Measure What Matters Book Summary
OKRs: The Simple Idea that Drives 10x Growth
Book by John Doerr
Summary
Measure What Matters is the essential guide for using Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to drive focus, alignment, and extraordinary performance at every level of your organization.
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1. Part 1
How Google Embraced OKRs
In 1999, Google was still a fledgling startup. That's when venture capitalist John Doerr introduced founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).
OKRs provided the scaffolding to help Google scale from 40 employees to over 60,000 and achieve 10x growth and success across products like Search, Chrome, Android, YouTube and more. As Doerr states, "OKRs were a vaccine against fuzzy thinking and fuzzy execution." Google's leadership institutionalized OKRs as a core operating principle and management tool to provide focus, alignment, commitment, tracking and stretching to amazing.
Section: 1, Chapter: 1
The Four OKR Superpowers
OKRs, when implemented well, bestow organizations with four powerful benefits:
- Focus and commit to priorities
- Align and connect for teamwork
- Track for accountability
- Stretch for amazing
These "superpowers" enable organizations to operate with focus, alignment, accountability, ambition and transparency - all critical ingredients for executing on what matters most.
Section: 1, Chapter: 2
Andy Grove - The Architect Behind OKRs
Andy Grove, Intel's pioneering CEO, was the main architect behind OKRs. Grove wanted to create an environment at Intel that valued and emphasized output rather than activities.
He sought to create a system where managers didn't have to tell people what to do through command-and-control. Rather, he aimed to create a culture of discipline and self-management where there was clarity on objectives and people could determine the best approach themselves.
Grove eschewed traditional, private goal-setting in favor of transparent OKRs where everyone's goals, from the CEO down, were openly shared. Objectives were significant, concrete and action-oriented. Key results were measurable and verifiable milestones for achieving the objective.
Section: 1, Chapter: 2
"It Almost Doesn't Matter What You Know"
When explaining the impetus behind OKRs at Intel, Andy Grove stated:
"It almost doesn't matter what you know. It's what you can do with whatever you know or can acquire and actually accomplish [that] tends to be valued here. The key phrases . . . are objectives and the key result. And they match the two purposes. The objective is the direction: 'We want to dominate the mid-range microcomputer component business.' That's an objective. That's where we're going to go. Key results for this quarter: 'Win ten new designs for the 8085' is one key result. It's a milestone. The two are not the same."
Section: 1, Chapter: 2
Operation Crush: An Intel Story
In 1979, Intel was losing the battle for the 16-bit microprocessor market to Motorola. That's when Andy Grove and other Intel leaders used OKRs to mobilize the entire company behind "Operation Crush" - an effort to reclaim market leadership. The top-line objective was clear and time-bound: "Establish the 8086 as the highest performance 16-bit microprocessor family, as measured by having more than 2,000 design wins by the end of the year."
Every department and person at Intel, from engineering to sales to marketing, set aligned OKRs to support the Operation Crush objective. This connectivity enabled coordination, accountability and focus across all teams. By the end of the year, Intel had exceeded the goal with 2,300 design wins, regained market dominance, and set itself up for industry leadership for decades to come.
Section: 1, Chapter: 3
Hallmarks of effective OKRs
- Urgency: When a crisis arose, Intel's leadership responded within weeks to set and communicate a clear, focused objective to the entire company.
- Clarity: From the CEO down, everyone knew exactly what the objective was and how their work connected to it. No ambiguity.
- Alignment: Every team, from engineering to marketing to sales, set their own OKRs in service of Operation Crush. While the key results differed, the overarching objective unified everyone.
- Tracking: Regular check-ins and grading enabled leaders to monitor progress, identify obstacles, and make adjustments as needed.
- Stretching: The 2,000 design win goal was hugely ambitious. But it motivated people to rethink old approaches and deliver amazing results.
Section: 1, Chapter: 3
The Importance Of Focusing On What Matters Most
As Grove wrote, "The art of management lies in the capacity to select from the many activities of seemingly comparable significance the one or two or three that provide leverage well beyond the others and concentrate on them."
- Limit to 3-5 objectives per cycle. More dilutes focus.
- Choose objectives with the most leverage for outstanding performance.
- Be willing to say no and make hard choices about what not to do.
- Communicate choices clearly to the entire org to reduce ambiguity and create alignment.
Section: 1, Chapter: 4
What, How, When - The Anatomy of Effective OKRs
Effective OKRs clearly define the what, how and when:
- What are you trying to achieve? This is the objective - significant, action-oriented, and ideally inspiring.
- How will you get there? These are the key results - measurable, time-bound milestones.
- When do you need to achieve them by? OKRs should have a clear deadline, typically quarterly.
Section: 1, Chapter: 4
Committing To The OKR Process
For OKRs to drive focus and execution, leaders need to:
- Actively demonstrate their own commitment to OKRs by regularly tracking and discussing them
- Consistently communicate the importance of OKRs for the company's success
- Ensure their executive team bought into and modeled the process
- Hold people accountable for following through on their OKRs
Jini Kim advises other leaders: "The OKR process takes discipline, commitment and iteration to work. Don't get discouraged if it feels hard at first. Stick with it and make it your own."
