In this episode, John Glander, Senior VP at JP Morgan Chase, and Duncan Hawksbee, Director of Strategic Execution at Trimble, sit down with WorkBoard CEO Deidre Paknad for a conversation before a live audience of strategy execution professionals at the Accelerate 2023 conference. Both share their organizations' very different OKR journeys and the profound insights they've gained on how to improve enterprise strategy execution. Their wide-ranging conversation covers why focus makes all the difference for a successful program, how one CEO's "rule of 3" made focus possible, and why leaders must adopt new strategy execution tactics before asking others to do so.

In this episode, WorkBoard CEO Deidre Paknad is joined by Patrick Thompson, former Chief Information & Digital Transformation Officer at Albemarle, for a special fireside chat live from Accelerate 2023. Patrick has played a pivotal role in building multiple Fortune 500 companies, most recently contributing to the tripling of revenues from $3B to $9B in just two years.

If you've refreshed your strategy for the next year, it's time to be highly intentional about strategy execution, and this episode is not to be missed. Patrick shares the keys to the success of the last five Fortune builds, emphasizing the importance of incorporating both lead and lag metrics, along with maintaining alignment with a 52-week cadence to drive accountability.

In this episode, Deidre first discusses 4 common communication fails that undermine strategy operations leaders and executives and the simple word judo moves that work. Spoiler alert: "Do OKRs" is one of the biggest fails! She then zooms out to discuss how to communicate to mobilize people by meeting them where they are. Deidre provides a framework and guide based on your audience’s scope of responsibility and their change readiness which you can also read here. Knowing why people would change will help you communicate why they should change!

Bryan Hope, Director of Unified Communications & Collaboration at VMware, joins Deidre Paknad to discuss the importance of harmonizing Team and Personal OKRs for greater impact, why and how VMware is doubling down on Generative AI to increase productivity and automation for both employees and customers, and how an efficient operating rhythm is the most critical, and often overlooked, component of great strategy execution.

Summers Hutchings, Director of Product Delivery & Portfolio Management at CarMax, joins host Deidre Paknad to share how CarMax has leveraged OKRs to bring their corporate and product strategies to life, and emphasizes the importance of empowering cross-functional teams to solve problems and create great outcomes that are connected to the corporate strategy.

What every executive needs to know about OKRs: The power of learning and iteration and the 6 executive failure modes you can avoid from the outset. WorkBoard CEO and OKR Podcast host Deidre Paknad shares her expertise and advice on this podcast so you can gain the wisdom of hundreds of enterprises that have gone before you to elevate your strategy execution and OKR discipline.

Download the companion slides.

Tarun Chopra, Vice President of Product Management, Data and AI at IBM, sits down with Deidre to explore the power of OKRs to build strategic clarity and cross-functional alignment in product orgs tasked with continuous innovation, why leaders must model the right OKR behaviors to drive accountability across the org, and the opportunity to use OKRs as a collaborative coaching tool.

Brianna Ringen, Director of Performance Management, Global IT & Digital Business Office at National Grid, sits down with Deidre to discuss how a single source of truth on strategy execution ‘make lives easier’ while increasing accountability, and the best practices National Grid adopted to implement WorkBoard and OKRs, drive fast adoption, and realize value in less than one quarter.

Jeff Gothelf, business agility and OKR framework expert, organizational designer, author and speaker, sits down with Deidre to share his unique approach to cultivating a product-focused mindset across large, complex enterprise organizations. Jeff uncovers how agile organizations that manage to outcomes are fundamentally in opposition to legacy, command and control leadership practices - and more importantly, how leaders can empower their people with the right framework for autonomy, discovery, and learning.
Jeff’s Recommended Reads:
Jeff Gothelf.com - Blog
Sense and Respond - Jeff Gothelf & Josh Seiden
Continuing Discovery Habits - Theresa Torez
Lean UX - Jeff Gothelf & Josh Seiden

Anthony Coppedge, Principal Agile Digital Sales Global Transformation Lead at IBM, sits down with Deidre to share how he introduced OKRs across Sales and Digital Marketing to ensure the creation of customer value is the focus of every employee in the org, and why a self-directed culture is at the core of successful business transformations. Running his business on fact-based data enables Anthony to validate business goals, navigate with headlights, and inspire deep trust amongst his people.