Let's be real, most of us were never actually taught in life
how to make big decisions. Not in high school, not in
college, and definitely not in your first job.
At Stanford, we learned the tools on how to rewire our own
personal operating system. How do you make better decisions
for your career and your personal life?
This is the next part of our most downloaded series, which is
basically everything we learned at Harvard Business School and
the most important tools we learned at Stanford's Graduate
School of Business. I'm Cherie.
I'm Jean. And we're the tiger.
Sisters, we are the Internet's Wall Street and Silicon Valley
Big Sisters. We're a top ten business podcast
on Spotify where we talk about money, power, and love.
If you missed the first episode of the six most important tools
that we learned at Stanford Business School, then definitely
go back and binge it later. And so for each of these tools,
once again, we're going to do 2 things.
One, we're going to approach it like a real HBS, Harvard
Business School or Stanford GSB case study, which means we're
going to bring examples from real companies and brands and
from our own work experience. And the second thing we're going
to do is that for each of these tools, we'll actually have a
mini exercise that we can work through right here on the spot
so that you actually experience the learnings as we're going
through the. Podcast and as you're going
through the mini exercises live with us, we would love to hear
from you guys. Please drop in the comments,
share some of the things you're thinking through, and we read
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Great, let's dive right in. The first framework is called
Jobs to be Done and honestly this is one of the most
misunderstood ideas or frameworks in product or
marketing. This framework was first created
by Clay Christensen during his time at HBS, but we learned this
at Stanford as well and obviously took it to the next
level. Hmm.
OK, so here's the core idea in a nutshell.
People don't actually buy products, they actually hire
them to do a job in their life. And most of the time, that job
is actually emotional, not just purely functional.
And at LinkedIn, we use this framework all the time.
If you take LinkedIn profile for example, why do people update
their profile? Is it for visibility?
Is it for validation or is it to get hired?
Knowing which job you are using the product for or your
customers are using the product for really helps you understand
what to build. I thought of another example,
which is our own products, sisters matcha.
You might think that people are buying sisters matcha just
because it's an ultra premium, super high quality like amazing
tasting matcha. But I think having talked to
some of our customers, a big part of why they're buying it is
because they they love the narrative and the story behind
it. And like we've spent a lot of
time sharing that narrative, how it comes from a small family
owned farm in Wazooka, Japan that you and I both worked on.
And like we've shown that whole journey of how it's made.
So I feel like part of the reason why people are hiring
sisters Matcha, our product is that they are also kind of
getting that sort of experience of being a part of that one,
that whole sort of like community.
OK, so now let's do the mini exercise, which is think about
your product, your service or even your role at work and be
super, super honest with yourself.
What are people hiring you for? Is it for your competence?
Is it for your confidence? Is it because you are calm in
the eye of the storm? Is it because you are
entertainment personality hire? But think about it and then put
your answers in the comments so that we can see what you guys
are doing. And next, we'll dive into
Framework 2 right after this break.
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All right, now back to our show. And we're back.
OK, Framework 2 is about decision trees and expected
values. This second framework can really
save you from decision making paralysis, also known as how to
make the big important decisions in your life without losing your
mind. Think of it as a way to force
clarity when the stakes are high, so that you have both
qualitative and quantitative methods.
So the next time you have a really big decision to make, use
this process. There are 4 steps.
One, list out all of your options, 2 sketch out the
possible outcomes for each. Three, assign a probability and
a payoff, and four, determine the expected value by
multiplying the probability with that value.
OK, that sounds a little bit complicated, but I'll give a
solid example. So for me, one time when I use
this is when I was going through job offers and I was looking at
this job offer that basically looked amazing on paper and
there were all these different components to it.
So what I did was I mapped out three different outcomes for
this job, right? One was best case scenario, one
was worst case scenario, and then one was the most likely
scenario. And then I kind of put a number
to each of those outcomes, a value basically, And then I
multiplied each of those by the likelihood of each of those
happening. So the most likely one was the
middle case. And then when I mapped that all
out and I compared all the different outcomes, at the end
of the day, it was kind of a man offer, despite the fact that it
looked so amazing on paper. Meanwhile, you can compare that
to another option, which is entrepreneurship, which actually
looks really risky on paper. And most of the time you can
assign a very low value to it because you're not making that
much money at the beginning. But the option value and the
upside is actually huge when you map it out using this process.
And the biggest companies out there don't just use their gut.
They actually use frameworks to map out what are the potential
options and which ones are most likely to happen.
For example, Netflix uses this framework to green light their
TV shows and movies. VC firms use this framework to
better understand what companies to invest in and like Amazon
uses this framework to better understand the pricing models.
