Objectives are the stuff of inspiration and far horizons. Key results are more earthbound and metric-driven. They typically include hard numbers for one or more gauges: revenue, growth, active users, quality, safety, market share, customer engagement. To make reliable progress, as Peter Drucker noted, a manager “must be able to measure . . . performance and results against the goal.”
Objectives can be inspirational and lofty ambitions while key results are numbers bound and metrics driven
