John Doerr describes five reasons the system works, the five superpowers, spelling FACTS.
- F, Focus. OKRs force you to choose. With only three to five Objectives, you decide what matters most. Everything else moves aside.
- A, Alignment. When everyone's OKRs are visible, people see how their work connects to the bigger picture, tracing a Key Result all the way up to the company's Objective.
- C, Commitment. Goals set openly and reviewed regularly make commitment visible. People know what they said they would do, and so do their colleagues.
- T, Tracking. OKRs are reviewed frequently, usually weekly. Progress is visible. If something is off track, the team knows early enough to act.
- S, Stretching. OKRs are designed to be ambitious. Google considers 70 percent a success, since it means the goal was genuinely challenging. If every OKR hits 100 percent, it probably wasn't ambitious enough.
The important separation: OKRs are not connected to salary, bonuses, or performance ratings. When goals are tied to compensation, people set safe goals, aiming low to guarantee they hit the target. Ambition disappears. In organisations with years of OKR experience and strong strategic clarity, a thoughtful connection is sometimes possible later. For beginners, keep them completely separate.