Most organizations have goals. They're written on whiteboards, discussed at offsites, dropped into slide decks, and referenced in quarterly all-hands meetings. But here's what I see consistently in the companies I work with: the majority of those goals aren't measurable, aren't time-bound, and aren't connected to the daily work people actually do.
The result is predictable. Teams stay busy. Progress is assumed. But nobody can say with confidence whether the organization is winning or losing on the things that matter most. Fuzzy thinking leads to fuzzy execution, and fuzzy execution leads to wasted time, misaligned teams, and strategies that never translate into results.
I've given my Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) presentation dozens of times, from early-stage startup founders figuring out their first real planning cycle to mid-size companies looking to install a strategic planning operating system that scales with them. I use OKRs myself in my own business. It's a framework I specialize in, and one I've seen transform how teams align, prioritize, and deliver. This article distills my keynote on the topic into an article that's more accessible and shareable, so whether you've seen me present or not, you can walk away with the full framework.
Now let’s riff on OKRs.
The Origin Story
OKRs were developed in the 1970s by Andy Grove at Intel. Grove was widely regarded as one of the greatest managers of his time and built the system as an evolution of Peter Drucker's Management by Objectives. His insight was simple but powerful: Execution is what matters most. Not strategy on paper. Not goals in a deck. Execution.
In 1999, John Doerr, who had learned the system under Grove at Intel, introduced OKRs to Google's cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. As Doerr tells it, Sergey's response was essentially: "We don't have any other way to manage this company, so we'll give it a go." Every quarter since then, every Googler has written down their objectives and key results, scored them, and published them for the entire organization to see.
The system has since been adopted by companies ranging from 10-person startups to some of the largest organizations in the world. Two books are essential reading for anyone serious about implementing OKRs: Andy Grove's High Output Management and John Doerr's Measure What Matters. Doerr's TED talk is also worth the 12 minutes of your time.
So, What Is an OKR?
An OKR has two components.
Objectives are the "What." What is to be achieved, no more and no less. Objectives are significant, concrete, action-oriented, and ideally inspirational. When properly designed and deployed, they're a vaccine against fuzzy thinking and fuzzy execution.
That's Grove's language, and it's the best description I've found for what good objectives actually do. They force clarity.
Key Results are the "How." Key Results benchmark and monitor how we get to the objective. Effective KRs are specific and time-bound, aggressive yet realistic. Most of all, they are measurable and verifiable. If it doesn't have a number, it's not a key result. At the end of the designated period, typically a quarter, you declare the key result fulfilled or not.
One important distinction: objectives can be long-lived, rolled over for a year or longer. Key results evolve as the work progresses. Once all key results are completed, the objective is achieved. The objective stays constant. The key results sharpen with each cycle.
As Doerr put it in his TED talk: "Objectives are what you want to have accomplished. Key results are how I'm going to get that done. What and how."
What Do OKRs Look Like in Practice?
The framework clicks when you see it applied. Here are three real examples at different scales.
Intel (Grove's original)
Objective: Establish the 8086 as the highest performance 16-bit microprocessor family.
Key Results:
- Develop and publish five benchmarks showing superior 8086 family performance (owned by Applications)
- Repackage the entire 8086 family of products (Marketing)
- Get the 8MHz part into production (Engineering and Manufacturing)
- Sample the arithmetic coprocessor no later than June 15 (Engineering).
Notice how each key result is specific, measurable, and owned by a named function. There's no ambiguity about what success looks like.
Remind
Objective: Support company hiring.
Key Results:
- Hire 1 director of finance and operations (talk to at least 3 candidates)
- Source 1 product marketing manager (meet with 5 candidates this quarter)
Simpler, smaller scale, but the same structure. The objective is clear. The key results have numbers and timelines.
Google Chrome (from Doerr's TED talk)
In 2008, Sundar Pichai set a three-year objective: build the best browser.
He chose one key result to measure it: number of users. Not ad clicks. Not engagement metrics. Users, because users would decide if Chrome was a great browser or not.
Year one target: 20 million users. He missed it, getting less than 10 million.