Section: 1, Chapter: 6
The Perils Of Over-Cascading OKRs
A common mistake organizations make is cascading OKRs too rigidly from the top. This "waterfall" approach has several downsides:
- Rigidity: If the top-line OKRs take weeks or months to cascade down, it makes the org slow to adapt to change. Managers resist adjusting OKRs mid-cycle.
- Marginalized contributors: Frontline employees have little autonomy or ability to influence the direction of their work. It becomes a one-way commandment vs. a two-way conversation.
- Tunnel vision: Focusing only on vertical alignment neglects important lateral networking across teams and functions.
- Employee disengagement: People feel like OKRs is a "check the box" exercise vs. a useful tool. OKRs should be transparently shared so people can quickly align their work to org priorities in an agile way.
Section: 1, Chapter: 7
2. Part Two
The MyFitnessPal Story
When MyFitnessPal hit product-market fit, growth took off like a rocket ship. But this hypergrowth came with a cost. Co-founders Mike and Albert Lee found it increasingly difficult to keep everyone rowing in the same direction. Different teams were pursing competing priorities. Inefficiencies and duplicative work crept in. The engineering team, in particular, felt torn between different product managers.
As Mike puts it: "If you put two people in a boat and have one row east and the other row west, they'll use up lots of energy going nowhere. Before you know it, they're working on two different things. It doesn't help to push them harder. If two nails are even slightly misaligned, a good hammer will splay them sideways."
Section: 2, Chapter: 8
Use OKRs To Drive Organizational Clarity
When Atticus Tysen took over IT at Intuit, he faced a big challenge. His 600-person org was operating in silos, pursuing disparate objectives. There was little visibility into how different sub-teams' work laddered up (or didn't) to Intuit's strategic priorities. To address this, Tysen rolled out OKRs across his entire org. Through the OKR process, Tysen and his leadership team:
- Defined 3-5 clear, aspirational objectives for IT as a whole
- Translated these into measurable, time-bound key results
- Had each sub-team and individual define their OKRs to support the top-line goals
- Made everyone's OKRs visible across IT
- Established frequent check-in points to track progress, identify dependencies and remove barriers
Section: 2, Chapter: 9
Without Tracking, Goals Are Just Wishes
To drive disciplined execution, you have to continuously track and score them. As Doerr puts it, "Ideas are easy. Execution is everything."
- Make sure OKRs are visible and always up-to-date.
- Have a regular cadence of check-ins to review progress. These should be forward-looking conversations, not postmortems.
- Scoring is critical. Be honest about what % of each key result was achieved.
- Celebrate wins, but also openly examine "misses." Extract lessons learned. Don't penalize teams for transparency.
Teams that diligently track and score OKRs not only execute better - they accelerate their collective learning. You can't improve what you don't measure.
Section: 2, Chapter: 10
Data, Not Wishful Thinking
"Setting a goal is fine, but if you don't know how you did against it, it's like running a race without a stopwatch and a finish line. Having a good mission is not enough. You need a concrete objective, and you need to know how you're going to get there." - Bill Gates
Section: 2, Chapter: 11
Google's 10X Mindset For Moonshot Goals
Google is famous for setting audacious goals. Underpinning Google's outsized ambition is a philosophy they call "10x thinking" - the idea that you should aim for a 10X improvement versus incremental gain.
As Larry Page explains: "If you set a crazy, ambitious goal and miss it, you'll still achieve something remarkable."
By systematically stretching for 10X gains, Google believes you can achieve outsized results over time. You create a culture where the question is never "can this be done?" but rather "what would it take to make this happen?"
Section: 2, Chapter: 12
Stretch Goals Require Stretching Yourself
When Sundar Pichai set Chrome's 20M user goal, he wasn't sure how they would get there. Some lessons he learned about leading through a stretch goal:
- Acknowledge the uncertainty, but exude optimism.
- Proactively seek ideas and resources from other teams. Stretches often require cross-functional collaboration.
- Break the big goal into sub-milestones to make it feel more achievable.
- Celebrate progress and small wins along the way. Stretches can be a long slog - people need encouragement.
- Be willing to course-correct as you learn. If one approach isn't working, explicitly pivot and try another.
Section: 2, Chapter: 13
You Shouldn't Score 100% on Stretch Goals
When YouTube first deployed OKRs in 2012, they set their product & engineering teams a goal of going from 3 to 5 hours of watch time per monthly active user (MAU). They thought this was the maximum achievable through optimizing the existing experience. But halfway through the year, they were pacing to 6 hours per MAU. The goal was too easy.
Susan Wojcicki, SVP at the time, reflects: "Even in a well-intentioned stretch goal, it can be hard to find the right degree of difficulty. Make it too hard, and people will give up or feel fearful. Too easy, and you'll get tactical progress but not real breakthroughs. I think the 70% rule is about right: if you're consistently scoring 100%, you aren't aiming high enough. But much lower than 70%, and you risk creating a culture of burnout and failure. Of course, you have to consider the context - newer teams that are still developing their OKR muscle may need more achievable goals to build confidence."
