Goal Setting and OKRs
How Objectives and Key Results force strategic choices, align your team, and translate strategy into Monday morning.
Hosted by
Lyndon Smith
Founder, Expansive EDGE · two decades in operations
Key takeaways
- An OKR pairs an ambitious qualitative Objective with 2-4 measurable Key Results. Quarterly cadence works for most SMBs.
- The 70% rule: calibrate KRs so hitting 70% counts as success. Consistently hitting 100% means the bar was too low.
- Limit yourself to 2-3 Objectives per quarter. The value isn't the framework, it's the forcing function to decide what NOT to do.
- Cadence: set quarterly, check monthly, review weekly. Skip the weekly and your OKRs become a wallpaper exercise.
- Most traditional SMB goal-setting fails because goals are activities, not outcomes. KRs must be measurable and outcome-based.
Most SMB goal-setting fails the same way every year. The owner blocks off a Friday in December, draws up a long list of things the business should do better, and emails it to the team. By March it's forgotten, by June it's irrelevant, and by year-end no one remembers what the original goals even were.
A goal you don't measure isn't a goal. It's a wish.
This session walked through how Objectives and Key Results, the same framework Intel, Google, and a thousand smaller companies use, can be adapted for SMBs without the bureaucracy that usually buries it.
What an OKR actually is
An OKR has two pieces:
- Objective (O), qualitative, directional, inspiring. A short statement of what success looks like. “Become the easiest engineering firm in the region to work with.”
- Key Results (KR), three to five measurable outcomes that prove you got there. “Net Promoter Score ≥ 60.” “Average quote turnaround time < 48 hours.” “Zero late deliveries on top-20 clients.”
The Objective inspires. The Key Results keep you honest. Without both, you have either a wish or a vanity metric.
Why OKRs work where traditional goals fail
Three reasons OKRs are different from the “10 things we want to do better” list:
- They force prioritization. Three objectives max at the company level. Three KRs per objective. If everything matters, nothing does.
- They're measurable by design. If a KR can't be scored on a 0.0–1.0 scale at quarter-end, it's not a KR. Rewrite it.
- They make alignment visible. Every team's OKRs ladder up to a company OKR. Anyone can see how their week's work supports the strategy.
The 70% rule
A well-set OKR should be ambitious enough that 70% completion is a strong quarter. If you're hitting 100% consistently, you're either sandbagging the KRs or playing too safe.
If you always hit 100%, your goals weren't real goals. They were a to-do list with extra steps.
This is a hard cultural shift for owners coming from traditional KPIs, where missing the number is a problem. In an OKR culture, missing by 30% is the norm, what matters is whether you learned something, moved the needle, and what you do with the next quarter.
The cadence that makes it stick
OKRs without a rhythm are New Year's resolutions. The cadence we recommend for SMBs:
- Quarterly set / score, pick objectives at the start of each quarter, score honestly at the end.
- Monthly check-in, 30 minutes with the leadership team. Where are we against each KR? What's blocking us?
- Weekly visibility, KR progress numbers posted somewhere everyone sees them. Doesn't need software, a whiteboard or shared sheet is fine.
This is what most SMBs get wrong. They run the kickoff well, then quietly stop measuring. The whole machine depends on the score being visible.
The traps to avoid
- Too many objectives. Three at company level, ever. Cut ruthlessly.
- KRs that are tasks, not outcomes. “Launch new website” is a project. “Reduce bounce rate to under 40%” is a Key Result.
- Tying OKRs to compensation. The fastest way to kill ambition. People sandbag KRs they're paid on. Keep OKRs separate from bonus math.
- Setting and forgetting. Without a monthly review, OKRs die quietly. The leadership team has to keep them alive.
What to do this week
Try OKRs in one quarter and see what changes:
- 1Pick ONE company-level objective for the next 90 days. Just one. Write it on a single line.
- 2Define 3 Key Results that prove you achieved it. Each must be measurable on a 0.0–1.0 scale.
- 3Share with your team in your next meeting. Ask each person to draft 1–2 OKRs that ladder up.
- 4Book the monthly check-in on the calendar now, 30 minutes, leadership team, what's the score.
- 5Score honestly at the end of the quarter. Then set the next one.
Strategy is what you don't do. OKRs are the framework that makes that decision visible, to you, your team, and the work week ahead.
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