October Theory: Gen-Z Discovers Quarterly Planning (and the Olds can learn a thing or two)

Is October the new January? Gen Z thinks so, and they might be onto something. In this Thinkydoers Short, I dive into the viral TikTok trend of "October Theory" and explore how it intersects with established business practices like quarterly planning and OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting your career journey, this episode offers fresh insights on goal-setting and achievement.

Episode Highlights:

• Introduction to "October Theory" and its viral spread on TikTok
• How October Theory aligns with business quarterly planning practices
• What us Olds can learn from the youth on the importance of end-of-Q3 retrospectives and learning reviews
• Introduction to Key Results for Gen Z goal-setters
• The benefits of outcome-based goals over activity-based goals

Key Questions:

• What is October Theory?
• How does October Theory relate to business planning cycles?
• What are Key Results in the context of OKRs?
• Why are outcome-based goals more effective than activity-based goals?

Notable Quotes:

"Let's listen to the next generation on this one and prioritize the end of Q3 reset."

"Key results are a different kind of goal... We're going to think about what would be really incredible to achieve in terms of impacts or quantifiable outcomes of our effort."

"Instead of the risk of the all or nothing bad feelings that we get when we set just activity based goals, when we create key results, that's what we're pursuing... We get instantly curious, even if you're not having any progress."

Episode Chapters: 

00:00 Introduction to Thinkydoer Shorts 

01:15 Discovering October Theory

02:07 Understanding October Theory and Its Impact

03:43 The Power of Key Results for Gen Z

04:06 Implementing OKRs in Business

06:21 Creating Effective Key Results

09:02 The Benefits of Key Results Over Activity Goals

12:57 Conclusion and Join the Pre-Launch List for You Are A Strategist

Links and Resources:

• Pre-launch list for "You Are a Strategist": youareastrategist.com
• Sara's website: saralobkovich.com
• Shortcut to Sara's website: findrc.co

 

Mentioned in this episode:

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to Thinkydoer Shorts,where we embrace anti-perfection
and dive straight into the messymiddle of strategy, leadership,
and personal and career growth.
I'm your host, Sara Lobkovich, creatorof No-BS Objectives and Key Results,
host of the Thinkydoers podcast,
and I'm a strategy coach, big timegoal nerd, and board certified

(00:23):
health and wellness coach witha focus on work life well-being.
And in the next few minutes, we'llexplore a current topic or insight to
spark your curiosity and provide you apragmatic starting place to take action.
Let's dive in.
Hey friends, I thought I would experimentwith a new format because we keep

(00:44):
getting really bogged down in edit.
So I've been completely loving ourinterview shows that we're putting
together and there's so much work thatI haven't been doing my solo shows.
But this weekend something cameup that I couldn't really wait
to put an episode together for.
So this is an experiment in doinga quick off the cuff episode on a

(01:06):
culturally relevant topic in I don'tknow, 15 or so minutes or less.
So I'm literally setting a timer so Ican see it, so I don't go on too long.
On Friday night I was up late and, youknow, on the phone, which is not good
for sleep hygiene, But it had been awhile since I looked at calls for story
support on Quoted, which is a sourcethat I use to find media appearances

(01:31):
and to look for journalists who covertopics that I am a specialist in.
And there were a couple ofcalls for sources on something
called October Theory.
And
when I saw TikTok October Theorygoal setting, I had to know more.
so I caught up really quicklywith a couple of news articles.

(01:54):
Of course, I got on TikTok togo straight to the source and I
completely missed the debut of thistopic because I've been so head down
working on my books and everything else
that I'm a little late to the party.
at this point, there's somethinglike 36 million posts about
October Theory on TikTok alone.
So first, what is October Theory?

(02:16):
October Theory is the idea thatOctober is a great time to do your
assessment of where you are, thinkretrospective, and take stock and
decide what you want to set your goalsaround in advance of the new year.
So some influencers talk aboutit like it's a mini January.

(02:38):
Like a mini set of New Year's resolutions.
And some of the youths have thisidea because we're going into
what they call cuffing season.
So people are taking stock of theirrelationship status and wanting
to make changes before we getinto the hunker down for winter.
There's also an astrologicalelement, Which I find fascinating

(03:00):
as a Libra Sun sign, but I'llleave that to the TikTok experts.
We're going to talk about goal setting.
So while I was reading up and watchingsome of the TikToks on the topic, I
felt like I was watching Gen Z discoverquarterly planning for the first time.
Which I'm not throwing shade,I think that's really exciting.

