CFRs: Conversations, Feedback and Recognition

CFRs: Conversations, Feedback and Recognition

Almost any communication tool – Zooms, texts, emails, all those Slack channels – can help move your OKRs forward.

In a football game, there are different forms of communication about goals, from huddles and audibles to timeouts, and the meetings that happen at halftime.

Healthy organizations also use different forms of communication. Together, they can help teams achieve operating excellence.

Where performance management was once relegated to annual reviews, we advocate for a more modern approach of continuous performance management.

It’s delivered through conversations, feedback, and recognition – or CFRs for short. CFRs and OKRs are goal-setting siblings. A healthy OKR practice cannot exist without them.

Conversations are communications about the work itself, the progress, the tactics. It seeks to resolve issues before they bottleneck the work.

Feedback is intended to improve or change performance or behaviors.

Recognition shows appreciation.

Using all three greatly improves how you and your teams communicate. When you use CFRs with OKRs, you become a learning organization – one that continually improves.

Conversations about OKR progress

Now let’s take a closer look at the Cs of CFRs: conversations. Conversations are constantly happening. They are the back-and-forth about progress – in this context – about OKR progress.

Two common settings for conversations are team meetings and one-on-ones. We suggest starting those meetings with conversations about your OKRs.

Here are some basic points to cover:

• What’s the status of your OKRs?
• Has there been any progress on your OKRs?
• What’s changed since the last time we talked?
• Is there anything blocking an OKR’s success?

Once the degree of progress – or lack of it – has been established, use clarifying questions to bring more light to the subject.

Then ask, “What help do you need?”

Conversations should be nonjudgmental – which doesn’t mean they should avoid all criticism. If an OKR is behind and bad decisions have hurt progress, say so directly. But your main focus should be on how to make progress, not fault-finding. These OKRs, they’re our shared goals.

When conversations home in on shared success or shared failure, transparency and openness become the norm. That’s essential for a culture of high performance.

As a team, we already agreed on our priorities and metrics when we set and locked our OKRs. But plans change, especially when you’re pursuing big goals. Use conversations to keep steering in the right direction, even as you adjust your tactics to get there.

Conversations are how we move forward together.

Constructive feedback

If conversation centers on progress, feedback focuses on improvement. It reflects on how to close the gap between intention and action. It begins with the question, “How can we increase our chances of success?”

Think of feedback as an opportunity to coach and teach. Coaching provides people with training and guidance. A coach draws on their experience to help someone else achieve a goal. As a coach, it helps to listen more than you speak.

When offering suggestions, be specific and action-oriented. Rephrase complaints as constructive requests.

Instead of “That presentation could have been better” say, “The next time you pitch, try to present more slowly and make time for the audience to ask questions.”

Feedback is appropriate and necessary for getting an OKR back on track.

You might provide direct suggestions for how to improve something. Or you might offer feedback on the process. As you approach feedback in the spirit of coaching, it’s more effective when it’s given early and often.

Real-time feedback allows people to identify what they might do differently and then adjust their approach. It suggests an alternative path forward before they’ve gone too far in the wrong direction.

If a team leader withholds feedback until the end of a cycle or an annual performance review, it’s often too late. The more time that goes by between the action and the feedback, the harder it is to absorb and apply it. Negative feedback at an annual review feels like judgment.

I can remember a time when I got some pretty blunt feedback, and I was so thankful that I heard it in the moment. I had just joined a company when my manager pulled me aside and said, “Hey Ryan, did you realize you were cutting people off at our last meeting? You weren’t letting others express their ideas.”

That hit hard.

But I wasn’t defensive, because I could play back what had happened just a few hours earlier. And yes, I was cutting my colleagues off. My overexuberance was unintentionally rude to my colleagues.

I was able to take that feedback and adjust the way I worked. Within a week, I could actually see what a difference it made.

Now imagine if I’d gotten that feedback months later, during a performance review: “Ryan’s got a lot of energy, but he doesn’t let others express their ideas.” That would have hurt. And I’m pretty sure I would have gotten defensive – and that I wouldn’t have known how to fix it. In short, I’m glad I got the feedback in the moment.

Recognition and appreciation

Okay, that’s C and F. Now let’s talk about the R, recognition.

Recognition is positive acknowledgement for things big and small. It’s about sharing what’s working in the moment and expressing appreciation. Recognition is a form of coaching.

Skillful recognition goes beyond simple thank yous. It’s specific. For example:
“The summary you sent after our last meeting was so clearly written that it helped everyone on the team understand the challenge better. Thank you.”

In addition to making recognition specific, it’s good to do it frequently. And like feedback, it should happen in the moment. Don’t wait for a formal ceremony or performance review.

When OKRs are written well, people need to stretch to meet them. In any given cycle, you might even see more failure than success. Recognition is great for team morale because it highlights the wins that align with our goals.

It can also reinforce an organization’s values. Positive reinforcement tells someone, “Yes, keep doing more of that.” Each time you recognize what you found valuable, you’re acknowledging progress and signaling what’s important.

Conversation. Feedback. Recognition – the three essential components of CFRs. A meeting that includes all three leaves people with more satisfaction and clarity about their day-to-day work and direction.

Bottom line: CFRs aren’t separate from OKRs. They are two halves of a whole.