What if your company’s goal-setting process is quietly holding back your team’s full potential?
Gallup’s research highlights a worrying gap:
- Only 47% of employees clearly understand what’s expected of them.
- Just 20% feel inspired by how their performance is managed.
Meanwhile, LinkedIn has turned the same challenge into an advantage, using it to drive growth and align teams through OKRs (Objectives and Key Results).
Instead of aiming for perfect goals, their focus is on setting ambitious stretch goals and rallying teams around them—even if they don’t hit every single target.
LinkedIn’s leadership credits OKRs for helping them reach a $20B valuation and a successful IPO. By using the framework to prioritise user growth and engagement, they’ve kept teams focused on what matters most.
Why OKRs Fail for Many Teams
The concept sounds simple, but execution often falls short.
Teams struggle when they:
- Set vague objectives like “Improve customer satisfaction” (but how? By what metric?).
- Chase too many goals and lose focus.
- Skip regular check-ins, letting OKRs collect dust by Quarter 2.
Without a structured approach, OKRs become just another corporate checkbox, not the catalyst for growth they’re meant to be.
OKRs That Deliver Results
This guide breaks down what high-performing teams actually do:
- They set inspiring but measurable OKRs, with real examples to show how it’s done.
- They track progress in a simple, flexible way — no heavy processes getting in the way.
- And they adapt quickly when priorities change, without losing momentum.
What You’ll Take Away
By the end of this guide, you’ll know how to:
- Avoid common OKR mistakes, like mixing up tasks with real outcomes.
- Apply proven templates that work for both startups and larger companies.
- Set up simple check-ins that keep teams focused and accountable.
Objectives vs. Key Results: The Brutal Truth Most Teams Miss
Let’s cut through the fluff:
- Objectives are your North Star — the clear, qualitative statement that answers:“What are we working toward, and why is it important this quarter?”
- Key Results are your reality check — the measurable proof that shows you’re making real progress, not just staying busy.
Japan almost won the Chip War—Until OKRs Turned the Tide
Andy Grove forged OKRs at Intel during one of the most intense periods in tech history: the fierce competition with Japanese semiconductor manufacturers.
In the 1970s and 80s, Japan’s chip makers, backed by strong government support and rapid innovation, dominated the global memory chip market—capturing up to 70% of the international market and pushing U.S. companies, including Intel, to the brink.
Facing this huge threat, Intel pivoted from memory chips to microprocessors, using OKRs to align the company around this bold new mission.
While Japanese firms dominated memory chips, Intel’s new focus on microprocessors also meant competing with other American companies, but OKRs played a crucial role in uniting Intel’s workforce and driving their success in this new arena.
Fast-forward to 1999: John Doerr, fresh from Intel’s playbook, walked into Google’s chaotic early offices with a radical idea:
What if the same goal-setting system that helped Intel survive the memory chip wars could help this startup organize the world’s information?
Larry Page and Sergey Brin were famously allergic to corporate process—but the numbers spoke for themselves:
- Intel had used OKRs to realign during the memory chip crisis and emerge as a microprocessor leader.
- Google was doubling in size every few months, with no system to align its exploding workforce
The beauty of OKRs was their adaptability:
- For startups, OKRs provide structure and focus without getting in the way of innovation.
- For example, Google’s first OKR was bold but simple: “Organize the world’s information.”
- This clear objective helped guide their early growth and ambition.
- For larger companies, OKRs can help refresh the culture and bring teams into better alignment.
The results were undeniable. Within a decade,
Google had:
- Scaled from 40 employees to 60,000 without losing strategic focus
- Launched industry-changing products with measurable key results
- Proved that ambitious goals work better when everyone can see them
Why It Works (and Why Most Teams Miss the Mark)
For over 35 years, psychologists Locke & Latham have shown that setting specific, challenging goals almost always boosts performance compared to vague “just do your best” instructions.
In fact, their research found that in up to 90% of studies, people with clear, ambitious goals outperformed those with general or easy ones.
So why do most teams still stumble?
Because they mix up objectives with to-do lists (“Finish Q3 roadmap”) and confuse key results with fuzzy hopes (“Improve customer happiness”).
Here’s what it looks like when you get it right.
Objective:
Deliver exceptional digital experiences that delight customers.
