Early on, I found it challenging to separate my individual goals from the department’s OKRs. As IT’s leader, I thought they should logically coincide. But it wasn’t a good optic. Most of our top-level objectives endured from quarter to quarter, typically for eighteen months. Down the line, teams and individuals would modify their own OKRs as the environment shifted and we kept making progress. And they were asking, quite reasonably, “What is the CIO doing if his goals never change?” I got the message. Now I have my own objectives, and I ladder up to our top-level OKRs like everyone