Yeah. I mean, gut instinct is cute,
but billion dollar companies, they use math and they use
expected value. And I think it's really cool
that you can take this framework that companies use in day-to-day
business and honestly apply it to the smart decisions in your
life. I think even worse than making a
bad or a wrong decision is staying stuck.
People often delay decision making because they're afraid or
scared of being wrong or looking wrong.
But this framework actually shows you how to be wrong
safely. And at that point, you have the
most informed decision that you could possibly make.
So then you get to choose Something that's really
ingrained in my head is that the LinkedIn product officer has a
saying. He says I may be wrong but I'm
not confused and. That's.
Something that people like, quote back to him all the time,
that. Who says that?
His name is Tomer Cohen and he's head of product of LinkedIn and
he says that all the time when it comes to decision making
because he's not afraid of being wrong.
I like that. But he's not confused.
He knows the decision that he's made and you know he rolls with
it. Yeah, maybe I'll borrow that.
Maybe I'll say instead. Like I may be wrong but I have
clarity. Exactly like that.
Yeah. Yeah.
OK, time for the mini exercise. I love this part.
So the mini exercise for this framework is to pick some sort
of decision that you've been putting off and is living rent
free in your brain, and then actually do this.
Map out two to three potential outcomes for this decision.
Assign some sort of value to each of those outcomes, and then
also assign a probability to each of those outcomes.
Multiply those out and then you get the expected value for each
of them. And once you model it out, the
whole point is that it doesn't have to be perfect.
It just has to be putting something down on paper so that
you have more clarity than the swirl that's going on in your
head today. And if you're open to sharing,
we'd love to hear some of the decisions that you're thinking
through in the comments below. And the expected values and what
you end up picking because I am nosy and I want to know
everything that's going on in your lives.
Cool. And the Last Framework combines
Stanford design thinking with our product management
background. We'll get right to it after this
break. Quick pause.
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of Tiger Sisters. Now back to the show.
And we're back. OK, So the last framework,
Framework 3 is life as a product road map or also known as using
OK Rs, which are objectives and key results.
So Sheree, what can you tell us about this?
I first learned about the OKR Objective Key Results framework
in the professional setting at work, but I think it's really
cool because you can actually use Okr's to plan out your own
personal life, which is something that I do.
Yeah. And so OK Rs were actually
invented by Andy Grove at Intel first, but it was also
popularized by Google and also very much through Stanford's
design program. And now it's pretty much used in
I would say every tech company and lots of non tech companies
have also adopted OK Rs. So at LinkedIn, of course, we
have the professional OK Rs and these are like the larger goals
that our organization shares. So we know what goal everyone is
working towards for the quarter, but we also did personal OK Rs
and we actually shared this on my larger team too.
So basically you would have your larger goal and see how you
would measure that goal in your personal life.
And we would share this with our team so everyone else would know
kind of what we were doing in our personal lives.
As much as you wanted to share, but some funny things are like
if people their objective was to get into better shape, they'd be
like their that's their goal. Their key result is, oh, I need
to go to the gym four days a week.
Some of the people on my team shared they wanted to get better
at dancing or they wanted to learn piano, but then we could
kind of know more about their personal lives, so it was like a
fun activity in that way. Yeah, we actually did this on my
team too. And it was also helpful because
when you share your OK Rs, then everyone else on your immediate
team knows something that is very important to you personally
and they can actually support you through it.
So I remember someone did have the goal of like, oh, I want to
go to the gym three times a week.
So like knowing that if this person was sort of like running
late for their gym class, we'd be like, no, no, no, don't worry
about it. Just tackle this later.
Go make your gym class. I know it's your personal OK R.
No, that's so nice. Yeah.
And supportive, yeah. At a supportive team.
Yeah, I think it's fun also to share because in that way you
have social accountability too. So that like by the end of the
quarter when we also did our review session of our personal
OK Rs because like you can put a goal out there and put it out
into the world. I had a subjective, but you
might not accomplish it. Then everyone at the end of the
quarter was like trying to rush to make their OK Rs if they
could get something you know in by the when the finish line was
approaching. Yeah.
But let's let's like continue to roll with this example of
explaining how to use OK, R So like if your objective is I want
to get into better shape by the end of this quarter, you know,
within three months, what are two of your KRS or key results
that you would go along with it and also explain what a key
result is? A key result is how you measure
your goal or measure that you achieved your objective.
For example, it could be something like if your objective
is to get into better shape, a key result could mean something
like very numbers driven, like I want to go to the gym three days
a week for five weeks in a row, for example.
