Peter Kerr is an OKR coach and founder of his own consultancy, 80:20 Business Coaching, working primarily with blue-chip clients and scale-ups in C-suite and boardroom environments. Since 2016, he has focused exclusively on OKRs, building a specialized practice around what he calls “lighting the fire of OKRs” in executive settings. His background includes years of running digital transformation workshops and strategy sessions, experiences that ultimately led him to discover the power of OKRs as a more focused approach to strategic execution.
The Journey to OKR Expertise
Peter’s journey into OKRs began with a missed opportunity that became a pivotal moment. When his consultancy pitched for a tender requiring OKR expertise they didn’t possess, the loss sparked his curiosity about this methodology. However, the real motivation had been building through years of frustrating client experiences.
Peter had been conducting digital transformation workshops and strategy sessions, only to revisit clients months later to find that strategic initiatives had stalled. “I’ve been doing a lot of digital transformation workshops, gone to lots of away days, put lots of post-it notes on walls and then revisited those clients six months later for them just to go, oh yeah, well, this didn’t happen or that didn’t happen,” he recalls.
Rather than accept this pattern of failed execution, Peter searched for a more focused way to help organizations execute their strategy. That search led him to OKRs and marked the beginning of his specialized practice.
Why OKRs Matter for Executive Teams
Working in boardrooms and C-suites, Peter sees OKRs addressing a critical challenge for blue-chip organizations facing transformation pressure. These companies have reached a point where traditional approaches no longer work.
Peter believes effective OKRs should create productive discomfort for management teams because without this tension, real change won’t happen. For many large organizations, the challenge isn’t setting goals – it’s making sure those goals drive focused action across complex hierarchies while avoiding what Peter calls the “whirlwind” of daily operations that derail strategic priorities.
The methodology works particularly well when organizations need to change direction quickly. Traditional annual planning takes too long for today’s pace of change, while OKRs create faster feedback loops that allow course corrections without losing strategic focus.
Partnership with OKR Mentors: Finding the Right Community
Peter’s partnership with OKR Mentors transformed both his professional capabilities and personal connection to the field. What distinguished OKR Mentors was the authentic community of practitioners who understood both the potential and challenges of OKR implementation.
“The thing that makes OKR Mentors stand out for me was I immediately found like-minded people. People that understood the basic of OKR, but also didn’t sugarcoat how easy it is,” Peter explains. The community addressed a fundamental challenge for solo practitioners – working in isolation without peers facing similar challenges.
Expanding Service Capabilities
As an independent consultant, Peter was limited by what he could create and deliver on his own. OKR Mentors provided ready-made training materials, proven frameworks, and structured methodologies that are hard to develop independently. This meant Peter could offer comprehensive OKR implementations rather than just high-level strategic guidance. The partnership essentially gave him the infrastructure of a larger consulting firm while maintaining his independence.
Building a Global Expert Network
The community connected Peter with experienced OKR practitioners from around the world, creating immediate opportunities for collaboration. When clients needed specialized expertise or larger project teams, Peter could tap into this network rather than declining opportunities or compromising on quality. This transformed his ability to compete for and win complex, high-value engagements that were previously beyond his reach as a solo consultant.
Staying Current with Best Practices
Traditional consulting often relies on static methodologies that become outdated. The OKR Mentors community continuously shares new insights, case studies, and refined approaches. “The vital thing that this community has, is that it’s evolving, it’s changing all the time. People are adding new things to it, the content’s changing,” Peter explains. This collective learning ensures Peter always works with cutting-edge approaches rather than relying on knowledge that might be years old.
Peter’s Methodology for OKR Success
Through his partnership with OKR Mentors and subsequent client work, Peter developed a systematic approach that centers on overcoming what he calls the activation challenge. While attracting clients is relatively straightforward, keeping them engaged and driving real change requires a more sophisticated approach. His methodology focuses on five key elements:
- Executive Sponsorship: Success depends on corporate sponsorship from executives who genuinely commit to the initiative rather than delegating responsibility without engagement.
- Strategic Communication: Organizations need clear internal communication strategies to address questions and concerns from the start, preventing confusion that can derail implementation.
- Structured Training and Certification: Peter strongly advocates for formal certification and structured training to create shared understanding across teams. Without this foundation, organizations struggle with disconnected terminology where different stakeholders discuss goals, tasks, and initiatives without common reference points.
- Champion Development: Internal champions serve as what Peter calls “the drummer in the band” – they maintain the organizational rhythm essential for sustained OKR practice. These champions require training and support to effectively guide teams through ongoing implementation challenges.
- Start Small and Scale: Peter begins with small implementations to help teams develop their OKR capabilities. Once confidence builds, scaling becomes more natural and sustainable, allowing organizations to expand the practice across broader functions.
Business Impact and Growth
The results of Peter’s partnership with OKR Mentors showed up in concrete ways across his consulting practice, creating measurable improvements in both what he could deliver and his position in the market.
Stronger Client Relationships
The comprehensive methodologies from OKR Mentors allowed Peter to deliver complete implementations rather than partial solutions, resulting in higher client satisfaction and more repeat business. This enabled him to secure longer-term engagements and focus on what he does best – challenging boardroom conversations that drive transformation – while relying on proven support infrastructure to handle the broader implementation requirements his C-suite clients demanded.
New Revenue Streams
The partnership opened revenue opportunities that Peter couldn’t access as a solo practitioner. Collaboration with the expert network enabled him to bid on larger, more complex projects that were previously beyond his individual capacity. The structured training materials also allowed him to offer certification programs alongside consulting services, diversifying his income sources.
Enhanced Professional Standing
Access to cutting-edge content and methodologies reinforced Peter’s established expertise in the OKR space, providing additional credibility with experienced executives. His ability to represent OKR work authentically – acknowledging both potential and challenges – continued to resonate strongly with clients who valued straightforward assessment over oversimplified promises.
Peter’s recommendation to other strategy consultants reflects the transformative nature of his experience: pursue OKR certification because the methodology’s importance will continue growing. His advice emphasizes experiencing the methodology firsthand to develop authentic expertise and genuine passion when working with clients.
Peter’s journey demonstrates how strategic community partnership can amplify an established consultant’s capabilities, enabling them to scale their impact and deliver even greater value to their clients.
Learn more about Peter Kerr’s work at: https://www.8020rules.co.uk/about-8020
