Why You’ll Probably Fail at OKRs the First Time (and Why That’s Good)
When a new team at a small software company introduced OKRs, there was initial excitement. Everyone set big, energizing goals: revenue leaps, new features, happier customers. But three months later, the post-mortem revealed not a single Key Result achieved. Frustration simmered, worry set in: was it the system? The team? Was it all just another management fad?
But a careful look back uncovered something familiar. Some goals had been too ambitious, based on optimism, not reality. A few team members forgot to check progress until the quarter was almost over. Others spread themselves too thin or didn’t understand how to turn abstract objectives into practical work. In fact, each failure was a clue about what needed fixing.
Instead of abandoning the approach, the team gathered—no blame game, just questions. What worked? What didn’t? Why did we ignore the OKRs mid-cycle? Was our weekly check-in ritual missing? Did we choose outcomes or just tasks? Then came that light-bulb moment for several team members: this wasn’t a one-shot exercise to get perfect. The goal was to learn and improve with each try.
Research in cognitive psychology calls this 'deliberate practice with feedback.' Learning, especially in complex tasks, accelerates when mistakes are analyzed, discussed, and systematically addressed. It’s not about avoiding failure but making use of it. Because when 'not yet' becomes your motto, progress—however slow—continues.
As you set out to reach new goals or try OKRs, don’t kid yourself—your first attempt might miss the bullseye. That’s okay. When it’s over, review what didn’t work and pinpoint the actual barriers: maybe the process was too complex, or you lost track of the metrics, or the goals were just too much for one cycle. Hold a no-blame review, jot down what needs to change, and commit to trying again next time, with adjustments. If you catch yourself feeling defeated, remember: it’s not failure, it’s 'not yet.' Make that shift, and you’ll turn every misstep into momentum for your next effort.
What You'll Achieve
Develop resilience and learning agility, build a culture or personal habit of constructive iteration, and achieve gradual improvement in hitting ambitious goals.
Embrace Failure as a Key Learning Step
Expect your first implementation to fall short.
Go into new goal or OKR cycles with the realistic understanding that missteps, missed targets, or confusion are likely. Normalize this expectation for yourself and your group.
Identify specifically why you missed the goal.
After the cycle, honestly review what prevented success: Was the goal too ambitious? Did you forget to track progress? Were you distracted by unplanned work?
Use reflection sessions to iterate and adjust.
Schedule a regular review—by yourself or with teammates—to pinpoint lessons learned. Decide which systems, habits, or approaches to tweak in the next round.
Apply the 'Not Yet' mindset.
Instead of viewing a failed attempt as an end, reframe it as a temporary state: not yet, but you're on a learning curve. This makes each attempt valuable.
Reflection Questions
- How do I typically respond to missing an ambitious goal?
- What patterns can I spot in how I fell short this cycle?
- Who can I enlist as a sounding board for honest feedback?
- How will I keep myself (or my team) focused on learning, not just outcomes?
Personalization Tips
- A first-time manager launches an OKR process with their team, misses all targets, and uses the experience to clarify priorities for the next quarter.
- A student sets an ambitious fitness plan, struggles to keep up, but instead of quitting, reviews what went wrong and adapts the plan for better results.
- A parent tries a new bedtime routine, finds it chaotic, and enlists the family's ideas to refine it for week two.
Radical Focus : Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results ( OKRs )
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