(03:22):
So much of Gen Z, if my stepkids andtheir friends are any indication,
are so mobilized for change naturallythat the thought of them starting with
quarterly goal setting personally orprofessionally early on just makes
me think they could take over theworld even faster, in a good way.
So this is a quick two-fer short.

(03:43):
I'm going to be talking to my businesslisteners about what the youths are
getting right about October Theory.
And then I also want to introduce Gen Zto the concept of a key result, because
it's going to help you make change evenfaster than you're naturally wired for.
And yes, I'm talking about objectivesand key results or OKRs, But these are

(04:03):
not your parents or grandparents OKRs.
So for my business listeners, manyorganizations plan on an annual
cycle starting the year in January.
A lot of my clients begin theirannual planning in, November, or
sometimes even as late as December.
The other phenomenon I tend to observe inmy business clients is we start out the

(04:27):
year really strong with our focus on OKRs.
We might do a solid Q2 reset
at the end of Q1, because we'velearned a lot about how we might
improve our OKRs for the year.
And then a lot of organizationsdo that big mid year.
So they take stock at midyear, see what they've learned.
And see what to let go of, andthen create their OKRs for Q3.

(04:52):
But what tends to happen with thatquarterly cycle is the Q3 reset
kind of gets eaten by the strategicplanning that's about to start.
So there's this overlapping of ourworking toward our current year, year
end goals, and planning for next year.
And that overlap can mean that the goalsetting and goal pursuit toward the

(05:15):
end of the year can get pretty muddled.
I love the idea of this October theory,that October is a great time for a
retrospective to look back on what we'velearned this year, where we are in our
current state, and then say, where do wewant to be when we wake up on January 1st?
that's no different from doingan OKR reset at the end of Q3.

(05:39):
I just find a lot of organizationsjust kind of stop with their
OKR rhythm at the end of Q3.
I saw clients even in the last coupleweeks, some of them, their quarterly
reviews are on my calendar, and Isaw cancellations of the quarterly
review because people are so busytrying to get ready for budget
season and strategic planning.

(05:59):
So let's listen to the nextgeneration on this one and
prioritize the end of Q3 reset.
Because the sand in the hourglass isreally running out on 2024, and you most
likely have some really important progressto be made on your goals before year end,
even while we're planning for next year.

(06:21):
All right, now I want to introduce ourGen Z folks who are excited about October
theory to the concept of a key result,and key results come from a collaborative
goal setting model and practice calledObjectives and Key Results or OKRs.
OKRs have been used in big companiesand by startups for a long, long time.

(06:42):
But I can completely understand howyounger people entering the workforce
or earlier in their career mightencounter OKRs in the workplace and
think, Oh my gosh, this is not for me.
Like the, the way that OKRs getimplemented doesn't always make
a great sales pitch for them.
The experiences people havewith them aren't always strong.

(07:06):
So, Gen Zers, if you haven't yetencountered OKRs, let's start you
off right, and Gen Zers who have hada bad experience with OKRs in the
workplace, let's do a reboot here.
The approach to OKRs that I workwith, I call the No BS OKR model.
We create goals very quickly.
Based exactly on what you're doingwith October Theory, based on taking

(07:29):
stock of where we are and wherewe want to be, and then creating
objectives and key results accordingly.
Today, I'm going to focus on keyresults and encourage you to experiment
with creating your key results aspart of your October Theory planning.
When people are setting goals, theirnatural tendency a lot of times is to

(07:51):
create goals around what they plan to do.
So if you have goals today, you mightlook at that list and let's inventory
how many of them are you deciding todo something or to complete an activity
or even a quantified activity to doan activity a certain number of times.
It's probably a fair number of them.

(08:13):
So key results are adifferent kind of goal.
And the structure that I use fora textbook key result is increase,
decrease, improve, reduce,some kind of directional verb.
A metric by a percentage or pointchange from start value to finish value.

