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Meridian PointAuthor: Agile Meridian
The Meridian Point Podcast explores the intersection of disruption and innovation in today's rapidly evolving business landscape. While drawing on agile and lean principles, we focus on how leaders and organizations can harness disruption to drive positive change and create breakthrough innovations. Each episode features in-depth conversations with thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and change agents who share their real-world experiences and insights on transforming organizations, developing innovative solutions, and navigating change. From AI and emerging technologies to organizational transformation and leadership development, we explore how individuals and companies can not only adapt to disruption but use it as a catalyst for innovation. Whether you're a business leader looking to drive change, an entrepreneur seeking to disrupt your industry, or someone passionate about innovation, The Meridian Point Podcast offers practical strategies and inspiring stories to help you turn disruption into opportunity. Language: en Genres: Business, Management, Technology Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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From Strategy to Action: How OKRs Transform Fortune 100 Organizations
Tuesday, 9 December, 2025
From Strategy to Action: How OKRs Transform Fortune 100 Organizations The Meridian Point - Episode Show Notes Guest: Sevak MarkarianHost: Kumar DattatreyanDuration: ~ 41 minutesWatch on YouTube Why You Need to Watch This Episode Ever been in a strategy meeting where everyone nods along to a brilliant plan, only to watch it completely fall apart three months later? Most organizations don't fail because they have bad strategies. They fail because no one can figure out how to actually execute them. The C-suite has one vision, middle management is stuck translating it, and the teams doing the work have no idea how their daily tasks connect to the big picture. Sevak Markarian has spent his career solving exactly this problem with Fortune 100 companies like HP, AT&T, and Chevron. This conversation is packed with those "wait, rewind that" moments—like when he drops the surgery analogy that makes you rethink every project you've ever "successfully completed," or when he explains why a deer has a 74% chance of escaping a lion and what that has to do with your team's motivation. If you've ever wondered why your brilliant strategy turned into just another PowerPoint deck gathering dust, you need to hear this. The Moments That'll Make You Think "The Operation Was Successful, But the Patient Died" Sevak opens with this gut-punch: imagine a surgeon saying those words to a family. Yet this happens in businesses every single day. Leaders celebrate finishing projects on time, hitting activity targets, checking boxes—while completely missing that the actual business outcome never happened. This is the difference between output (we did the thing) and outcome (the thing created the impact we needed). When Goals Aren't Actually Goals Most organizations say things like "Build a fuel pump prototype" or "Reduce weight by 10%." That's just an activity with a number. When John Doerr worked with Google, he flipped them: "Reduce fuel consumption by developing a lightweight fuel pump prototype." See the difference? Now we're talking about why it matters to the customer. This one shift changes everything. The Lion, The Deer, and Your Team's Motivation A deer has a 74% chance of escaping a lion. Why? The lion hunts because it needs food. But the deer runs for its life—for purpose. When your team works just to finish tasks and keep their jobs, they're hunting out of need. When the work becomes purposeful, they're running with everything they've got. OKRs That Actually Work Real OKRs work bi-directionally. Leadership sets objectives, but teams create their own key results based on how they'll actually achieve those objectives. Maybe the C-suite thinks reducing weight is the answer, but the engineering team sees that optimizing process time is the path forward. When these perspectives collide, that's where you get real alignment and innovation—not just compliance. The Frameworks That Actually Work How to Structure OKRs So They Don't Suck Objectives are qualitative and purposeful—they answer "why does this matter to customers?" Key Results are the 3-5 measurable outcomes that tell you if you're winning. Numbers about impact, not activity. Actions are the actual work that supports key results. The kicker: you need regular check-ins—weekly or bi-weekly—for real transparency and adaptation. If you're only looking at OKRs quarterly, you're doing it wrong. Stop Measuring the Wrong Things Stop measuring story points, velocity, and burndown charts. Instead, measure things that tell you if you're creating value: How often are you deploying? How long to get changes into production? When something breaks, how fast can you fix it? These DORA metrics can't be gamed, and they'll tell you the truth about whether your transformation