OKRs For Dummies

Chapter 14

Ten Common Questions about OKRs

IN THIS CHAPTER

Linking OKRs to performance reviews and incentive compensation

Overcoming resistance to OKRs

Balancing stretch OKRs with a culture that demands 100 percent achievement

To this day I still can’t believe she did it, but when I was in college and my sister’s house needed painting, she agreed to let a friend and me do the job in return for some much-needed spending money. I had never picked up a brush in my life, but to me painting seemed about as hard as riding a bike (obviously I’d blocked out the painful memories of skinned knees and tears that went along with that learning journey), and I figured that with just a few days of work we’d be up to our ears in cash for the rest of the summer. Turns out painting a house is a lot more complex than we bargained for. There are how many different types of sandpaper? … Primer? Wait, there’s not just one kind? … Hang on, you can’t be serious — there’s a color called Chantilly Lace white?

The more we learned about what was actually involved in skillfully painting a house, the more questions we had. The good news is that my friend and I both learned a lot that summer — both about ...