(08:34):
Now, what's the differencebetween creating goals around
activity and creating goals aroundempirically measurable outcomes?
For one, you're probably signingyourself up for way too many activity
goals than you can actually achieve.
It's really common.
For two, you might complete all thoseactivities that you planned and check
off all those boxes and still notactually achieve whatever outcome

(08:59):
or result you really aspire to.
OKRs define for us how we're going toactually quantify success and progress.
And it sounds counterintuitive, butsetting empirically measurable key results
around what we hope to achieve in termsof progress and success can actually
be super motivating compared to justsetting goals around our activities.

(09:23):
If we create goals around ouractivities, and we don't keep up with
that plan, then we feel bad about notbeing able to check off those boxes.
It also causes problems for ourtendency toward all or nothing thinking.
So if we miss one activity, andthat interrupts our habit around the

(09:44):
activity we're trying to complete.
Then there's a risk that you're justgoing to backslide and feel bad and stop
doing what you committed yourself to do.
Where when we create key results,we think about those differently.
So when we create key results, we'regoing to think about what would be really
incredible to achieve in terms of impactsor quantifiable outcomes of our effort.

(10:09):
And we're going to think aboutthat in a stretch way because what
you're doing there is thinking abouta future that doesn't exist yet.
So there's no way to accuratelyforecast what the result is
going to be with certainty.
We recognize we're going into the unknown.
We're trying to change something.
It's not a sure thing that you're goingto achieve it, although you're going to

(10:29):
try your best to, but just setting thatmeasurable goal gives you something to
work toward and then lean in to curiosityand learning about your progress.
So instead of the risk of the all ornothing bad feelings that we get when
we set just activity based goals,when we create key results, that's

(10:51):
what we're If we're pursuing a keyresult, and even if we're not making
progress, then the reaction we haveisn't, there's something wrong with
me that I'm not achieving my goal.
I'm doing something wrong thatI'm not achieving my goal.
Instead, when we're working with keyresults, We get instantly curious,
even if you're not having any progress.

(11:12):
The question you can ask yourself iswhat's going on that I'm not making
progress on this goal, get curious.
And then that gives you flexibilityto adapt your activity plan.
So you can take stock, see what youmight want to change in what you're
doing that will be designed To advanceyour achievement of your key result

(11:33):
with nimbleness and flexibility aboutthe situation that you're operating in,
which frankly changes from day to day.
So those activity goals you're usedto setting, you set at a certain time,
that's your best guess at what needsto be done, and then you work toward
them, but you're in a changing worldand the circumstances and situation
and you yourself are changing.

(11:55):
it's really common for those activitybased goals to get stale or to become no
longer relevant before they're achieved.
Because with key results, we'reasking and answering the question,
what would be really incredible toachieve if everything goes right?
It lets you envision a futurethat doesn't exist yet, the

(12:15):
future that you want to create.
It enables you to work towardthat future with clarity about
what you're trying to achieve.
And it lets you lean intocuriosity, whether you are achieving
progress on your key result.
Whether you are not or whether it's notmoving, no matter what's happening with
that key result, you can check in withyourself, ask the question, what's going

(12:39):
on that this isn't going well, or what'sgoing on that this is going so well?
Can I leverage that to acceleratemy progress or to take what I've
learned to improve my performance insome other area of my work or life?
All right, so that's it.
I'm going to wrap up for today.

(13:00):
If you're curious about anything you'veheard here, I would love to have you
check out my upcoming book, You Are aStrategist, Using No-BS Objectives and
Key Results to get big things done.
You can join the book pre-launch list at youareastrategist.
com.
Now this book is a love letter toall of my listeners, but I would be

(13:21):
so excited if this becomes the bookthat Gen Z learns about OKRs from.
Because I can't wait to see what youdo with Objectives and Key Results.
Thank you for tuning intothis Thinkydoer Short today.
Remember, progress beats perfectionevery time, and let's practice

(13:42):
building in public together.
If you found value in today's episode,Share it with a fellow Thinkydoer.
We love your reviews.
And for more resources andinsights, visit saralobkovich.com.
Or if that's too hard to spell,there's a shortcut at findrc.co.
We'll have our next full lengthepisode out in just a couple

(14:05):
days, continuing on the theme ofmental health for Thinkydoers.
So until next time, stay curiousand stay focused on what might
be incredible to achieve.