Year two: Pichai raised the bar to 50 million. Got 37 million.
Year three: 100 million. He launched an aggressive marketing campaign, broadened distribution, improved the technology, and hit 111 million.
The lesson isn't the happy ending. It's that Pichai chose the right objective, chose the right key result, and stuck with it year after year, raising the bar each cycle.
OKRs vs. MBOs: Why This Isn't Your Father's Goal-Setting System
Many leaders have encountered Management by Objectives, Drucker's earlier framework. OKRs evolved from MBOs, but the differences are significant.
MBOs are typically annual. OKRs are quarterly or monthly. MBOs are private and siloed. OKRs are public and transparent. MBOs flow top-down. OKRs move bottom-up and sideways. MBOs are tied to compensation. OKRs are mostly divorced from compensation. MBOs tend to be risk-averse. OKRs are aggressive and aspirational.
The critical shift is the last one. When goal-setting is tied to salaries and bonuses, people play it safe. They sandbag. They set targets they know they can hit. OKRs decouple goals from compensation specifically to encourage ambition and honest self-assessment. As Grove designed it, the OKR system puts a stopwatch in the person's own hand so they can gauge their own performance. It is not a legal document upon which to base a performance review.
OKR Best Practices: Grove's Basic OKR Hygiene
These principles come from Grove's original system and have been validated by decades of implementation at companies of all sizes.
1. Less is more. Limit to 3-5 OKRs per cycle. Each objective should be tied to five or fewer key results. Discipline in what you choose to focus on matters more than the volume of goals you set. Before adding a new objective, ask yourself: how does this stack up against my existing ones? Should something be dropped to make room? If everything is a priority, nothing is.
2. Set goals from the bottom up. Teams and individuals should be encouraged to create roughly half of their own OKRs, in consultation with managers. When all goals are set top-down, motivation corrodes. The people closest to the work see things leadership doesn't, and giving them ownership over their goals produces both better goals and stronger commitment to achieving them.
3. No dictating. OKRs are a cooperative social contract to establish priorities and define how progress will be measured. Even after company objectives are closed to debate, their key results continue to be negotiated. Collective agreement is essential to maximum goal achievement.
The MyFitnessPal team had a practice I admire: they never left the room until asking three questions. Are we meeting everyone's need for buy-in? Is a team overstretched? If so, how can we make their objectives more realistic?
4. Stay flexible. If the climate has changed and an objective no longer seems practical or relevant as written, key results can be modified or even discarded mid-cycle. The world doesn't pause for your quarterly plan. Rigidity in goal-setting produces the same problems as rigidity in strategy.
5. Dare to fail. Output tends to be greater when everybody strives for a level of achievement beyond their immediate grasp. Google distinguishes between two types of OKRs: committed OKRs (expected score: 1.0, must be delivered) and aspirational OKRs (expected average score: 0.7, designed to stretch). Aspirational OKRs should be uncomfortable and possibly unattainable.
6. A tool, not a weapon. To encourage risk-taking and prevent sandbagging, OKRs and bonuses are best kept separate. The moment you tie goals to compensation, you incentivize people to set easy targets. The entire system depends on honesty, and honesty disappears when money is on the line.
7. Be patient; be resolute. An organization may need 4-5 quarterly cycles to fully embrace the system, and even more than that to build mature goal muscle. This is not a quick fix you implement in one offsite. It's a discipline you build over time through repetition, scoring, reflection, and adjustment.
Classic OKR Traps to Avoid
Google has published its internal OKR guidelines and they're worth reading in full. Here are the traps I see most often in my work with leaders and teams.
Business-as-usual OKRs. Writing goals based on what the team believes it can achieve without changing anything they're currently doing, rather than what the team or its customers actually need. If your OKRs don't require any change in behavior, they're not OKRs. They're a description of your current job.
Timid aspirational OKRs. Starting from current state and asking "what could we do if we had extra staff and got a bit lucky?" The better question: "What could our world look like in several years if we were freed from most constraints?" The litmus test from Google's playbook: if you ask your customers what they really want, does your aspirational objective meet or exceed their request?
