Lisa Guan's Innovation World

We all love the idea of OKRs. They’re meant to be bold, inspiring, and directional—helping teams stretch beyond business-as-usual. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: a lot of OKRs quietly collapse into KPIs.

Why does this happen? The culprit is usually imbalance.

What an Imbalanced OKR Looks Like

An OKR is supposed to balance aspiration and measurement, growth and guardrails. But when that balance tips too far to one side, trouble starts.

1. All numbers, no story
   • Objective: Increase revenue by 30% this quarter
   • Key Results: Hit $10M in sales, onboard 1,000 new customers, close 5 enterprise accounts
     On paper, this looks neat and tidy. But really, it’s just a KPI report wearing an OKR badge. There’s no sense of direction, no why. People chase the numbers, and ignore everything else—like whether those customers stay, or whether the team burns out hitting the goal.
2. Too narrow, too safe
   • Objective: Deliver faster product releases
   • Key Results: Ship 6 releases, reduce cycle time by 20%
     Speed is measurable, sure. But what about quality? What about customer delight? If you only measure speed, the team will sprint like crazy—and may end up shipping bugs faster.
3. Mixed-up roles
   Sometimes the Objective is written like a number (Launch three features) and the Key Results are vague (Improve customer happiness). This confuses everyone, and soon the “KR” gets quietly turned into a KPI—because at least it can be tracked.

Why the Collapse Happens

It’s not that people want to reduce OKRs to KPIs. It happens because:

• Numbers feel safer. Metrics look objective. They give leaders comfort.
• Ambiguity feels risky. A fluffy Objective makes teams nervous, so they anchor back to whatever can be measured.
• Incentives get misaligned. If bonuses or performance reviews tie directly to OKRs, they will be treated like KPIs.
• People ignore what’s not mentioned. To save effort, teams naturally prioritize only what’s measured—and quietly sacrifice the things outside the frame (quality, collaboration, learning).

In short: what you measure is what you get. If you measure incompletely, you’ll get incomplete outcomes. It doesn’t matter of OKR or KPI.

Keeping OKRs from Becoming KPIs

So how do you stop the collapse? Refer to my other article :Imbalanced OKRs: The Hidden Trap That Derails Your Goals. In it has all the best practices of writing balanced and completed OKRs

When OKRs stay balanced, they act like a compass. When they collapse into KPIs, they turn into a scoreboard. A scoreboard is useful, but it doesn’t tell you where to go next.