It is bold, provides clear direction, and aligns teams across the company.
| Key Result | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| Increase customer satisfaction scores for digital interactions by 15% within the next quarter. | Measurable and ambitious—tracks the quality of user experience. |
| Achieve a 20% increase in mobile app downloads or website traffic within six months. | Clear and assertive—directly tied to user engagement. |
| Implement at least one new customer feedback mechanism to capture insights and drive improvement. | Drives learning and continuous iteration based on real user input. It is actionable and focused on real outcomes. |
How to Set Winning OKRs (Step-by-Step Process)
You can always tell when OKRs were written in a vacuum. Leadership sets them, hands them down, and a few months later—no one remembers what they were for.
Here’s the issue: if your OKRs don’t clearly connect to the bigger vision, they don’t stick. They start to feel like extra KPIs. And no one’s going to rally behind that.
Step 1: Start with the “Why,” Not the “What”
Before you even think about setting objectives, revisit the company’s mission and vision. If they’re too vague or filled with buzzwords, ask for clarity from leadership.
You can’t build meaningful OKRs around a slogan — you need something real to anchor to.
Use a simple gut check: think in terms of “MOKRs” — Mission + OKRs. Every objective should clearly move the mission forward.
If it doesn’t, it’s noise. Remove it.
Scenario 1: The Disconnected Team
The real problem isn’t just misalignment—it’s mission blindness. When teams get handed OKRs without real context, they stop thinking like problem-solvers and start acting like order-takers.
You might see short-term wins, but over time, it chips away at the company’s health—and damages the trust you’ve built with customers.
Scenerio:
An engineering team at a SaaS company is handed an OKR: “Reduce server costs by 15%.” No one explains why it matters.
So the team does what they think makes sense — they cut costs by scaling back critical systems, and customers start complaining.
The Fix:
Tether OKRs to the “why” and reframe the objective: “Optimise infrastructure costs without sacrificing reliability, to help extend our runway for Series B.”
Now the team sees the bigger picture.
They’ll look for smarter solutions — like using reserved instances — instead of making short-sighted cuts that hurt the business.
Scenario 2: The Siloed Department
When departments work in isolation, their OKRs often clash rather than align. Marketing focuses on lead generation, Product is busy shipping features, and Sales is pushing deals — but if these goals aren’t connected, the company’s overall strategy falls apart.
Example:
Marketing’s OKR is “Increase lead volume by 30%.” Meanwhile, Sales is drowning in unqualified leads.
The Fix:
Make sure every team’s OKRs directly tie to shared outcomes, with at least one cross-functional Key Result driving collaboration. No team should succeed in isolation.
Results:
Align both teams under: “Drive high-intent lead growth (to hit £2M ARR by Q4).”
Now Marketing focuses on lead quality (not just quantity), and Sales gets input on lead scoring.
Scenario 3: The Top-Down Disaster
When leadership sets OKRs without input from the team, you end up with disconnected goals, zero buy-in, and half-hearted execution.
Teams get stuck with unrealistic targets they don’t believe in, while silos grow as departments focus more on ticking boxes than making a real impact.
Scenerio:
Leadership sets an OKR: “Increase revenue by 20%,” without any input from the team. Sales immediately rolls their eyes — they know churn, not new sales, is the real problem.
The Fix:
Leadership defines the big picture and sets the vision (Objectives), but the teams get to decide how to achieve it (Key Results).
This approach gives teams ownership and accountability while ensuring alignment with the company’s overall goals.
Results:
Leadership sets the direction (“Stabilise revenue by reducing churn”), but lets the Sales team define how to get there through Key Results:
- KR1: Reduce voluntary churn from 8% → 5% (through customer success check-ins)
- KR2: Cut involuntary churn from 5% → 2% (by fixing payment failures)
Now the team is involved — and the goals actually address the root cause.
Pro Tip 1: The “Laddering” Test
A simple way to sanity-check OKRs: have teams verbally “ladder” them up to the company vision. If it takes more than two steps to make the connection, it’s probably not worth keeping.
Strong:
- Team KR: Reduce support ticket resolution time to four hours.
- Why? So customers stay happy and don’t churn.
- Why? Because our vision is to be the most reliable platform in our category.
✅ Passes the test.
Weak:
- Team KR: Redesign the blog header.
- Why? Because Marketing wants it to look good.
🚫 Fails — scrap it.
