations is likely going to be the longest and most time-consuming list of challenges to solve, but you will also find opportunities for some surprising wins.

With the luxury of having over a year of planning, we were able to test a lot of systems and processes before the actual move. Internal employee communication is a good example. We moved to Microsoft Teams several months before the physical move and directed our in-office staff to communicate as if they were home.

Operations is likely going to be the longest and most time-consuming list of challenges to solve, but you will also find opportunities for some surprising wins. “

One of the surprising wins was in training new and existing employees. Being able to remotely watch the trainer while sharing each other’s screens was a big benefit over standing over someone’s shoulder taking notes. It was also easier for an employee to call in and share their screen with a trainer to ask questions.

We only had 1 or 2 employees who could not handle working from home. Sometimes you must accept it just isn’t in a person’s nature to work without physical supervision. This is the benefit of our Office Optional program. This at least gives local employees the choice to come back to the office.

Silhouette of group happy business team making high hands over head in beautiful sunset sky evening time for business success and teamwork concept in company

Culture

Many books about business will tell you something along the lines of “company culture is the shared values, attributes, and characteristics of an organization,” but the best company cultures also consider people’s emotions. In an office environment, it’s much easier to walk around, stop by someone’s desk or office and take the temperature of how individuals are feeling about things. People go to lunch or happy hour together. Face-to-face casual/intimate/honest conversations come more naturally in an office environment than over a video call. This dynamic is going to change when people work remotely, and leadership is going to need to adjust to make up for this.

A 2020 survey[1] shows Collaboration/Communication and Loneliness tied for first as the biggest struggles with working remotely. The longer a person works from home, the more likely they will start feeling disconnected from their coworkers, the company, and the leadership. When that happens, it is just a matter of time before they stop caring about the company or the individuals they work with.

The longer a person works from home, the more likely they will start feeling disconnected from their coworkers, the company, and the leadership. “

As a business owner, if you want to set your company up for the best chance of success working from home, be prepared to spend as much time designing new ways to stay connected to your people as you spend solving your technology and operational challenges. Because, well… feelings matter. Yes, culture is about values, attributes, and characteristics of the organization, but it is also about the interpersonal relationships your people share within the company. Developing, nurturing, and maintaining relationships inside a physical office space comes more naturally than in a work-from-home setting.

Many industries will never be able to offer WFH for some, most or any of their employees. The logistics just will not allow it. However, with technology that exists today, and in the future, many businesses are discovering WFH not only works, but may be an even better business model than before.

[1] Buffer.com/state-of-remote-2020

About the Author: Stuart Platt, Managing Partner at Outhouse LLC restructured his 25+ year company to an Office Optional (OffOp) business model in 2018. Stuart’s version of the OffOp model enabled the company of nearly 40 employees to downsize its physical office from 14,000sf to 6,000sf. Based in Phoenix, local employees desiring to work in the office for a few days, weeks or months can reserve any open desk whenever they want. The remaining employees work from home, fulltime across 10 different states and counting.

Unlocking Outhouse’s Potential with OKRs