Guest blog: Jane Mims

​It seems that over the last two years the polite practice of leaving political opinions outside the office place has gone by the wayside. Ever since 2016 people have felt more liberated to let their political flags fly whether there’s wind blowing or not. It doesn’t really matter if you or I think it’s inappropriate – it’s happening, so now we get to deal with it. Yippee! 

What are OKRs?

OKRs (Objectives - Key Results) are a format for setting performance objectives. They were developed at Intel by then-CEO, Andy Grove, in the early 70s, and made famous by Google in recent years. The format is based off of Peter Drucker’s Management by Objectives (MBO) approach.

A manager or employee creates an objective for their role, and then describes key results that would demonstrate success against those objectives. This process is outlined in the late Andy Grove’s book, High Output Management, as well as John Doerr’s new book, Measure What Matters. ​

​John Doerr worked for Grove at Intel in the 70s, and eventually became a venture capitalist advising his network of leaders (Larry Page, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, etc.) to implement OKRs in their organizations. OKRs are now the most popular objectives-setting format for tech companies around the world.

In October 2017 I conducted a survey of 187 managers. The majority of respondents had over 10 years of experience managing people. Overwhelmingly the respondents prioritized managing up as the highest ranked topic they would find most useful to receive training on.

Conversely, these managers experienced training programs primarily targeted at managing down. It begs the question then... where does one learn how to manage up? Let's start here...

Whenever I'm asked to do a talk on Mental Health, the requestor is asking for education on how to help people cope with their own stress, burnout, anxiety or depression. Sadly, this type of education is normally too late, and undeniably insufficient.

As organizations begin to see higher and higher instances of short-term and long-term disability requests for mental health issues, the larger concern is helping managers understand what to do with their employees who are experiencing mental health challenges, and how to help them manage their stress.

In a talk I attended about 2 years ago, I learned that approximately 60-80% of managers want to know how to handle employees with mental health challenges, and fewer than 27% of managers feel appropriately equipped to handle the situation.

I believe that Canada is amongst the world leaders in providing resources for mental health management in the workplace. Here are just a couple of the incredible resources you can access to support your own team members who may be struggling:

Government of Canada - Centre of Expertise on Mental Health in the Workplace

Workplace Strategies for Mental Health

As a facilitator I have the distinct privilege of bearing witness, at times, to strokes of brilliance unfolding into transformational innovation in business and for society at large. For many, the conception of such transformational innovations is an utter mystery. What Steve Jobs, Amadeus Mozart, Claude Monet or Isaac Newton have done for the world are beyond what most of us know how to comprehend. We ask...

How does such inspired thought find its way into the mind of one humble individual?

Why does it seem like this phenomenon is so rare?
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And most importantly, how can I be the vehicle or channel for that rare occurrence? How fine would it be to be recognized as such a genius?