Pro Tip 2: The “Impact Chain” Test
From experience, asking “why” can work in some situations, but not always — especially when it starts to feel like an interrogation. To avoid that pushback, try this instead:
Make it a requirement for every OKR to complete this sentence:
“When we achieve this, it will directly contribute to ______ by ______.”
How it works:
- The team writes their draft OKR.
- They then fill in these two parts:
- “This directly contributes to [company priority].”
- “By [specific mechanism of impact].”
If they can’t fill in both credibly, the OKR needs to be revised.
Impact Chain Test in Practice
Strong:
- “Reduce support response time from 24h → 4h”
- “This directly contributes to our 90% retention goal by eliminating wait-time churn”
✅ Approved (Clear line to business impact)
Weak:
- “Launch new company blog”
- “This directly contributes to brand awareness by getting more shares?”
🚫 Sent back (Vague, indirect impact)
Why mix both:
Most teams will need both tools at different stages. The Impact Chain catches weak OKRs early, while Laddering Up helps prevent strategic drift over time.
My advice is to start with the Impact Chain to vet individual OKRs, and use Laddering Up in quarterly planning to ensure cross-team work stays aligned.
Step 2: Write OKRs Using SMART Criteria (With a Twist)
We all know SMART goals—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound. But when it comes to OKRs, there’s a twist when applying it to OKR.
Your Objective (the what) should be:
- Time-bound (usually quarterly—this isn’t a five-year vision)
- Inspiring (think rallying cry, not corporate jargon)
- Concise (if it’s a paragraph, rewrite it)
It’s qualitative — you’re painting the destination, not the roadmap.
Key Results (the “how you’ll know you got there”) are where SMART really comes into play.
They need to be:
- Specific & Measurable (no room for ambiguity — if it’s vague, it’s wrong)
- Quantifiable (numbers or clear milestones, not something like “improve X”)
Now, the twist: “Achievable” isn’t one-size-fits-all. You need two types:
- Commit Goals – What you absolutely must hit. Realistic, baseline success.
- Stretch Goals – What you dream of hitting. Ambitious, maybe even a little scary.
This feeds into the OKR scoring system:
- 0.3 = Hit your commit goal (solid job, you delivered)
- 0.7 = Nailed most of your stretch goal (great job, you really pushed)
- 1.0 = Full stretch achieved (rare, but that’s the chef’s kiss)
Yes, defining three levels per KR sounds like extra work—but in reality, it forces clarity early. I’ve seen teams uncover hidden blockers just by debating: “Wait, is this actually possible?”
Step 3: Use Positive Language (Because Words Matter)
Your OKRs should energize people, not drain them. That means:
Frame things as gains, not reductions.
✅ “Increase customer retention to 85%”
❌ “Reduce churn by 15%”
(Same math, different psychology.)
Cut the jargon. If someone outside your team can’t understand it in 3 seconds, rewrite it.
Two Types of Key Results (And How Not to Screw Them Up)
Metric KRs – The classic. A number you move up or down (Clicks, Sales & Satisfaction Scores).
- “Increase NPS from 30 to 40”
- “Grow weekly active users to 500K”
Milestone KRs – Binary, but outcome-focused (Correspondes to Yes/No answer).
✅ “Launch new onboarding flow by June 30” (if adoption is the real goal)
❌ “Hold 5 user research sessions” (That’s a task — did it actually make an impact?)
The Milestone Trap:
A lot of teams confuse outputs (tasks completed) with outcomes (real impact). Always ask: “If we hit this, will it actually create a meaningful change?”
Step 4: Balance Leading & Lagging Indicators (The Action vs. The Outcome)
Leading indicators are your daily actions, habits, and efforts—the things you do now that should drive future results.
Lagging indicators? They’re the outcomes you see later, after everything adds up.
Examples:
- Leading: Sales calls made, features shipped, workouts logged
- Lagging: Revenue earned, user growth, customer retention
The key here is that small, consistent actions compound over time. You may not see results immediately, but the effort is building up like momentum, even if it’s invisible at first.
Real-World Proof:
Take British Cycling—they didn’t focus on winning medals (the lagging result). They focused on tweaking everything from bike weight to sleep habits to hand-washing (leading actions). Those small changes added up to huge success.
How This Applies to OKRs:
Track leading indicators weekly (e.g., “20 customer interviews conducted”) to ensure you’re putting in the work.
