Sara Lobkovich, J.D., NBC-HWC

Beyond The Binary and Queering Goal Setting with Zephyr Williams — Sara Lobkovich | OKR Expert What if everything you've been taught about goal setting is working against you? Anti-hustle strategist Zeph Williams shares why SMART goals fail neurodivergent entrepreneurs & introduces the SLIC…

... and invite us into something softer, deeper, and more aligned.

This is for the curious ones. The unfurling ones. The ones making space for nuance, growth, and change that actually feels good.

saralobkovich.com/thinkydoers-...

#Podcast #GoalSetting #SMARTGoals

Beyond The Binary and Queering Goal Setting with Zephyr Williams — Sara Lobkovich | OKR Expert What if everything you've been taught about goal setting is working against you? Anti-hustle strategist Zeph Williams shares why SMART goals fail neurodivergent entrepreneurs & introduces the SLIC…

If the word "goal" makes your body tense up a little…

This episode is your permission slip to opt out of the binary — and into "becoming."

🎙️ In Episode 47 of Thinkydoers, Sara and guest Zeph Williams crack open the overly-rigid (and ambiguous) world of SMART goals...

In the background is bokeh that's blue and gold and orange. In the foreground is the quote: What if it's not goal setting? What if it's just becoming, what are you becoming?

🚨 What if "goal setting" is sending your brain in the wrong direction?

If you've ever felt like you’re chasing someone else’s definition of success…
If “productive” feels like pressure, not possibility…
If the word "goal" makes your body tense up a little…

This episode is for you.

Instead of creating strategic plans that are resilient from occasional disruption, now we're focused on creating strategic plans and creating strategic goals that survive chaos.

Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/Ahdvg

#Podcast #leadership #LeadershipDevelopment

So to generate my takeaways, I have to do the work I did in the room -- again -- on my own time... when I'd love to be having a weekend.

Other third party service providers:

Are you running into this?
How are you handling it?
I can't possibly be the only one navigating this?

I don't have answers, this is just a Saturday morning thought puzzle because I'm working on client work today because I'm two days behind on meeting follow up for meetings that I don't have transcripts or recordings of.

(Not to mention, I rely heavily on live captions as an accessibility feature, since I struggle with auditory processing.)

(Not to mention, my protocols are almost certainly more rigorous than whatever is happening within their walls.)

but then to comply with client requests, I can't have a human transcriptionist prepare the transcript because I can't share client information with third parties...

...and/or I'd have to do my own transcription (which there is a zero percent chance clients want to pay my hourly rate to do).

I am now doing the mental gymnastics on whether the security risks of physical recording to an off-network old school digital voice recorder are lower or higher...

I asked a client this week if I could record via a non-meeting-platform method (e.g. recording audio on my phone or computer) and they declined if the file would be put on *any* cloud.

I also am often delivering my own (rights-reserved) IP in these meetings, with clients only having a limited license to use. So it's important for ME to have a record of what's delivered to whom, when... and I have no way to solve for that now.

I need verbatim client language for insight development and strategy building.

I can type verbatim notes myself, but then I'm in transcriptionist mode, which is different than facilitator mode. So it's not ideal. (And then is the physical security of my laptop better than cloud security? I dunno.)

Anyway -- express genAI platform use is a "nice to have."

But not being able to use live captioning, record meetings, and/or obtain meeting transcripts because those features all involve exposure to genAI that exceeds the clients' risk profile is making it very hard to be a strategist right now.

And, we vet tools for HIPAA compliance -- since even if I'm not *doing* health coaching, I *am* a health coach. As a rule, we err on the side of HIPAA compliance for any tools that "see" client information.

But clients are often surprised by the rigor of our policy, disclosure, and safety grading.

Fun facts:

The "riskiest" platform in my stack (according to my security rubric) is Google Cloud Workspace -- which we only use if the client is a Google shop.

Express genAI platform use is a "nice to have" in my practice -- that's not an issue.

My client agreement permits it. When clients have concerns, I share our genAI policy, with an inventory of the tools in our stack that are genAI enabled, and a "safety grade" for each one. Clients can opt out.

