Introduction:  

John Doerr is a famous venture capitalist, helping some of the most successful technology companies on the planet get off the ground, including Amazon, Intuit, and Google.

While he was at Intel during the late 1970s, he learned an invaluable lesson from Andy Grove, who would later go on to lead the company to world dominance in the 1980s.
Grove told him that at Intel:

"It almost doesn’t matter what you know. It’s what you can do with whatever you know or can acquire and actually accomplish [that] tends to be valued here. Hence the company’s slogan: 'Intel delivers.'"

That relentless focus on delivering results led to the creation of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), which is the focus of this book.

It's a methodology that has gone on to be used in some of the world's most successful companies, including, most famously, Google.

Join us as we explore what OKRs are, how they are different from MBOs, and how you can use them to transform the results your company is getting.

1. OKRs

In the fall of 1999, Doerr had placed the largest bet in his career as a venture capitalist. He had pledged $11.8 million of his firm's money for a 12 percent stake in Google—a startup founded by Stanford dropouts.

Throughout his career, Doerr had seen over and over again that ideas were the easy part—execution was everything. While Google had an amazing idea and business plan, he wanted to ensure his huge bet paid off.

Standing in front of a ping-pong table surrounded by Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Marissa Meyer, and about 30 or so other early employees at Google, he launched into his pitch for Google to adopt the OKR framework.

His first slide defined OKRs:

"A management methodology that helps to ensure that the company focuses efforts on the same important issues throughout the organisation."

He then explained the two critical elements of OKRs:

• Objectives: What is to be achieved—concrete, action-oriented, and hopefully, inspirational. They eliminate fuzzy thinking, which ultimately leads to fuzzy execution.
• Key Results: How the objective will be achieved—tied to a number that is time-bound, aggressive, and realistic. Ensures that results are measurable and verifiable.

His objective that day was to build a planning model for Google. His key results were:

1. Finish the presentation on time.
2. Create a sample set of quarterly OKRs for Google.
3. Gain management agreement for a three-month trial of the OKR system.

The rest, as they say, is history. Eric Schmidt, later brought in as professional help for Google, credits this system with changing the course of the company forever.

What Makes a Great OKR System?

According to Andy Grove, the father of OKRs:

• Less is more: Have 3-5 OKRs per cycle (usually a quarter).
• Set goals from the bottom up: Half of the OKRs should be set by teams and individuals in consultation with their managers.
• Stay flexible: If an objective or key result is no longer relevant, discard it.
• Dare to fail: People achieve more when goals require them to grow beyond their current capability.
• Be patient: OKRs require trial and error before achieving excellence.

2. OKR Superpowers

Superpower #1: Focus & Commitment to Priorities

• Decide what is most important for the next three months.
• Encourage participation from the entire organisation.
• Leaders must publicly commit to OKRs to drive performance gains.

Superpower #2: Align and Connect for Teamwork

• Lack of alignment is the #1 obstacle between strategy and execution.
• Transparent OKRs expose redundant efforts, saving time and money.
• Public goals increase motivation—92% of workers are more motivated when colleagues see their progress.
• Balance bottom-up and top-down OKRs for engagement and innovation.

Superpower #3: Track for Accountability

• Frequent tracking prevents OKRs from becoming irrelevant.
• Dedicated OKR software makes goals more visible, drives engagement, and saves time.
• Weekly check-ins ensure continuous progress.
• Grading OKRs helps identify learnings and areas of improvement.

Superpower #4: Stretch for Amazing

OKRs encourage aspirational goals:

• Committed Objectives: Tied to business metrics (sales, hiring, bookings) and expected to be 100% completed.
• Aspirational Objectives: Bigger-picture, high-risk goals with an expected failure rate of 40%.
• OKRs push teams beyond their comfort zones, leading to extraordinary results.

3. Continuous Performance Management and Culture

To effectively implement OKRs, companies need continuous performance management:

Conversations
Managers and contributors should have regular discussions in five areas:

1. Goal setting & reflection – Align individual OKRs with company priorities.
2. Progress updates – Regular, data-driven check-ins.
3. Two-way coaching – Enable continuous learning and improvement.
4. Career growth – Identify skill-building opportunities.
5. Performance reviews – Gather insights and feedback for improvement.

Feedback

• Bidirectional feedback allows employees to provide feedback to managers.
• Regular feedback cycles (every six weeks) ensure alignment and motivation.

Recognition

• Peer-to-peer recognition fosters a culture of appreciation.
• Recognise accomplishments based on clear criteria aligned with company goals.
• Share success stories to enhance motivation.
• Make recognition frequent and attainable.

Conclusion

OKRs are clear vessels for leadership priorities and insights. Continuous performance management and culture ensure their successful implementation.
"An OKR culture is an accountable culture. You don’t push toward a goal just because the boss gave you an order. You do it because every OKR is transparently important to the company and the colleagues who count on you. It’s a social contract, but a self-governed one."