Ben on OKRs

This episode is long, but VITAL!

It kicks off your OKRs journey with the most critical step: setting and aligning effective OKRs.

Many teams try OKRs to gain focus, but fall into common traps like:

This leads to "busy teams but no progress" 

You’ll learn how to avoid these pitfalls by focusing on 1-3 objectives, distinguishing outcomes from activities, and clearly defining why each objective matters now.

Ben also walks you through the importance of mission and alignment to  ensure your OKRs connect vertically to strategy and horizontally across teams.

Using real client examples, you’ll see how strong objectives, measurable key results, and cross-functional collaboration come together to create clarity, focus, and impact. If your organization has struggled with OKRs before, you’re not alone, this episode shows you how to get them right from the start.

Sample OKR from today's episode for a marketing team:

Marketing Team Mission: Provide tools to enable our sales team to sell and beat the competition 

Key Results:

Team-Level Mission Exercise:

Characterists of Effective Key Results:

Further Reading: Team-Level OKRs in 7 Steps

For your free 1:1 OKR consult, contact [email protected]

Video Training of OKRs Cycle Step 1

Video Training featuring 3 Steps of OKRs Cycle

Thanks for listening and see you next time!

Ben's favorite workshop - this is the one his clients ALWAYS LOVE!

The OKRs Expert Workshop is designed to help organizations build the internal capability to sustain and scale their OKRs program long after the external coach is gone.

First developed in 2014 with Zalando, this workshop pioneered a structured approach to developing internal OKRs coaches—leaders who can guide teams, strengthen alignment, and keep the OKRs process alive quarter after quarter.

Unlike introductory OKRs sessions that focus on writing OKRs, the Expert Workshop focuses on coaching skills. Through highly interactive breakout groups, participants rotate through three roles—coach, coachee, and observer—learning how to ask powerful questions, clarify outcomes, and support teams in drafting effective OKRs. The emphasis is simple: the only way to learn OKRs is to do OKRs.

Ideal for organizations running team-level OKRs, this 6–8 hour onsite workshop works best with 12–18 cross-functional participants and is built around hands-on application, shared learning, and real coaching practice.

This workshop is also for smaller groups of 6-12 trainees via remote delivery over two mini-workshops of ~2 hours each.

Key Takeaways

Sample Agenda for an Onsite OKRs Expert Workshop (Idea for large group of 12-18, max 24 trainees)

Contact [email protected] to learn more or for a free 1:1 OKR consult.

Thanks for listening!

OKRs are failing everywhere I look, not just according to Reddit! That's because "IDEAS are EASY, EXECUTION" as Doerr declares is spot on.

And once your OKRs are in place and everyone is excited, things fall apart for many of you. Your execution is weak, for 3 reasons:

But there's more to this. You'll learn how the KR Champion workshop stacks the deck in your favor that you'll make real progress on your KRs! In other words, you'll execute, you'll get what John Doerr calls "EVERYTHING"

And as a bonus, Ben gets into how coaching KR champions right before check-ins during your first cycle can create more accountabilty, focus, and progress so you move the needle on your OKRs.

This episode features new content that was not included in Ben's 2022 OKR book.

To learn more about how to deliver a KR champion workshop in your organization, contact [email protected] to get your 1:1 consult.

This is the second episode in a series of "Real-OKR Implementation" stories that I hope you find super-useful.

When organizations adopt OKRs, the early excitement is usually high. Executives align around strategy. Teams draft, refine, and publish their OKRs. 

Then comes the hard part:

One of the clearest examples of how to scale OKRs the right way comes from Zalando, Europe’s leading online fashion platform for women, men, and children, founded in 2008 in Berlin.

Their journey illustrates why scaling OKRs isn’t about better templates or better software. It’s about building internal capability.

And that insight ultimately shaped what we now offer at OKRs.com as the OKR Expert Workshop, our Train-the-Trainer (TTT) program.

Zalando began using OKRs within a single department with roughly 80 employees, Brand Solutions, before rolling them out more broadly across the company.

Like many fast-growing organizations, they wanted:

They adopted a version of the Google model which was super-popular when they first got started with OKRs which features:

That last decision was critical. By keeping OKRs separate from compensation, they protected stretch thinking and avoided sandbagging.

The pilot phase allowed teams to learn:

But after the pilot, a major challenge emerged. While it is easy for most teams to draft objectives, coaching people to develop measurable and impactful KRs that represent achievement of their objective at scale is quite a challenge.

As OKRs expanded beyond the initial department, Zalando recognized that central oversight wouldn’t scale. Reviewing every OKR from the top would create bottlenecks and slow execution. Instead, they invested in building in-house OKR expertise. They invited Ben Lamorte to develop a program to create internal OKR coaches so that they could embed OKR expertise throughout their organization. We co-developed a workshop to effectively train OKR coaches with Zalando.

