Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs

by John Doerr

In a high-functioning OKR system, top-down mandates to “just do more” are obsolete. Orders give way to questions, and to one question in particular: What matters most? When it came to goal setting, Andy Grove felt strongly that less is more: The one thing an [OKR] system should provide par excellence is focus. This can only happen if we keep the number of objectives small. . . . Each time you make a commitment, you forfeit your chance to commit to something else. This, of course, is an inevitable, inescapable consequence of allocating any finite resource. People who plan have to have the guts, honesty, and discipline to drop projects as well as to initiate them, to shake their heads “no” as well as to smile “yes.” . . . We must realize—and act on the realization—that if we try to focus on everything, we focus on nothing.