01
Direction without diagnosis is guessing
Skip the anchor and you'll spend quarters chasing someone else's career. The anchor doesn't pick your goal — it removes the wrong ones.
+ How we think
The method in three layers
Diagnosis, direction, cadence. Each layer is one decision backed by decades of research — not a workflow you stitch together by yourself.
+ Quick glossary
The terms, one line each.
If you only have 2 minutes, this is it. Each term here is a piece of the method — deep dive right below.
- Career anchor Edgar Schein · MIT · 1978
- What you WON'T trade away. 8 inner motivations (autonomy, security, challenge…) that last for decades. Schein found them — most people have 1 or 2 strong ones.
- BHAG Jim Collins · Built to Last · 1994
- Big Hairy Audacious Goal — your 10-to-15-year vision. Where you want to be when this career chapter ends.
- OKR John Doerr · Intel → Google · 1999
- Objective + Key Results. Your quarterly goal, with 3 to 5 measurable results to hold yourself accountable. Short window forces focus.
- Weekly review David Allen · Getting Things Done · 2001
- 30–60 min ritual every week where you close what happened, decide what continues, and plan next. Without it, OKR becomes an abandoned spreadsheet.
- AAR US Army · ~1980s
- After Action Review. 4 honest questions inside the weekly: what was expected, what actually happened, why the gap, what changes next. Kills self-deception.
- Socratic reflection Donald Schön · The Reflective Practitioner · 1983
- Monthly deep-question session about patterns — not about tasks. It's where you re-read the BHAG and, if needed, revisit the anchor.
+ How they connect
The cycle, piece by piece.
Each arrow below is causal — the piece on top feeds the one underneath. Read top-down.
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1
Anchor rules out the wrong careers
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2
BHAG sets where to arrive in 10 years
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3
OKR becomes the 90-day step
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4
Weekly review checks the OKR is alive
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5
AAR (inside the weekly) destroys this week's self-deception
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6
Socratic reflection processes larger patterns — may revisit the BHAG
Anchor is fixed, revisited every 3–5 years. BHAG shifts every 3–5 years. OKR every quarter. Weekly every week. Reflection every month. The cycle self-corrects — when a weekly shows the OKR no longer matches the BHAG, you climb back up to the anchor.
+ Why we can't simplify
Each piece solves ONE specific problem.
Remove one and the system falls. Here's exactly what breaks:
- Anchor without BHAG = navigation with no destination. You know who you are, but heading where?
- BHAG without OKR = empty dream. You dream big, but what do you do tomorrow?
- OKR without weekly review = forgotten spreadsheet by Q2. Every un-reviewed OKR dies.
- Weekly without AAR = weekly self-deception. "Week went fine" is the answer of someone who didn't ask the right questions.
- Everything without monthly reflection = local improvement, no big picture. You fix tactics every week and never see the strategy is wrong.
Each piece comes from a different discipline — organizational psychology, business strategy, GTD, military debriefing, philosophy of practice — because career is a multi-dimensional problem. You can't solve it with one technique.
01·Diagnosis
Career as anchor
People change roles, cities and functions — but a small set of internal motivations doesn't. Find yours before you write a single goal.
02·Direction
Quarterly OKR
Aim 10 years for the vector, execute 90 days for the motion. Qualitative objective + 3–5 measurable key results. Short window forces focus.
03·Cadence
Weekly review
A 30–60 min ritual that recalibrates the system. Three weeks without it and the OKR turns into a wish-list everyone quietly abandons by Q2.
40yrs
Schein tracked careers at MIT
1999
Doerr brings OKR to Google
30yrs+
GTD's weekly review, still standard
+ Why this order
Order is not optional
02
Goals without cadence are wish-lists
OKRs that aren't revisited weekly decay into the same Notion page everyone abandons by Q2. The reflection is what compounds.
03
Ritual works when the questions are right
Weekly review isn't a productivity hack. It's five right questions, asked at a time when reflection is possible — Friday, 5pm, locally.