The latest fun thing that's happened in my strategy practice thanks to #genAI proliferation is that two of my long-term clients suddenly decided to no longer allow third party meeting recording (or *any* exposure to genAI) for their meetings.

I'm befuddled at how to make this work, practically.

I knew I was on to something the first time my race team yelled out phrases from our Stack to inform a five-figure operating decision in a matter of seconds.

Curious to hear more? Ping me -- I'll share a download with a worksheet and example Stacks to help you get started... today!

#strategicplan

It's a cheat sheet for making strategy clear, aligned, coherent, and useful.

The Stack exists because I work in high-stakes, high-consequences environments where I need to ensure strategic decisionmaking across a distributed team, when we have seconds to make (potentially) life or death decisions.

Stop trying to create the "right" strategy, and let's do some work on making your strategy *actually useful.*

Consider implementing the Connected Strategic Stack: a flexible framework for creating clarity, and informing day-to-day behavior/decisionmaking, everywhere in your organization.

If you think your strategy isn't "right;"
It's not yielding the results you want it to;
You're hearing from your people that they don't know how their work matters or aligns to strategy (or worse, you're hearing crickets from your people)...

Strategy is a theory about how to do better. There is no "right" strategy. There is only the best set of experiments to run next, given the information you have right now (aligned to your reason for being).

What's "right" is variable. It's what's:

✨ clear
✨ aligned
✨ coherent, and
✨ useful.

A high-quality, well-designed, comprehensive strategy that the client or prospect has tried hard to get "right,"

but that hasn't taken the strategy's usability or usefulness into account.

Not to mention, getting strategy "right" is a fiction.

#strategy

My week has been one meeting after the next where clients and prospects came to me with what they thought their organization's problem was

❌ culture
❌ strategic planning
❌ lack of key results
❌ lagging leadership
❌ poor program management mechanics

What do I see (in every single case)?

#strategy

Sara stands on the motorcycle race grid, with her arms out (waiting to catch the bike). She stands next to a teammate holding a bike stand. She's in a blue, orange, and grey team uniform and baseball cap. She's smiling, broadly.

People are surprised when they find out I work in motorsports. Even more surprised when they hear me talk about my role as a Team Principal. Because what I do at the track? It’s the same thing I do in the boardroom. We don’t perform our best because of a perfect plan. We perform our best because the crew knows exactly what to do, when to do it, and why it matters. That’s behavior. That’s execution. That’s strategy in action.

It’s the same whether I’m in the race paddock, or facilitating a strategy workshop. 📘 I wrote “You Are a Strategist” to help more teams operate like this. Because the plan doesn’t drive progress—behavior does. DM me if your org’s in motion but not making progress. Or head to the link in bio to grab my book to learn the full framework.

The best strategy in the world won’t move your team forward, unless it changes how people behave, and the decisions they make.

You don’t need another planning session.
You need systems that create clarity, focus, and aligned behavior.

More info: youareastrategist.com

#AtWork

Awwww you’re too kind, @ferncxandcrm.com !

“I don’t think we’ve ever had a conversation that honest.”

👆🏼immediate feedback from a participant after a two-hour Executive Team working session on leadership behavior for strategy achievement.

I love my work.

#AtWork #leadership

Ah, @motomatters.com — thank you for the repost! I appreciate the boost!

Same!!!!! I love the bonus of the @ferncxandcrm.com community… I never would have expected coworking to be part of my CRM engagement, and it’s a really great bonus!

Against a blue background is a photo of Sara, with shoulder-length dark blonde hair, wearing blue glasses and a blue shirt. In handwriting, is the copy: Sara OKR Strategist About the same age as OKRs Fewer slides, more progress One-pager queen Good strategy is useful, not just beautiful Strategy=behavior Strategic, systematic, status-quo challenging Don't just write startegy, achieve it.

Hi, I’m Sara 👋

I’m a strategy coach and OKR expert, and I'm obsessed with making strategy actually *useful.*

I wrote “You Are a Strategist” because I believe strategy should drive behavior—not sit in a deck.

✨ DM me to move strategy from performative → progress.

#introduction