What Matters Must Be Measurable

A recent leadership conversation between Matthew Rubin and Brendan Ahern centered on John Doerr’s Measure What Matters and a practical question: how can Standing Innovation make sure its daily work advances the outcomes that matter most?

The answer is not a longer task list. It is a clearer system for choosing, measuring, and reviewing priorities.

Doerr’s framework is called Objectives and Key Results, or OKRs. An Objective describes a significant, concrete, action-oriented outcome. Its Key Results define the specific, time-bound, measurable evidence that would show progress toward it. The distinction matters: the Objective supplies direction; the Key Results make success testable.

For Standing Innovation, OKRs can create an operating agreement between strategy and execution. They can help us decide what deserves attention now, make responsibilities visible, and learn early when activity is not producing the intended result.

Focus: choose what matters now

Focus begins with subtraction. If every promising idea becomes a priority, none of them receives the concentration required to become real.

An OKR cycle should therefore contain only a small number of Objectives. Each one should be important enough to change what the team does and clear enough to help us decline distracting work. The test is simple: if an Objective does not influence a weekly decision, it is probably a slogan rather than an operating priority.

For an early-stage company, focus also means resisting false precision. We should choose the next important outcome while remaining honest about what customer discovery has and has not yet proved.

Alignment: connect roles without creating silos

Matthew brings an operational lens: Can we deliver this reliably in the real workday? Brendan brings a strategy lens: Is this a meaningful problem with a credible path to market?

Alignment does not require both leaders to perform the same work. It requires their work to support the same Objective. Shared, visible OKRs make dependencies and tradeoffs discussable before they become surprises. They also help the team see where an operational Key Result and a commercial Key Result must move together.

Commitment: name the owner and the tradeoff

An Objective without ownership is only an intention. Every Key Result needs one accountable owner, even when several people contribute to it.

Commitment also requires agreement about what the team will stop, delay, or decline. A priority becomes credible when people allocate time to it and protect that time from competing requests. The leadership conversation is therefore part of the system: it creates the shared commitment that turns a written OKR into coordinated action.

Tracking: review evidence, not impressions

Key Results should be measurable and verifiable. They are not a list of routine activities; they are evidence that the desired outcome is getting closer.

We plan to review active OKRs every week. Each owner will update the current measure, confidence, next action, and any obstacle requiring a leadership decision. A monthly review will test whether the Objective still matters and whether the Key Results are measuring the right outcome. At the end of the cycle, we will score the results, record what we learned, and decide what to continue, revise, or stop.

Tracking is not surveillance, and a score is not the whole story. Numbers create a useful signal; conversation explains the signal and informs the next decision.

Stretching: make ambition explicit

Some OKRs should push beyond what the team already knows how to achieve. Stretching creates room for a better method, a larger result, or a new capability.

But a stretch goal must be labeled honestly. A committed goal is something the team expects to deliver. An aspirational goal accepts greater uncertainty in exchange for greater potential. Confusing the two either makes commitments unreliable or makes ambitious work feel like failure. We will distinguish them, discuss the risks, and use shortfalls in aspirational OKRs as information rather than camouflage.

Our first operating pattern

Standing Innovation will begin with a simple cycle:

1. Set one to three Objectives for the cycle.
2. Give each Objective three to five measurable Key Results.
3. Assign one owner to every Key Result.
4. Publish the OKRs where both leaders can see and update them.
5. Check progress weekly, review direction monthly, and reflect at the end of the cycle.
6. Separate committed outcomes from aspirational stretch goals.

An illustrative first Objective could be: Turn one validated workflow problem into a pilot-ready offer. Its Key Results would need to measure customer evidence, operational feasibility, a defined human-review boundary, and commercial readiness—not merely count meetings or documents. Matthew and Brendan will ratify the actual measures before the cycle begins; this example is a working model, not a claim that validation or a pilot has already occurred.

The importance of OKRs is not that they make goals look organized. It is that they force a team to connect purpose with evidence. Focus chooses the work. Alignment connects the people. Commitment establishes ownership. Tracking supports correction. Stretching expands what the team believes it can achieve.

That is how Measure What Matters becomes more than a book we discussed. It becomes a repeatable way to decide, act, learn, and improve.

Sources and further reading

• John Doerr’s five benefits of OKRs, including focus, alignment, commitment, tracking, and stretching.
• The What Matters guide to Objectives and Key Results, including the qualities of effective Objectives and measurable Key Results.
• John Doerr’s TED talk, “Why the secret to success is setting the right goals”.

Sources reviewed September 9, 2026. This article applies the framework to Standing Innovation’s planned operating practice; it does not claim completed results.