If OKRs Were a Netflix Series...

At a Glance

• Season 1: The honeymoon—excitement, no clarity

• Season 2: The spreadsheet graveyard—alignment dies

• Season 3: The funeral—forgotten goals, repeat cycle

• Real problem: missing the “in-between” behaviors that drive outcomes

• Fix: tie OKRs to observable customer behaviors, not just adoption

Hey folks,

We’ve all seen it. A company rolls out OKRs, leadership cheers, sticky notes fly.

Fast forward a few weeks, the spreadsheet graveyard sets in.

By the end of the quarter, the OKRs sit untouched until someone quietly says, “Well… fresh start?”

Sound familiar? If OKRs were a Netflix series, it would be a 3-part drama:

The honeymoon. The spreadsheet graveyard. The funeral.

Jeff

PS - We’ve got a lot of great workshops coming up at Sense & Respond Learning. Check out the list below.

Where This Came From

I posted this idea on LinkedIn recently, and it struck a chord. More than 900 people joined the conversation sharing their frustrations and real-world experiences with OKRs.

One story stuck with me:

A team was told their OKR was to “increase internal adoption of their product.”

That quietly transformed developers into salespeople—pitching their own tool to other teams instead of improving it for customers.

That’s the danger of chasing the wrong metric. When the focus shifts inward, the customer gets left behind.

👉 The original Netflix post is here if you want to see the full conversation.

So What Does a Good OKR Look Like?

Bad OKRs usually focus inward: more adoption, more features, more output.

They look busy on paper, but they don’t change how teams actually work.

Good OKRs shift the focus outward. They connect directly to customer behavior and give teams the space to figure out how to make that behavior happen.

The difference isn’t in how polished the wording is. It’s in whether the OKR drives learning, change, and impact.

Here are a few side-by-side examples:

❌ Bad OKR (inward-looking):
Increase internal adoption of our tool by 30%

✅ Better OKR (customer-centered):
Objective: Make it effortless for new users to get value in their first week.

Key Results:
– 70% of new users complete onboarding in under 15 minutes
– 50% return and use the product again within 7 days
– 20% invite a teammate in their first month

❌ Bad OKR (vanity):
Ship 10 new AI-powered features this quarter

✅ Better OKR (impact-focused):
Objective: Ensure AI features actually help people do their jobs faster.

Key Results:
– 60% of users who try the new AI feature complete their task in less time
– 40% say it replaces a manual step they used to do themselves
– At least 3 AI features reach 25%+ weekly active usage

❌ Bad OKR (task list):
Publish 50 blog posts by the end of the quarter

✅ Better OKR (outcome-oriented):
Objective: Grow awareness through content people actually read and share.

Key Results:
– 10 blog posts reach 1,000+ views each
– Average time-on-page increases by 25%
– 20% of posts generate inbound leads within 30 days

❌ Bad OKR (micromanaging):
Developers must reduce bug count by 50%

✅ Better OKR (agency + outcome):
Objective: Improve customer trust by reducing friction in the product.

Key Results:
– 70% fewer support tickets around recurring bugs
– 30% improvement in customer satisfaction scores
– 15% increase in trial → paid conversions

The difference comes down to framing outcomes as behaviors you can see and measure.

See the shift? Same team. Same product.

Notice the pattern:

• Bad OKRs obsess over activity (how many things we ship, how many tasks we tick off).

• Good OKRs focus on behaviors and impact (what customers actually do differently because of our work).

That’s the difference between progress and outcomes.

Key Guidelines

Here are a few simple rules to avoid writing OKRs that belong in the Netflix graveyard:

• If it feels like a task, it’s not an Objective. Tasks belong in your backlog, not your OKRs.

• If it doesn’t connect to customer behavior, it’s probably vanity. Adoption, retention, referral, usage: these are signals.

• If it removes agency, it’s broken. Good OKRs give teams a problem to solve, not a script to follow.

If it’s invisible, it’s dead. Keep OKRs present in planning, standups, and reviews.

The Bottom Line

Good OKRs don’t just measure if you’ve written them down. They shift the focus of your work toward customer value. If your developers are selling, your writers are churning, or your AI features are gathering dust, you’ve probably set the wrong goals.

OKRs work best when they measure impact where it matters: in the hands of your customers.

If this Netflix-style OKR story feels familiar, we’ve got something just for you.