Section: 2, Chapter: 14
Committed And Aspirational Goals Are Both Essential
In any given quarter, YouTube (and Google more broadly) aims for a 60/40 split between committed and aspirational OKRs:
- Committed OKRs: Challenging goals you fully expect to achieve, barring unforeseen circumstances. You should hit these 90-100% of the time. Failing to do so requires explanation.
- Aspirational OKRs: Ambitious "stretch" goals that push beyond your current capabilities or knowledge of how to achieve them. The target is ~70% achievement. Lower is fine as long as you learn something useful.
The balance of the two keeps people motivated. They get dopamine hits from regularly achieving hard things, while still feeling challenged to grow. If your committed goals are consistently harder than your aspirational ones, your aspirations aren't aspirational enough!
Section: 2, Chapter: 14
3. Part Three
OKRs And CFRs - The Dynamic Duo Powering High Performance
Continuous performance management has two key components that work in tandem:
- Structured goal setting with Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)
- Continuous, high-quality communication with Conversations, Feedback, and Recognition (CFRs) Some key benefits of this dual approach:
- OKRs provide clarity of purpose and priorities to guide CFRs. You know what to talk about and why it matters.
- CFRs provide the day-to-day fuel for achieving OKRs. They surface issues, build commitment, and keep everyone aligned.
Section: 2, Chapter: 15
Divorcing Compensation From OKRs
One of the most important decisions an organization can make is to separate OKRs from compensation and promotions.
- Tying OKRs to comp incentivizes sandbagging and risk aversion. People set goals they know they can hit.
- It diminishes the healthy stretch and learning that comes from aspirational OKRs. Suddenly 70% = failure.
- It turns conversations about goal setting and reflection into arguments about money. The focus shifts from growth to defense.
- It penalizes people who choose the most ambitious, business-changing OKRs. The safer path gets rewarded. u
Section: 3, Chapter: 15
How OKRs & CFRs Reshape Culture
When implemented well, OKRs and CFRs don't just clarify goals and boost performance - they transform an organization's culture:
- Transparency & openness - Everyone's OKRs are visible. Conversations about priorities, progress, and problems happen out in the open.
- Healthy risk-taking - Aspirational OKRs make it okay to try big things and sometimes fail. The focus is on learning and iterating.
- Intrinsic motivation - Stretch goals tap into people's desire to grow and master new skills. They take more pride in their work.
- Customer-centricity - OKRs often align to key customer metrics. Teams are more attuned to evolving user needs.
- Bias for action - Regular OKR/CFR cycles create a cadence of shipping, learning, and improving. Decisions get made promptly.
Section: 3, Chapter: 18
How Leaders Can Amplify Cultural Change
Changing a large organization's culture is never easy. But when leaders visibly embrace OKRs and CFRs, it sends a powerful signal.
When making a key decision, connect it explicitly to a company OKR. Show how priorities guide actions. Essentially, make OKRs and CFRs an integral part of how you manage. Through your example, you give your team permission to embrace the new normal. Culture change is a marathon, not a sprint. Stay the course with OKRs and expect some resistance early on. But know that each cycle brings you closer to operating excellence.
Section: 3, Chapter: 18
Before Rolling Out OKRs, Is Your Culture Ready?
When healthcare software startup Lumeris first deployed OKRs, they appeared to be a huge success, but it was mostly theater. People were treating OKRs as a required administrative task vs. a tool for alignment and accountability. The issue was some deep cultural barriers:
- Lack of psychological safety - People feared that honest, public goals would be used against them later. They felt safer sandbagging.
- Directive leadership - The org was used to top-down goals with little autonomy. Following orders was valued over taking risk and ownership.
- Unclear priorities - Absent clear company-level OKRs, teams focused on their local activities vs. broader impact. To address this, Cole and other leaders embarked on a series of interventions:
The lesson: an OKR rollout will struggle if it runs counter to your current culture. Thoughtful change management is key. Meet people where they are and guide them to a better place.
Section: 3, Chapter: 19
The Emerging "Goal Science"
In the 40+ years since Andy Grove first developed OKRs at Intel, an entire field of "goal science" has emerged. Some of their key findings from research reinforce the core tenets of OKRs:
- Specific, challenging goals drive higher performance than vague exhortations to "do your best"
- Connecting goals to a larger purpose stimulates intrinsic motivation and persistence
- Involving people in setting their own goals leads to greater engagement and achievement
- Personalizing goals based on someone's past achievement, personality profile, and current circumstances
- Gamifying goals to make them more engaging and enjoyable to pursue
The underlying insight is that goals, like any powerful technology, are evolving rapidly. What seemed advanced a decade ago may soon be table stakes. As Doerr writes, "My ultimate 'stretch OKR' is to empower people everywhere to achieve the seemingly impossible together, to create new realities, and in doing so make the world a little bit better."
Section: 3, Chapter: 21
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