Lagging indicators (e.g., “Increase customer retention by 5%”) will show if those efforts are moving you in the right direction.
If the lagging indicators aren’t trending upwards, adjust your leading actions.
The Big Picture:
Your OKRs should aim to improve company health metrics (revenue, retention, culture) over time—not just tick off targets. If your efforts aren’t impacting the big picture, your KRs need a rethink.
Step 5: Socialise and Get Buy-In
Don’t create OKRs in isolation. If teams can’t see what others are aiming for, you’ll end up with silos, duplicated effort, and misalignment. Transparency is essential for connecting work across the company.
Think of it like building a house. If the electrician, plumber, and framers never communicate, you don’t end up with a finished house—you get a mess. The same goes for OKRs. Teams need to see how their work connects vertically to company goals and horizontally to what others are working on.
People care more when they understand the bigger picture. If they see how their efforts contribute to the bigger goal, they’re all in. If not? They’ll just be ticking off tasks with no real impact.
How to socialise OKRs without drowning in meetings:
- All-hands: Share last quarter’s results and new OKRs (keep it sharp and to the point).
- Mid-quarter check-ins: Quick syncs to discuss progress, blockers—keep it brief, no fluff.
- Public visibility: Put OKRs in a shared document or tool. No hiding.
Buy-in doesn’t mean everyone has to love it. Waiting for full consensus just slows everything down. What you’re aiming for is enough alignment: people understand the goal, see how they fit into it, and are willing to commit.
Pro tip:
Start with a small, strategy-aligned group—no more than 2–3 people. Get a clear first draft down before inviting broader feedback. If you try to write OKRs by committee, you don’t get clarity—you get watered-down goals that try to please everyone and inspire no one.
Step 6: Review and Adapt
If you treat OKRs like a to-do list you write once and ignore, you’re doing it wrong. This is a cycle, not a checkbox. Set, execute, review, repeat—usually every quarter. The magic is in the iteration.
Why Check-Ins Matter
If you only look at your OKRs at the end of the quarter, it’s already too late—like ignoring a check-engine light until the car breaks down.
Regular check-ins catch problems early, when you can still do something about them.
One simple trick: Christina Wodtke’s confidence scores.
- Start with a gut-check: “How confident are we about hitting this KR?” (Scale of 1–10.)
- Update it at every check-in. Is confidence rising or falling? Why?
Keep It Fast, Keep It Honest
Weekly syncs, 10–15 minutes max. Quick wins, blockers, next steps. No deep dives, no meetings that could’ve been an email.
The goal isn’t status updates—it’s surfacing problems early, while they’re still fixable.
And if people don’t feel safe calling out issues? They’ll hide them until it’s too late. Providing a safe space to voice out your thoughts is essential.
Dig Deeper When Things Go Wrong
Surface-level fixes are a waste of time. If something breaks, don’t just patch it—dig.
Use the “Five Whys” technique: keep asking why until you find the real root cause.
Quarterly Reviews: Your Reset Button
When the quarter ends, be ruthless.
Score your OKRs honestly. No rounding up. No excuses.
Ask two questions:
- What worked?
- What didn’t?
Keep it sharp. Then draft next quarter’s OKRs using what you learned.
Pro tip: Book your quarterly reviews early. If they’re not on the calendar, they won’t happen.
Tools: Start Simple, Scale Smart
When you’re small, a spreadsheet or a shared doc is more than enough.
As you grow, you’ll want dedicated OKR software—makes it easier to track progress, spot misalignment, and stay on top of things.
OKRs Aren’t Performance Reviews (But They Help Fuel Them)
More companies are ditching annual reviews for continuous feedback—and OKRs fit that shift perfectly.
They give managers real, concrete data to have smarter coaching conversations.
One thing to avoid early on: tying bonuses directly to OKR scores.
If people know their pay depends on hitting targets, they’ll aim lower to stay safe. OKRs are supposed to stretch you, not turn into a numbers game.
Individual OKRs: Only After Team OKRs Work
Focus first on company-wide and team OKRs.
Once those are running smoothly, you can layer in individual OKRs—but keep them light and tactical, like 1-2 week sprints.
Do not demand huge overnight changes. Push for tiny, daily improvements—and over time, those will become big gains.
Great Books To Recommend:
“Measure What Matters” – John Doerr
“Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Result” – James Clear
“Radical Focus” – Christina Wodtke
