OKRs and Goals Aren’t the Problem — How You Use Them Might Be
Week 2
Is your company CULTURE ready for strategic change?
This is the second post in a seven-part series exploring the cultural elements that determine whether change becomes sustainable—or falls apart under pressure.
This week, we turn our focus to OKRs & Goals, and the real story behind alignment, accountability, and meaningful contribution.
The Problem Isn't the Framework — It's the Culture
OKRs promised to revolutionize how we work.
So why are so many teams quietly dreading their quarterly OKR reviews?
I once worked with a product manager who had 17 key results for her team this quarter. When I asked which ones truly mattered, she laughed: "All of them — according to my leadership." This was a culture issue.
Let’s get one thing clear: your OKRs succeed not because of how precise they are - but because of how purposefully they’re created.
Yet too often, organizations get stuck in the mechanics - debating whether to use 3 or 5 key results, arguing over scoring systems, obsessing over review templates. Meanwhile, the real work happens in the spaces between the frameworks.
That’s not strategy. It’s bureaucracy dressed in process.
But it doesn’t have to stay that way.
For me, OKRs are not just a planning tool - they are a bridge between intention and impact. They’re the mechanism by which we say to our Talent: “Your work has a place in something bigger—and we care enough to make that visible.”
Goals, on the other hand, are where day-to-day intention lives. They’re more personal, more immediate—and when well-crafted, they shape how people move, decide, and prioritize in the flow of real work.
The Cultural Undercurrent
Organizations implement OKRs like they're installing software: follow the process, get results. (Ha! Ha! We know that isn’t true either!)
But goal-setting frameworks don't exist in a vacuum. They amplify the culture you already have.
In high-trust cultures, OKRs become tools for distributed decision-making and shared ownership.
In low-trust cultures, they become instruments of performance surveillance.
The difference shows up in subtle ways:
High-trust organizations invite teams to shape their objectives within a strategic context.
Low-trust cultures cascade objectives from above.
High-trust orgs adapt goals as conditions change.
Low-trust orgs treat any goal change as failure.
Same framework. Completely different experience.
The Conversation Behind the Framework
Here’s what I’ve learned across industries: The quality of your goals is directly linked to the quality of the conversations that create them.
When teams co-create objectives rather than receive them, something fundamental shifts.
People stop asking, "What do they want me to deliver?" and start asking, "How can we make the biggest impact?"
In one tech org struggling with resilience, leadership started not with OKRs, but with context:
"Our customers are losing trust when systems go down, and our teams are burning out from constant firefighting."
Then they asked:
"Given this, what would meaningful progress look like through your lens?"
What emerged were not just well-worded OKRs and goals — but coherent contributions rooted in ownership, clarity, and purpose.
The shift? People stopped receiving goals. They started owning commitments.
The Hidden Cost of Getting This Wrong
Organizations that treat goals as a quarterly exercise pay a hidden tax:
Talent disengages. They deliver what’s measured, but withhold what matters.
Leaders lose peripheral vision. Reports show outputs, but not insight.
Culture calcifies. Process trumps purpose. Strategy gets reduced to spreadsheets.
This is how disconnection sets in—not with drama, but with quiet resignation.
And once meaning erodes, goals become performance theater.
Delivered, but no longer believed in.
The Shift That Changes Everything
Organizations that get this right move from using Goals to control behavior to using them to unlock potential.
They stop asking, "How do we make people deliver?" and start asking, "How do we create conditions where people choose to contribute their best?"
This isn’t idealism.
It’s practical strategy.
When people understand context and shape their own contribution, they:
Solve problems leaders didn’t see
Spot opportunities planning missed
Adapt faster than directives can anticipate
What This Means for You
If your goals feel like admin overhead, you’re optimizing for the wrong thing.
Three shifts that make the difference:
From cascading to translating — Push context, not content. Let teams interpret through their lens.
From assigning to co-creating — Use dialogue to shape goals within strategic boundaries.
From reviewing to reflecting — Make reviews learning conversations, not compliance audits.
Let’s redefine success by:
Using Goals to support focus in the flow of daily work and allowing them to flex as context shifts.
Using OKRs to align broader ambition across teams and reviewing them often enough to stay relevant, not ritualized.
Co-creating both, so Talent has a voice in what success looks like - not just accountability for delivering it.
Making reflection part of the rhythm - not just something reserved for quarterly check-ins.
Designing both Goals and OKRs to include the capacity to grow, recover, and reframe - not just produce.
One Last Thought
OKRs and Goals, when done right, are more than metrics.
They’re how we say: "Your work matters here."
When talent is trusted, involved, and seen - they don’t just deliver outcomes.
They create them.