OKR Pitfalls and Boons
OKR Pitfalls and Boons
In 2009, Harvard Business School published a paper titled Goals Gone Wild. Using a series of examples, it explained “the destructive side of over-pursuing goals”: the Ford Pinto’s exploding gas tank, Sears Auto Centers’ rampant overcharging, Enron’s wildly inflated sales targets, and the 1996 Mount Everest disaster that killed eight people. The authors warn that goals are “a prescription drug that must be handled with care and monitored closely.” They even state: “Because of excessive focus, unethical behavior, greater risk taking and decreased cooperation and intrinsic motivation, goals create systematic problems inside organizations.” The downsides of goal-setting may cancel out the benefits—that was the thesis.
Reading “Measure What Matters”
I practiced OKRs for three years at my previous company; coincidentally my current company is embracing OKRs as well, and our boss recommended this book Measure What Matters.
It took me two weeks to finish it off and on. Below are some brief, purely subjective impressions before I’ve thought them through.
OKR, originally “Objectives and Key Results,” translates literally to objectives and key results.
Under Google’s OKR model, objectives break into two types: committed objectives and aspirational objectives. Each type is assessed differently. Thoughtful wording of objectives matters; you can refer to the last-chapter appendix Google Internal OKR Template or this link.
Key results also require careful crafting. Think of a key result as a milestone; every advance moves you toward the nearest milestone, ultimately reaching the objective. Each milestone should be quantifiable so you can tell whether you’ve met it and analyze any gaps.
Because key results still advise using numbers, how do they differ from KPIs? KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator. Clearly KPIs have no explicit objective.
When an organization blindly issues numerical targets while ignoring objectives, many cases show real harm; the book cites several.
Beyond explaining and “selling” OKRs, another important late-chapter tool is continuous performance management, accomplished via CFR—Conversations, Feedback, Recognition—i.e., conversation, feedback, recognition.
The book mainly describes managers holding one-on-ones, gathering feedback, and recognizing employees’ efforts. While it sounds pleasant, real contexts are riddled with partial knowledge, misunderstandings, and self-importance. The authors therefore advocate “more” conversations, without specifying what “more” means. How to prevent “conversation” from becoming “pressure,” “feedback” from degenerating into “complaints,” or “recognition” from mutating into “gaslighting” requires both parties to possess communication skills.
The second half of the book treats continuous performance management, which on the surface seems even closer to traditional performance management. Yet the book repeatedly stresses that OKR completion should never be tied to compensation—otherwise the numbers go stale and we retrace the KPI path that hurts companies.
After practicing OKRs, what metrics do influence pay? The book offers no answer. My own inference: since OKRs add the objective dimension to performance, perhaps the closer the objective aligns with overall company interests, the more it helps personal advancement. Therefore when setting objectives, consider company benefits and frame them to maximize those benefits; avoid objectives that serve only personal interests—such as earning a certificate, getting fitter, or work–life balance. Preposterous as it sounds, I’ve seen many folks pick the wrong path.
Brutal performance management hurts companies—a predictable outcome. What puzzles me is why so many firms clung to KPIs for years and what their current shape is. Many decisions don’t withstand close scrutiny; with a few logical minds talking openly, better choices emerge more often.
Summary
By my usual standard, examples should clarify ideas, not prove them—at most they can dis-prove a point.
This book has flaws:
- It cites cases of KPI failures but cannot show KPI is worthless, nor that replacing KPI with OKR guarantees success.
- To prove OKR works, it lists selective correct moves by successful companies; yet plenty of OKR-using companies still fail. If failures are attributed to “half-hearted practice,” OKR becomes mere mysticism.
- Corporate success hinges on many factors—financial health, employee performance, customer satisfaction, client support—no single element is decisive.
- The book makes assertions without solid proof; isolated cases, successful or not, prove little, making it not especially rigorous.
Although the book isn’t rigorous, I still gained something—perhaps ideas I already held: collaborators need more conversation, transparency as a cultural norm helps pull everyone together, thereby drawing the “human harmony” card.
References
Wuhan's crayfish vendors now offer on-site processing
Wuhan’s crayfish market has started offering processing services. After you buy your crayfish, there’s a free wash-and-prep station right next to the stall, staffed by three people working in tandem.
The first vendors to roll out this perk gain an immediate advantage: more customers. It’s a textbook example of the “something nobody else offers” type of premium service.
The barrier to entry, however, is low—any vendor can hire three people tomorrow—and the cost is high: three full-time laborers dedicated solely to prep. If the player can’t seize enough market share, the service will eventually cost more than it brings in.
For anyone selling crayfish all summer, the day inevitably comes when this service becomes a pure loss generator. Yet they can’t cancel it, because it’s become their main selling point. Customers are now accustomed to it; the moment you take it away, they’ll shop elsewhere. You can choose never to offer free processing in the first place, but once you do, clawing it back is almost impossible.
Some entrepreneurs swear by the “give a little extra” philosophy. Consumers naturally prefer a vendor who is more generous over one who is stingy. But the invisible price is higher operating costs, pushing everyone into low-value, low-throat-clearing competition until no one profits and the whole sector wilts. That raises an unsettling question: do certain industries decline because service is too bad—or because service is too good?
Large corporations engage in similar money-losing spectacle-making, with the end goal of monopoly. Once there’s only one ride-hailing platform or one group-buying behemoth left, the harvest begins. Yet we notice they are in no rush to cash in. Instead, they use algorithms to skim selectively. They reap supernormal profits from their pricing power while simultaneously subsidizing new product lines to undercut any newcomer and fend off every potential competitor. These firms already constitute de facto monopolies—whether they decide to “cut the leeks” is merely a scheduling matter.
At work we meet plenty of “grind-kings.” It’s hard to say whether they create more value, but they can demonstrably stay at their desks thirty minutes longer than anyone else. Once two grind-kings lock horns, their escalating “give a little extra” soon blankets the entire office in its shadow. By peddling low-quality toil, they squeeze out those who simply do an honest day’s work. They’re not competing on innovation or output; they’re competing on sheer doggedness, and inexplicably that wins the boss’s favor—a textbook case of unhealthy ruinous competition.
Back to the crayfish market: someone can monopolize pricing and name their own numbers, someone else can monopolize supply and cater exclusively to the high end. So tell me—who can monopolize the act of laboring itself so thoroughly that others volunteer to labor for them?