The Power of OKRs: Setting Goals That Actually Mean Something
Something I keep noticing, across years of working with leaders and founders.
So many of us can articulate a vision beautifully. We know what we want. We can speak about it with real conviction.
And yet, three months in, we find ourselves wondering how we got so far from it.
It's rarely about ambition. And it's rarely about capability.
More often, it's about the gap between wanting something and having a clear, honest structure to get there.
That's where OKRs come in. And while I'm cautious about frameworks that promise to fix everything, this one has stayed with me – not because it's clever, but because it asks the right questions.
What OKRs actually are
OKRs – Objectives and Key Results – were popularised by venture capitalist John Doerr in his book Measure What Matters. Organisations like Google, the Gates Foundation, and Bono's ONE campaign have built much of their focus and alignment around them.
The structure is beautifully simple.
The Objective is what you want to accomplish – something significant, concrete, and action-oriented. Something that, if you achieved it, would genuinely matter.
The Key Results are how you'll know you got there – measurable, time-bound, and honest. Not aspirational fluff. Actual markers of progress.
What I find compelling isn't the framework itself. It's the discipline it demands: to get specific enough that you can't hide from the truth of how things are going.
Start with a dream
Some years ago I had the privilege of running OKR training with a group of leaders alongside Nicholas Stanforth and his training team – working directly with the model he developed and wrote about in Win with OKR.
What struck me – and what has stayed with me since – is his central reframe: the top-level Objective shouldn't just be ambitious. It should feel like a dream outcome. Not a stretch target dressed up in aspirational language. A genuine answer to the question: what would you love to achieve, if you really let yourself imagine it?
He uses a holiday analogy to make the point. Nobody, he says, plans a trip by setting targets like “I’m going to pay five euros for a coffee and spend four hours in a queue.” You dream about the experience – the place, the feeling, what it would mean. You let the positive vision lead.
Most leaders, in my experience, set goals that are safe enough to defend if challenged. Stanforth’s model invites something more courageous: to name what you actually want, and then build the honest structure to get there.
The Key Results then become the honest, measurable bridge between that dream and reality – the specific commitments that tell you whether you’re genuinely moving toward it, or just busy.
The discomfort of clarity
Here’s something I notice with the leaders I work with.
The vague goal feels safer. “I want to be a better leader.” “I want to improve my relationships at work.” These feel meaningful – and they are – but they’re also easy to hold without doing much.
OKRs ask you to make it specific. And specificity, as research in goal-setting theory consistently shows (Edwin Locke’s foundational work is still worth reading here), dramatically increases both motivation and follow-through.
It can also feel exposing.
When you name exactly what you’re going to do, and by when, you lose the comfort of the vague. You can no longer wonder whether you tried hard enough. You either did the thing or you didn’t.
That tension – between wanting to grow and wanting to stay comfortable – is often where the real work begins.
A concrete example
A senior manager I worked with – let’s call her Emma – was being considered for a Vice President role. She was excellent with her direct reports. But feedback kept surfacing that her peer relationships felt transactional; colleagues didn’t quite trust her yet.
She wanted to change that. But “improve peer relationships” as a goal is hard to act on.
We worked together to shape an Objective: Enhance relationships with peers to foster genuine collaboration and trust.
Then we identified what that would actually look like in 90 days – her Key Results:
Map current peer relationships using a relationship matrix, and identify three that most need deepening.
Conduct listening sessions with those three peers – not to problem-solve, but simply to understand their world better.
Implement at least two concrete actions based on what she learned.
Reassess after 90 days and update the matrix to see what had shifted.
What changed wasn’t just her plan. It was how she thought about the work. She stopped waiting for trust to somehow appear, and started treating it as something she could actively build – one conversation at a time.
The part people skip
Most people who try OKRs focus on setting them. Far fewer build in the habit of reviewing them.
This matters more than it sounds.
Rick Hanson’s work on neuroplasticity reminds us that what we pay attention to – regularly, intentionally – is what the brain encodes as important. A goal reviewed weekly is a goal that stays alive in your awareness. One filed away until the end of the quarter is a goal that quietly fades.
Regular check-ins don’t need to be elaborate. A few minutes each week, honestly asking: Where am I? What’s pulling me off course? What needs to shift?
That rhythm is where momentum lives.
A few questions to sit with
If you’re considering trying this, I’d invite you to start with just one Objective for the next 90 days. Not a list. One.
Then ask yourself:
What is one Objective that, if accomplished in the next 90 days, would create a meaningful shift – in your work, your leadership, or your life?
What would actually need to happen for you to know you’d achieved it? What’s the honest evidence?
What tends to pull you away from your goals – and what support would help you stay on track this time?
Who could you share this with, to make it real rather than just a private intention?
The goal isn’t to build a perfect system. It’s to get honest with yourself about what matters, and give it the structure it deserves.
Further reading
Measure What Matters – John Doerr
Win with OKR – Nicholas Stanforth (particularly useful for the “dream outcome” approach to setting meaningful Objectives)
Atomic Habits – James Clear (for the habit structures that support consistent review)
A gentle invitation
If this resonates – if you’re in a moment where you know what you want to be different but you’re not quite sure how to close the gap – I’d love to think through it with you.
I work with senior leaders, fund managers, and founders navigating transitions, complexity, and the moments where what worked before no longer feels like enough.
Book a discovery conversation – no agenda, just space to think.
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