On Aligning Vectors, Cage Fighting, and PM Benching

Did you know that company culture contributes highly to the success of OKRs in teams? As a team leader or a manager, you should be able to find out how your team is aligning with the company culture you’re setting. This will give you an idea of OKRs performance and what needs to be improved to make the work environment better.  

Srikant Vemuri is the current CEO of technology at Frontier Car Group where he’s managing product and technology. He has overseen the design and launch of breakthrough products in the B2B at tech and big data spaces for industry innovators such as Seerene, Womply, Aarki, and Adchemy. He explains how he learned to put himself in the shoes of the customers to feel what they were feeling which improved how he operated tremendously.  

Listen in to learn how you as the CEO should choose three things to be done every quarter. You will also learn about the importance of accountability and responsibility for the team to succeed in OKRs. 

“Accountability and responsibility are the two things that I look for teams to really be successful in OKRs.” — Srikant [34:03] 

Show notes

• (3:31) Srikant describes his journey from a software engineering intern to managing products at a young age and his journey in the industry over the years.
• (15:15) He explains the OKRs’ challenges he faced in his role overseeing product launches and why he and his team gave up on their vision statements.
• (19:51) Aligning vectors to achieve OKRs simply. Why being CEO is not the same as a product manager and how they managed to put themselves in the customers’ shoes.
• (24:19) Cage fight-The three things that every CEO should choose to get done every quarter for the product manager to adjust everything around them.
• (30:00) Why accountability and responsibility are the two qualities that lead to the success of teams in OKRs. Why company culture matter more than OKRs.
• (38:50) Srikant talks about his personal KPI where he conducts surveys on team members to find out if they align with the company culture.