Sandbagging. Teams that can meet all of their OKRs without using all of their resources are either hoarding resources, not pushing hard enough, or both. Committed plus aspirational OKRs should credibly consume somewhat more than available resources.
Low-value objectives. The "who cares?" test. If the objective is completed with a 1.0 and nobody notices or cares, it's not worth the resources. "Launch X" is not an objective. "Double Y by launching X to 90% of users" is. Always frame the objective around the impact, not the activity.
Describing activities instead of outcomes. If your key results include words like "consult," "help," "analyze," or "participate," they describe activities, not results. Describe the end-user impact instead.
Insufficient key results. Key results that are necessary but not sufficient to complete the objective. The litmus test: is it possible to score 1.0 on all key results but still not achieve the intent of the objective? If so, add or rework the key results until their successful completion guarantees that the objective is also successfully completed.
Vague objectives with no measurable key results. "Grow revenue" is not a strategy. "Increase ARR by 25% by Q4 through expansion into mid-market accounts" is. If you can't score it, you don't know if you're winning.
OKR Retrospectives: How to Learn From Every Cycle
If you've read my article on the After Action Review, this will feel familiar. OKR retrospectives are the same discipline applied to your goal-setting system. You plan, you execute, you review, you learn, you adjust.
Objective Scoring. The standard scoring system uses a simple scale.
- Green (0.7-1.0): We delivered.
- Yellow (0.4-0.6): We made progress but fell short of completion.
- Red (0.0-0.3): We failed to make real progress.
But the score alone doesn't tell the story. Subjective self-assessment matters just as much. Consider this: four different scenarios, all with the same OKR of "bring in 10 new customers."
- A team that brings in 7 new customers during a market slump might score themselves a 0.9 because the effort and outcome were exceptional given the conditions.
- A team that hits all 10 eight weeks into the quarter might score themselves a 0.7 because they set the bar too low.
- A team that brings in 8 might score a 0.6 because the results were driven by luck rather than execution, with one customer bringing five others behind them.
- And a team that lands 9 might score a 0.5 because they discovered that 7 of those customers would bring in little revenue.
Same OKR. Wildly different scores. Context is everything.
Reflection questions at the end of each cycle. These should become a standing discipline, not an afterthought.
- What did I learn that I didn't foresee at the beginning of the quarter?
- How will I apply this lesson in the future?
- Did I accomplish all of my objectives, and if so, what contributed to my success? If not, what obstacles did I encounter?
- If I were to rewrite a goal achieved in full, what would I change?
- What have I learned that might alter my approach to the next cycle's OKRs?
The discipline of asking these questions every quarter compounds over time. Teams that do this consistently get better at setting goals, better at executing against them, and better at calibrating what's achievable versus what's aspirational.
Continuous Performance Management: Conversations, Feedback, and Recognition
OKRs don't operate in a vacuum. They need a performance management system that supports them. Doerr's framework for this is CFRs: Conversations, Feedback, and Recognition. Together, they replace the annual review cycle with a continuous rhythm that actually drives performance.
Conversations. Authentic exchanges between manager and contributor aimed at driving performance. Andy Grove's insight here is worth remembering: 90 minutes of a manager's time can improve a subordinate's quality of work for two weeks. That's an extraordinary return on investment. Critically, these should be the subordinate's meeting, with the agenda and tone set by them. The manager is there to learn and coach, not to direct and evaluate. If you are looking for initial guidance on running these 1:1 meetings, read this.
The questions that drive productive conversations: What are you working on? How are your OKRs coming along? Is there anything impeding your work? What do you need from me to be more successful? How do you need to grow to achieve your career goals?
Feedback. Bidirectional communication among peers to evaluate progress and guide improvement. The key is specificity. Vague feedback is useless. "Good job" teaches nothing. "You started the meeting late this week, and it came off as disorganized" gives someone something to work with. "You did a great job with the presentation. You really grabbed their attention with your opening anecdote, and I loved how you closed with next action steps" reinforces the specific behaviors worth repeating.
