The 3 Most Common OKR Implementation Mistakes

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At a Glance

Common mistakes organizations make when implementing OKRs, including: 

• Using outputs instead of outcomes: Key results should measure customer behavior changes, not just deliverables 

• Assigning identical goals to everyone: Teams need objectives within their sphere of influence rather than universal metrics like revenue

• Neglecting leadership training: Leaders must shift from dictating solutions to supporting teams in customer-centric discovery

Hey folks,

Implementing OKRs should be straightforward, but it rarely is. After working with countless organizations of all sizes, I've noticed the same patterns of confusion and missteps appearing again and again.

In this newsletter, I break down the three most common OKR implementation mistakes I consistently see across industries. Whether you're just starting with OKRs or trying to fix a troubled implementation, understanding these pitfalls will help you avoid the frustration that comes with misaligned teams and leadership resistance.

Let's dig in. 

– Jeff

P.S. I'm also excited to share that our book Who Does What By How Much is now available at a reduced price on Amazon, we've launched a dedicated Sense & Respond Learning page on LinkedIn, and we're actively seeking Certified Training Partners (more details below).

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Article: Common OKR Mistakes

Over the past few years, we’ve worked on our share of OKR implementations. Mostly these have happened in medium to large companies. Through varying company sizes, a diverse group of industries, and countless teams and executives, the same anti-patterns appear time and again. While the unique context of each organization will shape the resolution of each of these anti-patterns, the patterns themselves aren’t unique to any company. Let’s take a look at the three most common OKR implementation mistakes we’ve seen. 

Using outputs in your key results

This is perhaps the most egregious and common mistake we see in every organization. While John Doerr didn’t have a strong opinion on the output vs outcome debate, we do. Your key results must be outcomes. Outcomes—measurable changes in human behavior that drive business results—tell us when our chosen idea made our customers more successful. This is what makes customer-centric OKRs different, powerful, and difficult. The team isn’t tied to a specific deliverable but rather to making the customer successful. 

When key results are outputs—the things we make that our customers consume—the measure of success is often, “shipped on time and on budget.” Teams optimize for production often without consideration for the customer. If your key result is an output you’ve simply re-branded your goal-setting framework but haven’t changed anything meaningful—even if you wrote an amazing objective. Teams are still working towards fixed time, fixed scope targets with an eye on moving on to the next build rather than ensuring the work they’re shipping meets customer needs. 

Giving everyone the same key result

Another shortcut that seems like an easy way to get OKRs into the organization is to give everyone in the company the same OKR. “Everyone’s goal is revenue.” Sound familiar? While revenue ultimately defines the success or failure of a business, there are many other factors that determine the health of the business as well as its financial success. Add to that all the employees in the organization and you end up with teams that are four or five steps removed from the customer tied to a revenue goal they have little control over. 

Imagine you had a team in charge of authentication to your online service. Now, imagine they had a revenue goal—the same goal as the sales team, marketing team, and the rest of the product development organization. No matter how well they do their job, their direct influence on revenue is non-existent. They’re too far away from that part of the customer journey. If they continue to do a good job and the company fails to hit their revenue targets due to challenges outside of their control, the authentication team will be demoralized, potentially opting to do the bare minimum given their lack of autonomy over their success. 

Instead, leadership should set their goals and then ask the teams in their departments to come up with OKRs that reflect two things:

1. A goal that is scoped within their sphere of influence, ensuring their ability to hit this goal as independently as possible.
   

2. A compelling story of how this OKR is a leading indicator of at least one OKR above it. In other words, how does optimizing this team’s part of the customer journey improve the chances of success downstream? 

This way, teams have both the autonomy to choose goals they believe they can achieve and alignment with the rest of the organization’s goals. 

Underinvesting in leadership training and coaching

The OKR writing process is the easiest part of the implementation. What happens next determines how well OKRs will work. A key factor is whether or not the leadership teams are aware and ready to change the way they work. Organizations often don’t assume their leaders will need much support with an OKR implementation. The truth is, they do. Traditional leadership often comes with a desire to dictate solutions to a team and hold them to a deadline. Working with customer-centric OKRs implies the exact opposite. It’s the teams who come up with the work they’ll do, continuously iterating their way to a solution that drives the desired outcomes. Leaders support this work by providing access to customers, data, and other departments. They also must change how they interact with their teams, choosing to focus on what the team is learning and how they’re progressing rather than what exactly they’re producing. 

Companies that recognize the need to support their leaders in an OKR transition succeed more frequently than those who don’t. While OKRs have been around for more than forty years, the customer-centric version making its way into organizations now represents a significant mindset shift. Ultimately, this mindset shift will be reflected in job descriptions, incentives, and performance management criteria. It’s critical that we prepare our leadership teams for this change through investment in training and coaching. Without it, leaders will be pulling one way as teams pull in the opposite direction with their new ways of working.

OKR implementations can succeed

The idea of customer-centric objectives and key results is relatively simple. The impact of this simple idea is organization-wide. If we want this transition to succeed, we need to recognize the big obstacles we face. This article covered three of them. There are more, but if you take on these three first and solve for them successfully, your OKR implementation has a much better chance of success.

What I’ve been up to

Over the past couple of months I’ve been working heads down on (surprise) a big OKR implementation effort with Josh Seiden. Bringing a few hundred people on board across locations, countries and time zones has kept us busy. 

I did manage to get out and do some skiing a couple of weeks ago with some friends, which was nice. 

Apart from that, Josh and I are busy building out our team at Sense & Respond Learning. Our Certified Training Partners are starting to pop up around the world and we’re actively looking for more folks who want to teach our material. If you’re interested or want to learn more, just hit reply to this email or fill out this form. 

Finally, for the month of March, you can get our book Who Does What By How Much at its lowest price ever on Kindle and in paperback form. Get it for your boss, yourself, your team—anyone with a customer (hint: that’s everyone). 

Watch, Listen, Read

Watch: Severance (Season 2) – Apple TV+ – We only had to wait three years for this mind-twisting show to come back. I don’t want to say it was “worth it” simply because I don’t want to wait another three years for the next season. This season is quirky, expository, and downright weird. So worth it. ;-) 

Listen: Hermanos Gutierrez – Mellow, guitar-based instrumental music that makes you feel like you’re always in the Wild West. Good for chilling out or getting some writing done.

Read: One, None and A Hundred Thousand by Luigi Pirandello. This is a 50-year-old book about a man learning how others perceive him and wrestling with his identity as a result of it. Is he one man? No man at all? Or a hundred thousand different men? It’s a fun read and it’s making me think. 

What’s new on the blog

How to Handle a Goal Every Team Should Have - When multiple teams have similar goals, organizations must choose between localized objectives or a company-wide focus. A hybrid approach—global objectives with team-specific key results—ensures strategic alignment while preserving team autonomy. This fosters collaboration, reduces redundancy, and drives collective progress.

How to Run an OKR Retrospective: A Step-by-Step Guide - Quarterly OKR retrospectives track progress, align teams, and refine strategies. A structured review covers goals, key results, learnings, and next steps. Pitfalls include unprepared teams, misalignment, and resistance to change. Best practices—using visuals, prioritizing key metrics, justifying changes, and focusing on future goals—enhance effectiveness, ensuring continuous improvement.