Managers and selected team members (often agile coaches and HR business partners) were trained to:

This approach laid the foundation for what became known as the OKR Expert Workshop, and later evolved into a formal Train-the-Trainer (TTT) model.

The lesson learned from our work with Zalando is obvious: if you want OKRs to scale, you must build internal capacity to support and sustain the OKR program.

A small group of trained OKR facilitators can sustain quality across hundreds or thousands of employees. Without that layer, OKRs often degrade into:

The OKR Expert Workshop, which we now call our Train-the-Trainer program, goes far beyond theory.

Participants practice:

The goal is distributed capability and when done well, OKRs become a shared operating language, not a compliance exercise.

One of the most powerful scaling mechanisms Zalando implemented was an “alignment week” at the beginning of each quarter.

Instead of hoping cross-functional conversations would happen organically, they designed time for them.

During alignment week:

This simple structural choice prevented downstream conflict and strengthened shared ownership.

Alignment isn’t accidental. It must be designed, or “embedded into every element of your OKRs program” (See the 6th OKR mantra)

Zalando reinforced transparency through:

Transparency created:

When OKRs are visible, alignment improves naturally.

Interestingly, Zalando operated successfully for an extended period using simple Google Docs/Sheets prior to implementing a dedicated OKR platform.

This reinforces a fundamental principle about OKR implementations:

Tools can make a process more efficient and even amplify the effects of a system, but they cannot create that system.

The early priorities in an effective OKR program must be:

Software becomes powerful once those foundations are strong.

As OKRs matured, Zalando experienced:

Most importantly, OKRs became embedded in how the organization operated.

They were no longer a “program.”

They were part of the culture.

If you’re implementing or scaling OKRs, here are the key takeaways:

Start in one department, learn quickly, and refine the approach before broad rollout.

Train a cohort of leaders to facilitate drafting, alignment, and check-ins.

Create structured windows (like alignment week) for cross-functional coordination.

Preserve stretch, learning, and honest scoring.

Strengthen capability and cadence before investing heavily in tooling.

Many OKR rollouts fail because organizations underestimate the human component.

OKRs change:

That requires facilitation skill, not just documentation.

The OKR Expert Workshop, now offered as a formal Train-the-Trainer (TTT) program at OKRs.com, exists to build that internal capability. And some of our clients who already have an OKRs program in place but feel it is not scaling well benefit from our TTT program which can add exponential value even in just one month!

It ensures OKRs scale through people, your people.

Scaling OKRs successfully can happen in your organization so long as you build the internal capability to make the framework your own.

To explore TTT for your organization, contact [email protected]

Thanks for listening! 

Armed with your deployment parameters, it's time to get going with OKR training!

A great OKRs workshop has two essential parts.

First comes theory, where leaders align on why OKRs matter, how they work, and how the organization will deploy them.

Then comes application, where teams actively draft and refine real OKRs through interactive exercises and discussion.

Ben explains how to structure both parts for maximum engagement, alignment, and real outcomes. And it all starts with the top-level workshop, the first in a series that details the four most valuable OKR workshops OKRs.com has delivered over the years!

To make the theory section more engaging, here is a sample 10-minute exercise that Ben mentions in this episode to get your group involved right from the start!

Instructions for Sample Workshop Exercise

Ben introduces 3 of the 4 OKR Training Workshops in THIS VIDEO

Want to run your own OKRs workshop

Ben once chanted mantras as he stretched his arms and legs. He repeated these mantras hundreds of times and internalized them as a student of yoga.

The OKRs Field Book introduced the first five mantras for OKRs coaches. You should internalize these mantras!

But Ben introduces the sixth mantra for OKRs coaches based on a recent interview in as a guest on another podcast.

The sixth mantra for OKRs coaches is to “build alignment into the fabric of your OKRs coaching engagement.”

If you are looking to take your OKRs coaching skills to the next level or contribute to a future edition of The OKRs Field Book, here are THREE things you can do now:

Thanks for listening, see you next time!

PS Here's my initial post announcing the 6th mantra

The long awaited sequel to the first 20 reasons. Ben breaks down reasons 21-40, so you can learn from the others who've gone before you. 

In case you missed it, here are the first 20 reasons why OKRs fail.

And if you encountered one of these 40 reasons why OKRs fail, let us know in the comments.

If you you failed with OKRs for a reason not included in these 40, please do share so others can benefit from your lessons learned!

Good luck with OKRs.

To learn about how we can help you succeed and and make progress on our goal...

Key Result: Increase reported OKRs success rate from ~60% to 80% (stretch = 90%),

Check us out at: www.okrs.com

Thanks for listening!

-Ben

Note: This complete list of 40 is based on Ben's 15 years + experience and the team at OKRs.com. Shout out to Ana Venosa, Peter Kerr, Padmini Sathish, Nash Billimoria, Manos Koumantakis, Yuval Yeret, and Roger Longden for their input as well.

