The OKR Institute and Manulife collaboration focused on equipping the company’s regional sales teams with the skills to draft and execute Objective and Key Results (OKRs) and align their regional sales goals with headquarters (HQ) strategies. This initiative aimed to improve strategic cohesion, drive performance, and ensure that regional efforts contributed optimally to Manulife’s overarching goals.

Manulife’s regional sales teams faced several key challenges:

• Alignment with HQ Strategies: Ensuring that the OKRs of regional sales teams were directly contributing to and aligned with the strategic objectives set by HQ was challenging, due to differences in regional markets and priorities.
• Consistency in OKR Application: Achieving a consistent approach to drafting and executing OKRs across diverse regional teams, each with unique market dynamics, was difficult.
• Engagement and Understanding: Increasing the engagement and understanding of OKRs among regional sales teams to foster a sense of ownership and motivation towards achieving these aligned goals.

In response to these challenges, the OKR Institute devised a comprehensive strategy:

• Customized Training and Workshops: Delivered tailored training sessions and workshops to the regional sales teams on the fundamentals of OKRs, focusing on drafting and execution techniques that align with corporate strategies.
• Alignment Sessions: Conducted alignment sessions between regional teams and HQ to facilitate a deeper understanding of HQ’s strategic objectives and how regional OKRs can best contribute to these goals.
• Ongoing Support and Tools: Provided ongoing support, including access to OKR tracking tools and resources, to ensure consistent application and alignment of OKRs across regions, along with strategies to maintain team engagement and motivation.

The collaboration yielded significant benefits for Manulife:

• Strategic Alignment and Cohesion: Regional sales teams were able to align their OKRs more effectively with HQ strategies, ensuring that their efforts were directly contributing to Manulife’s global objectives.
• Enhanced Execution and Accountability: The initiative led to improved execution of OKRs within regional teams, with clearer accountability and a more consistent approach to achieving key results.
• Increased Engagement and Ownership: Regional sales teams demonstrated increased engagement with and ownership of their OKRs, motivated by the clear linkage between their goals and the company’s strategic direction.