Article · Lena Zhukova · 12 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
OKRs are not a goal-setting system. They are a way to iterate strategy
Four times in the history of OKR Poland we were sure we knew what changes a company. Four times companies showed us it was not enough. This text is about what was left after the fourth time.
We started with training. Multi-day OKR workshops: where they come from, how to write objectives, how to measure key results. People left happy, with a notebook full of notes. They went back to companies where nothing changed. Knowledge about OKRs is everywhere, and by itself it gives you nothing.
So we started implementing. Not talking about OKRs, but going into organisations and setting quarterly goals with them. And very quickly we hit the same wall: the team writes goals, the goals are correct, and nobody can say what they lead to. Because OKRs are not a goal-setting system. OKRs are a way to iterate strategy. If there is no strategy, or it is a wish list in a slide deck, there is nothing to iterate. Quarterly goals then become a task list with numbers attached.
So we took a step back and started with strategy. Workshops with the board, the OnePager, decisions, and only then OKRs. It was a big change and it gave a lot. But not everything.
The third wall: OKRs alone do not change an organisation
The strategy was good. The OKRs were tied to it. The quarterly meetings took place. And between the meetings the company worked exactly as it had before the implementation. The change stopped at the door of the room where goals were discussed.
That is when we understood that strategic goals live or die in operations: in how the company does what it does every day. If processes, roles, meetings and operational decisions are arranged the old way, the best OKR has nowhere to land. People go back to their desks and do what they did.
That is why today we touch the whole of operations. We work not only with the board but with COOs and managing directors, so that the organisation has both things in order at once: how it works every day and where it is going. Both have to run like a well-oiled machine, and OKRs are the drive belt between them.
Takeaways
Four things left after four walls
- 01
OKRs are a way to iterate strategy
Without a strategy there is nothing to iterate. Quarterly goals turn into a task list with numbers.
- 02
Knowledge alone does not change a company
Training gives you a vocabulary. Change comes from a cycle that somebody runs, also when it is inconvenient.
- 03
Change lives in operations
Goals land in processes, roles and meetings. If those stay the old way, the goals have nowhere to land.
- 04
Do not teach. Show and do it together
A co-pilot sits next to you, not behind a lectern. Shows from practice, sometimes from other industries, and runs the cycle until the company can do it alone.
From the recording
What a strategy that can be iterated looks like
In the eight-hour recording on preparing a company for strategy workshops I show what has to be settled before anybody writes the first quarterly goal: where we are going, what we are not doing, and how we will know it works.
The recording is being edited. Leave your address and you'll get the link when it's ready.What this means for your company
If you are thinking about OKRs, start with the question whether there is a strategy for them to iterate. Not a document, but decisions: where we are going, what we are not doing, how we will know it works. If that is missing, the OKRs can wait; a strategy workshop comes first.
If the strategy is there, ask where in the company's daily work the change is supposed to show up. Which meetings, which processes, whose decisions. If the answer is “at the OKR meeting”, that is not enough.
And the last one: how you will know it works. Not by a sheet full of green results, but by knowing where the company stands against where it wants to get to, being able to measure it, and not having to chase everything. That is what an organisation looks like where OKRs have done their job.
Author
Lena Zhukova
founder; strategy workshops, quarterly sessions
Founder of OKR Poland. For twenty years she has worked with boards of companies from 30 to a few thousand people; she wrote dozens of strategies with them and helped implement them in more than 40 organisations.
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