Why do OKRs fail?

It is rarely because of the framework itself.

After 15 years helping organizations implement structured performance systems, one pattern is clear:

Execution systems fail for predictable reasons.

You may have seen the full breakdown of the 40 Common Reasons OKRs Fail. That's a lot!

Because these mistakes are not unique to OKRs.

They show up in:

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results)

OGSM

4DX (Four Disciplines of Execution)

EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System)

Balanced Scorecard

This episode is not about defending an acronym. It is about understanding what actually drives alignment, focus, and measurable results.

Ben walks through the Top 10 reasons execution systems fail:

No CEO buy-in

Unclear why the organization is using OKRs

Confusing OKRs with strategy

Rolling out to too many teams too quickly

Too many OKRs

Key Results that are vague or read like a to-do list

“Set it and forget it” behavior

No internal OKR capability

Inconsistent Key Result scoring

Skipping Reflect and Reset

For each failure pattern, Ben provides a clear and practical fix you can apply immediately.

OKRs are not strategy. They are a vehicle for executing strategy.

Execution discipline must be modeled by the CEO.

Focus requires trade-offs.

Measurable outcomes matter more than activity.

Cadence and reflection turn a framework into a performance operating system.

No execution system works without leadership ownership and internal capability.

If your organization struggles with alignment, inconsistent performance, or stalled strategic initiatives, the issue may not be the framework you chose.

It may be how it is being implemented.

This episode gives you the executive-level clarity needed to diagnose execution breakdowns quickly.

To explore the full list of the 40 common reasons OKRs fail, structured performance systems, OKRs consulting, or strategy execution workshops, visit OKRs.com.

When team members help define key results, engagement rises, ownership increases, and alignment becomes real AND you get more progress on those KRs!

But how do you balance leadership direction with team driven input without going too far top down or too far bottom up?

Ben explores how successful organizations strike the right balance. You will hear why a purely top down approach often disengages teams, why a fully bottom up approach can become inefficient, and how the most effective OKR programs combine clear leadership context with team driven thinking.

You'll learn about a practical approach in which leaders introduce objectives and strategic intent while team members take the lead in defining most key results.

Ben also gives an example of when it can make sense to begin with a more top down first cycle so leadership becomes comfortable with OKRs, and how organizations gradually shift toward stronger team participation in later cycles.

You will learn how this evolution increases ownership, strengthens alignment, and turns OKRs into a shared framework for driving meaningful progress.

If you want your teams to feel true ownership of their goals while maintaining strategic clarity, this episode provides practical guidance to help you build a balanced, engaging, and effective OKR development process.

Alignment is one of the most important goals of OKRs, yet many organizations misunderstand how alignment actually works. In this episode, Ben explains why the common idea of a strict top down cascade often fails, and how real alignment comes from conversation, clarity, and shared understanding rather than diagrams and arrows.

The direct cascade begins with OKRs at the top level, which is a good starting point. However, it requires lower level OKRs to be subsets of higher level OKRs. In practice, this approach rarely works.

Why it fails:

It turns higher level key results into lower level objectives, which violates the distinction between objectives and key results

It discourages critical thinking and ownership at lower levels

Teams copy and paste instead of creating meaningful OKRs

It often reinforces silos rather than cross functional alignment

While cascading may look clean in theory, organizations that rely on strict cascading almost always struggle.

True alignment does not come from structure alone. It comes from shared understanding and conversation.

Instead of cascading, teams should:

Use higher level OKRs as context, not constraints

Clearly explain why their objective matters now

Discuss objectives with leadership to confirm alignment

Collaborate horizontally across teams where needed

In many cases, alignment is confirmed through discussion rather than visual mapping. A team’s objective can be fully aligned even if it does not directly map to a higher level OKR.

Each team should articulate why their objective is important now and how it supports strategy or cross team priorities. This explanation becomes the foundation for alignment.

Alignment occurs when leadership and teams agree on the importance of the objective, not when arrows connect boxes in a chart.

Inspired by practices used at leading organizations:

Leaders review prior results and set direction for the next period while teams draft and refine OKRs through discussion

Teams align their OKRs with higher level goals where appropriate, while allowing room for important work that may not directly connect

All OKRs are published in a shared tracker so everyone can see, comment, and strengthen alignment across the organization

Do

Use higher level OKRs as context for lower level thinking

Explain how each objective connects to strategy through Why Now

Confirm alignment through leadership discussion

Do Not

Use strict cascading to force alignment

Turn key results into lower level objectives

Copy and paste OKRs instead of creating them through critical thinking

Strong alignment is not created by structure alone. It emerges through conversation, clarity, and shared commitment, enabling teams to work together toward meaningful outcomes.

For your 1:1 OKRs Consult, just email [email protected]