My OKRs for 2025

Using Objectives and Key Results to get through a difficult year

It’s December, somehow; the tail end of a stressful year, but also the precursor to another one that (and I’m sorry this isn’t the cheeriest prediction) somehow promises to be worse. Good times.

How do we propose to survive it?

Although I’m not a big resolutions guy, this year I think I need to set firm goals in order to get through it with intention. Sure, the primary goal (as always) is just to get through the year intact, but 2025 will also be foundational: a year where how we show up and manifest our presence sets the groundwork for everything that comes beyond. The world is changing, whether we like it or not: more Trump, more war, more division, more climate change. How we react to that, and how we choose to conduct our life, really matters.

Lists of New Year’s resolutions never really cut to the “why”: sure, you want to get fit, but where does that really get you? What’s your underlying purpose: the mission that will keep you on track? Why does any of it matter at all?

This is maybe the most LinkedIn idea ever, and maybe it’s because when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail, but I’ve found myself thinking that, rather than resolutions, 2025 needs OKRs.

Objectives and Key Results are a management tool that was originally created by Andy Grove at Intel, but is now used in almost every tech company in almost every scenario. Here, you set a handful of top-level objectives, and then list some time-limited, measurable results for each one that will indicate that you’re on your path to achieving them. In an era where it’s going to be important to stick to our values and make progress on our goals as human beings in the face of increasing adverse pressure, I think figuring out what we need to do in order to make progress is going to be a helpful tool.

Remembering that OKRs have mostly been a tool for work, here’s an example objective with key results from Asana:

‌Objective: Become the market leader in cloud-based project management software. Key results:

1. Increase market share from 15% to 30% by the end of the fiscal year.
2. Achieve a Net Promoter Score…