is working. Lines That Hit Different These are the moments where I had to pause the conversation and just let it sink in: On purpose vs. activity: "The lion hunts for need, but the deer runs for purpose. If you make work purposeful for your employees, there's a higher statistical chance you will succeed." On the future of work: "We're not asking AI to help us do different things. AI is asking us to do things differently." On what makes good OKRs: "A good OKR is like a hypothesis—it should be testable, it should have a clear expected outcome, and it should teach you something whether you succeed or fail." On leadership in the age of AI: "The leaders of tomorrow aren't the ones who know the most—they're the ones who can adapt the fastest." On celebrating the wrong things: "Having teams celebrate 'we finished all our user stories' is like the surgeon saying 'the operation was successful but the patient died.' We need to celebrate outcomes, not outputs." What You Can Actually Do About This 1. Audit your "goals" right now - For each goal, ask: "Does this explain WHY this matters to a customer, or just WHAT we're building?" If it's just what, rewrite it. 2. Start the bi-directional conversation - Ask your team: "Given this objective from leadership, what key results do YOU think would actually achieve this?" 3. Run small bets, not big transformations - Pick 5-10 small experiments with clear hypotheses. Run them simultaneously. Kill what doesn't work fast. 4. Change what you celebrate - Stop celebrating "we finished all our stories." Start asking "what actual business outcome did we create?" 5. Make your OKRs visible - If your team can't see how their daily work connects to company objectives, you don't have alignment—you have a wishlist. You Need to Watch This If... You've ever sat through a strategy meeting and thought "this sounds great, but how the hell are we actually going to do this?" Your team keeps "successfully" completing projects that somehow don't move the business forward You're a middle manager who feels like a human walkie-talkie between executives and your team You've tried OKRs before and they turned into just another tracking spreadsheet nobody looks at You're curious how companies with 50,000 employees actually align everyone to the same objectives You want to understand why some transformations work and most don't You're tired of celebrating activity while your competitors are winning on outcomes About Sevak Sevak has a Doctorate in Organizational Leadership, an MBA, AND a Master of Science in Engineering Physics. He's literally worked in nuclear reactors studying viruses. So when he tells you that getting a leadership team to collaborate is harder than solving complex physics problems, he's not guessing—he's done both. He's worked with Fortune 100 companies like HP, AT&T, Chevron, Blue Shield of California, Kaiser Permanente, and Farmers Insurance, helping them close the gap between "we have a strategy" and "we're executing on that strategy." Connect with Sevak: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sevakmarkarian/ He works with organizations on transformation consulting, executive coaching, and OKR implementation. If you're stuck between having a vision and making it happen, reach out. Fair warning: he's going to ask you hard questions about whether you're measuring outputs or outcomes. Related Episodes You'll Want to Check Out Dr. Michael Gerharz: The PATH Framework for Strategic Communication Liam O'Neill: Making Business Process Management Drive Innovation Roman Pichler: Product Strategy and Adaptive Leadership Andreas Wittler: Cultural Archeology and Organizational Patterns Don't Just Read This—Do Something With It You made it to the end. Now here's the question: are you going to do something different tomorrow, or let this be just another thing you consume and forget? Watch the full episode - The conversation goes way deeper than these notes can capture. Share this with someone frustrated with strategies that never materialize. You know who they are. Subscribe to The Meridian Point so you don't miss future conversations like this. Drop a comment with your biggest strategy-execution challenge. What gap are you trying to close? About The Meridian Point I'm Kumar Dattatreyan. I've spent over 20 years coaching everyone from startups to Fortune 50 companies. Before that, I ran McDonald's restaurants—which taught me more about operations and execution than any business school. I co-founded Agile Meridian and created The Disruptor Method, which helps leadership teams actually align around strategy instead of just nodding along in meetings. Connect: LinkedIn: [Your profile] | YouTube: @meridian_point We go live every other week with real transformation conversations. No fluff, no corporate jargon. Related Episodes Dr. Michael Gerharz: Why brilliant strategies fail when leaders can't communicate them Liam O'Neill: Making business processes drive innovation instead of killing it Roman Pichler: Balancing innovation with execution in product strategy #OKRs #StrategyExecution #Leadership #BusinessAgility #TheMeridianPoint
