Setting goals is easy. Creating goals that actually help teams focus, align, and make progress is much harder.
Over the past weeks, I have been asked the same question several times:
How do you create great goals?
In this episode of Le Podcast on Emerging Leadership, I explore this question through a very practical lens, using the OKRs approach (Objectives and Key Results).
Beyond goal setting as a formality
OKRs are often introduced as a framework or a process to comply with. When that happens, goals quickly become disconnected from real work.
In this episode, I take a different approach: starting from impact, not from metrics or activities.
Rather than asking “what should we measure?”, the real question becomes:
- what impact do we want to create?
- for whom?
- and how will we know if we are making progress?
Using Impact Mapping to create meaningful OKRs
To make this concrete, I use a simple example and the Impact Mapping approach to walk through the process of creating OKRs step by step.
We look at:
- how objectives express intent and direction
- how key results help teams learn, not just report
- how to connect daily work to meaningful outcomes
The goal is not to get the wording “right”, but to create goals that support better conversations and better decisions.
OKRs as a leadership practice
Used well, OKRs are not a management tool. They are a leadership practice.
They help teams:
- clarify what matters now
- align without over-controlling
- take responsibility for results rather than tasks
If you are struggling with vague goals, misalignment, or goal fatigue, this episode will give you a practical starting point to rethink how you create goals.
Where to listen:
Using Narakeet, a product created by Gojko Adzic, the author of Impact Mapping. I created a less than two-minute video to explain the whole process.
Le Podcast – Season Two
- Playful Leadership: Helping Others Be Their Best
- Blessed, Grateful, and Human
- Build the Right Product, with Gojko Adzic
- Hiring and Diversity Without Dropping the Bar
- Leadership and Teamwork in a Crisis
- Chief of Staff: The Role, the Craft, the Community
- Belonging, Identity, and Better Hiring,
- What Software Teams Can Learn from Sporting Teams
- Agile and Open Innovation: Building the Bridge Between Tech and Business
- Radical Focus: OKRs, Cadence, and the “Seduction of the Task”
- Human-Centric Agility Coaching: The Expert Paradox and the Ideology Paradox
- The Job of an Open Leader: Context, Trust, and Growing Others
Le Podcast – Season One
- Growing as a Software Engineer: Learning, Sharing, and Impact
- Thirteen Rules for Building Strong Teams
- OKRs in Practice: Learning, Focus, and Common Pitfalls
- The Myth of 10x Engineers: Growing Beyond Technical Skills
- The Anatomy of Peace: Leadership Starts With Who You Are
- Psychological Safety: Creating Teams Where People Can Speak Up
- Leading Distributed Teams: Collaboration Across Time Zones
- Changing Your Team from the Inside: A Practitioner’s View on Leadership
- Why Shared Language Matters: How Terms Shape Collaboration
- How (Not) to Give Feedback: Responsibility, Ego, and Relationships
- Rock Stars and Superstars: Supporting Growth Without Losing Stability
- Do Cultural Differences Really Block Agile Adoption?
- How to Create Great Goals: Using OKRs to Focus on Impact
- Making Change from the Inside: Leadership Beyond Management Roles
- How to Form a Cross-Functional Team That Actually Works