Recognition. Expressions of appreciation for contributions of all sizes. This isn't a soft nice-to-have. Companies with strong recognition cultures have lower voluntary turnover.
Recognition best practices:
- Make recognition peer-to-peer rather than just top-down
- Establish clear criteria tied to company goals and values
- Share recognition stories with narrative so people understand the context behind the accomplishment
- Make it frequent and attainable (celebrate the smaller wins too, not just the quarterly home runs)
- Tie it directly to the strategic priorities that push the organization forward
The shift from annual to continuous performance management is significant. Annual reviews are tied to compensation, directing and autocratic, outcome focused, weakness based, and prone to bias.
Continuous performance management is decoupled from compensation, coaching and democratic, process focused, strength based, and fact driven. The difference shows up in how people work every day, not just once a year.
The Cultural Foundation: OKRs Only Work If the Environment Supports Them
OKRs are not a silver bullet. As Doerr himself says, they're not going to be a substitute for a strong culture or for stronger leadership. But when those fundamentals are in place, they can take your organization to new heights.
- Is there structure and clarity around goals, roles, and execution plans?
- Is there psychological safety to take risks without feeling insecure or embarrassed?
- Does the work feel personally meaningful?
- Can team members count on each other to do high-quality work on time?
- Do they believe the work matters?
Notice that the first question, structure and clarity, is exactly what OKRs provide. But the other four are cultural conditions that no goal-setting system can create on its own. OKRs magnify whatever culture already exists. If the culture is strong, OKRs accelerate performance. If the culture is broken, OKRs just make the dysfunction more visible.
The CEO's role here is critical. A two-year Deloitte study found that no single factor has more impact than clearly defined goals that are written down and shared freely. The CEO should look at their own OKRs daily and be open about progress and failures. The Remind CEO modeled this well: "I was wide open about my progress or lack of it. I'd tell my people, 'Here are the three things I am working on, and I'm failing at this one miserably.' As companies scale, people need to see the CEO's priorities and how they can align for maximum impact. And they need to see it's okay to make a mistake, to correct it and move on."
That transparency is what gives the system its power. OKRs published for everyone to see create alignment not through control, but through visibility.
The Why Behind the What
There's one more layer that makes OKRs transformational rather than just functional.
In his TED talk, Doerr makes a point that I think is the most important thing he says: "I think of OKRs as transparent vessels that are made from the whats and hows of our ambitions. What really matters is the why that we pour into those vessels."
Without a compelling sense of purpose, organizations can hit their numbers and still feel like they're drifting. With it, teams can achieve things that seem wildly disproportionate to their size and resources. Doerr tells the story of Jini Kim, whose company Nuna was just 15 people when they bid on a contract to build the first-ever cloud database for Medicaid. It was a bet-the-company moment driven by a deeply personal mission: Jini had enrolled her family in Medicaid when she was nine years old, and that experience defined her life's work.
The leaders I work with who have the clearest sense of why consistently outperform those who are technically sharper but lack that anchor.
Don't Let Fuzzy Thinking Lead to Fuzzy Execution
OKRs are not complicated. Objectives tell you what to achieve. Key Results tell you how you'll know you're getting there. The system works when it's practiced consistently, scored honestly, and embedded into how the organization actually operates, not when it's introduced at an offsite and forgotten by the following Monday.
The call to action is straightforward. Write down your objectives. Attach measurable key results. Share them with your team. Score them at the end of the quarter. Reflect on what worked and what didn't. Adjust. Repeat.
Peter Drucker put it best: "Without an action plan, the executive becomes a prisoner of events. And without check-ins to reexamine the plan as events unfold, the executive has no way of knowing which events really matter and which are only noise."
Your OKRs are your action plan. Treat them that way.
If you're ready to implement OKRs in your organization, reach out through our website contact form and we will share an OKR template to get you started. We have two versions available: a simplified template designed for startups and early-stage companies, and a more rigorous version built for larger organizations with more complex planning needs. Either way, the first step is the same: write down what matters, attach a number to it, and start executing.