I’ve lost count of how many OKRs I’ve read that go something like:

• Objective: Launch the app
• Key Result 1: Release the app
• Key Result 2: Get some feedback
• Key Result 3: Improve the app

It’s a to-do list dressed up in strategy clothes. It looks neat, but it doesn’t move the needle. It doesn’t spark action or build alignment. The truth is, a well-written OKR is less about polish and more about clarity. What are we solving? Why does it matter? How will we know if we’re making progress?

That’s what this episode of Strategy Candy is all about.

I brought Peter Thoth onto the pod – he’s been hands-on helping sales teams and leadership teams embed OKRs in a way that actually shifts results. The conversation turned out to be less about frameworks and more about mindset. Here are the big takeaways.

1. Writing the OKR Isn’t the Work. The Conversation Before It Is.

Before you touch a doc, whiteboard, or AI prompt, stop and ask: What are we really trying to solve?

If you’re skipping that, your OKR’s going to be a mess. It’ll sound vague. It’ll be full of guesswork. And worse – your team won’t care, because they won’t see how it connects to what matters.

Peter said something early that really stuck: “It’s not about writing the OKR, it’s about all the discussion that happens before and during writing it.” That’s the work. That’s where alignment comes from.

2. The Objective Should Read Like a Newspaper Headline

One of the most helpful tools I’ve seen for writing Objectives is simple: Write it like a headline.

Something you’d be proud to see printed in the paper. Something that gets people out of bed. Not “Improve CX metrics” or “Implement the leadership training program.” I’m talking:

“Customers rave about our new checkout experience”

“Make our 1:1s a superpower”

“Team crushes sales conversion with faster follow-up”

It’s got energy. It tells a story. And most importantly, you don’t need a workshop to explain it. Everyone gets it, straight away.

3. Key Results = Progress, Not Tasks

Too many teams get stuck listing what they’ll do, not what progress looks like.

Your Key Results should be real measures of momentum. Leading indicators. Start here, finish there. For example:

KR: Reduce average proposal send time from 7 days to 2 days

KR: Increase qualified leads from 30 per week to 60 per week

KR: Improve employee value score with 1:1s from 5.8 to 8.0

No outputs, no ambiguity. Just clear signals that show whether the work is working.

Peter comes from a sales background, so we pulled apart examples from that space. What was refreshing was how transferable it is. Whether you’re in HR, product, marketing – it’s the same game: stop guessing, start measuring progress early.

4. Leading Indicators Are Your Best Friends

We talked a lot about leading indicators. And here’s the key thing: most of us wait too long to measure.

You don’t want to get to the end of the quarter and hope it worked. That’s a recipe for disappointment and backpedaling. Leading indicators are headlights. They tell you what’s coming. If you’re not tracking those, you’re driving blind.

In product? Task completion rates and user satisfaction on a specific feature are your signal. In sales? Speed to follow-up and number of qualified conversations. In HR? Uptake of training, then observed behavior shifts from those who took it.

The lagging indicators (like revenue, retention, or NPS) will follow. But those come too late to steer the ship. Use data you can move now.

5. Stop Overthinking the Wording – Use AI to Tighten, Not Create

This was another big one. If your team has had the right conversation, you don’t need to spend hours wordsmithing.

Use AI for what it’s good at – tightening up your phrasing, not doing the thinking for you.

We’ve put together a prompt that actually works, based on how we write OKRs in the real world (not the terrible examples all over the web). You can grab it in the show notes. But if you’re relying on AI to tell you what matters… you’ve missed the point.

Final Thought

The goal isn’t to write OKRs that sound clever. It’s to create OKRs that drive clarity, focus, and action.

One OKR per team. Two to four key results. Clear start and target metrics. No outputs disguised as results. And an objective that your team actually wants to achieve.

If that sounds hard, it’s because it is – at first. But once you get into the rhythm of asking the right questions and measuring the right things, it becomes second nature.

Peter wrapped the episode by saying his highlight was doing his first podcast. My highlight? Seeing the moment when leaders realise their team wasn’t aligned until they had the OKR conversation. That moment’s always a bit confronting, but it changes the game.

Let me know what you think of the episode. And if you’ve got a team that’s spinning its wheels on OKRs, maybe this is one to share.

Originally posted on my blog: link