It's our choices that show what we truly are, far from our abilities

Measuring what matters begins with the question: what is the most important for the next 3, 6, 9, 12, months. Successful organizations focus on the handful of initiatives that make a real difference, deferring less urgent ones. Their leaders commit to those choices, in word and deed. By standing firmly behind a few top-line OKR's, they give their teams a compass and base line for assessments. Wrong decisions can be corrected once results begin to roll in. Non–decisions or hastily abandoned ones teach us nothing.

- K.S.Ahluwalia

What are our main priorities for the coming period?

Where should people concentrate their efforts?

While pairing back a list of goals is invariably a challenge, it's still well worth the effort. With a select set of OKR's, we need to highlight a few things – the vital ones – that must get done and planned on time.

In the beginning......

For organization – level OKR's the buck stops with senior leadership. They personally must commit to the process.

Where do they begin?

How do they decide what truly matters most.

Google turned it into a mission statement 'organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful'. Android, Google Earth, Chrome and new and improved You tube search engine these products and dozens more, share a common linage. In each case, the impetus for development came from the founders and executive team, who made plain their focus and commitment through objectives and key results.

When an OKR rises from the top line' all eyes in the company are on your team' that's a lot of eyes. One has no idea of doing it in a specific time slot, yet all understand that owning a company level OKR demonstrate that one's work took priority. Regardless of how leaders chose a company's top – line goals, they also need goals of their own. Just as vales cannot be transmitted by memos, structured goal setting won't take root by fiat. OKR's require a public commitment by leadership, in word and deed.

When one hears CEO saying that 'all my goals are team goals, it's a red flag'. When you are the CEO/founder, you got to say' that is what we are doing', and then you need to model it. Because you don't model it, no one is going to do it.

Communicate with clarity