Or by the end of this quarter, I want to be, I don't know, I'm
not like a gym bro, but I don't know, like like 20% BMI or
something like that. Yeah, Yeah, like you have.
Like a #20% body fat or something like.
Exactly. So like you have a number that
you can track week over week to see also how you're making
progress towards your. Goal, yeah.
So like in the business world most of the time, OK, ours are
related to, you know, like major strategic goals or like growing
the business. So it might be your objective is
to hit this level of growth in the company and then the key
results are like achieve this sort of revenue in, you know,
this sector of the business and then sign on like 25% new
customers in this part of the business.
But you can see how it actually can be.
It's very extensible and you can apply it to your everyday life
in a way that's really helpful. And it makes the objective or
the goal less scary because you get to break it down into very
actionable milestones that you hope to see, to show you that if
you accomplish these key results, then you will have
reached. Your stated objective.
Yeah. And then one last thing I'll say
about it is that actually a very powerful part of going through
the OK R process is even just figuring out what sort of key
results would ladder up to the objective and like going through
that exercise. Because then it makes you like,
think about it like, if I actually want to achieve this,
what are the things that I have to do to like, ladder up to that
outcome? Why laughing?
Because I just had a core memory activated what in 2020, I was
trying to make like a fashion style wear brand because I was
really bored during COVID and I actually considered calling it
OK R, which now in upon reflection five years later, I
understand how lame that is. But that's how much I like love
OK Rs. It's funny.
Well, you would have had to like go back and and come up with
another thing that it stood for. Yeah, it could stand for
objective, key result and something else that's trendy,
fun and cute. But the idea came to me because
I love OK Rs. Yeah.
That's like, there's this one of the main company, one of the
main car manufacturers in the world that is Chinese.
It's called BYD, and originally BYD stood for something that's
like Chinese, but when they opened up to the Western market,
they renamed it and they said BYD stands for Build Your
Dreams, which is allegedly allegedly.
A pretty cool name for a company, yeah.
Yeah, I love it. I have to think of something for
OK R that's less lame. I think the other good thing
about OK Rs is it makes you shine a light on what is
actually most important to you and write it down.
Because without OK Rs, a lot of times everything can feel urgent
and you're just like, I have to do this, I have to do this, I
have to do this. And then you're kind of just
like tackling things as they come and you're not really being
as effective as you could be. True.
And like if you're in the corporate world and like people
are asking you to do ABCD and like asking for your time to do
stuff, if it doesn't ladder up to your personal OK Rs, you can
like choose whether or not you want to do it.
You're a professional, OK Rs, you can choose whether or not to
do it because it honestly might not serve you.
So it like kind of serves also as a guardrail of like what
success could look like for you in the professional world, but
also the personal world too. Yeah, that's a great point.
That's a I feel like that's kind of like another episode, but
just a little teaser is that a lot of times people if they ask
you to do something, you'd be like, Oh well, I would love to
do that, but I actually have to focus on XYZ first because
that's my stated OK R. Yeah.
Like not that it's an excuse because it's a very valid
excuse, but like you can very much point to a goal that you
are set setting out to achieve that everyone else has
visibility into. On the other hand, it's kind of
disastrous when you're OK Rs don't necessarily ladder up to
the OK Rs of the org that are like the org that encompasses
you. That's a whole other story.
Yeah. Dun Dun Dun.
To be continued. Let us know if you want to know
more. About that, yeah, we have
thoughts that goes into our Power and Influence episode.
Go check it out in Season 4 where we talk about influencing
in the workplace and the mini exercise for this framework is
to set a personal OK R for you. What are your goals and how will
you measure success if you achieve that?
Goal and it could be a totally personal goal.
So for example, the goal could be I want to improve my mental
health. So that could be the objective.
And then the K Rs could be KR one do three sessions of therapy
this quarter, KR2 Journal twice a week for this quarter and then
KR3 take one full rest day. So that's that's yeah.
I love it. I'm going to borrow that.
OK, R. OK, now we're going into the
takeaways, the last part of the episode.
And these are the three frameworks that helped change
how we think. The first is the Jobs to be Done
framework, which helps us decide if we're solving the right
problem. The second is the decision tree
framework, It helps you stop spiraling and make the right
decision. And the third is the OK R
framework where you can prioritize what matters.
So if something landed today in this episode, don't just nod
along, do these mini exercises and actually commit to posting
your answers in the comments so that we can see them and then we
can actually respond. And you guys know, we love to
respond to the comments and also make sure you like, follow and
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And all of this helps other people just like you discover
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Thanks and we'll see you next. Time bye.