The OKR Racket

How Consultants Monetise Management Cowardice

Why the latest framework fad is perfect for people who profit from your incompetence

Here we go again. Management has found another silver bullet, another framework that will finally, finally solve all their organisational problems. Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are just the latest in an endless parade of management fads that promise transformation whilst delivering mostly PowerPoint presentations and wasted time.

Let’s be brutally honest: OKRs are this decade’s equivalent of Six Sigma, which was the previous decade’s equivalent of Total Quality Management, which was the 90s’ equivalent of Business Process Reengineering. Same song, different acronym. Management consultants get rich, middle managers get busy, and actual productive work gets buried under layers of administrative theatre.

Admiral Grace Hopper, one of the wisest people in computing history, said it perfectly:

‘You don’t manage people; you manage things. You lead people.’

John Gall, who understood systems better than anyone, warned us decades ago:

‘That the system is the solution becomes the problem.’

OKRs are a perfect example—a system designed to solve alignment problems that becomes the alignment problem.

And Tom Gilb, who spent his career figuring out what actually works in complex organisations, taught us that ‘you can’t control what you can’t measure’—but he also warned that measuring the wrong things is worse than measuring nothing at all.

Read that again. You don’t manage people. You guide them. The system becomes the problem. And measuring the wrong things makes everything worse.

But most managers don’t want to guide because that requires courage, judgement, and personal accountability. It’s easier to ‘manage’ people through systems, frameworks, and processes because that lets you avoid the hard work of actually guiding human beings towards results.

Here’s what separates effective people in charge from incompetent ones: effective people solve real problems and take responsibility for results. Incompetent people collect frameworks and fads and make excuses.

And right now, incompetent managers everywhere are absolutely orgasmic over their latest excuse-making tool: Objectives and Key Results. OKRs are cocaine for people who’d rather manage spreadsheets than guide people.

What Are OKRs? Management Theatre for People Who Won’t Guide

OKRs break down into two parts, neither of which requires actual guidance skills:

Objectives are fluffy, feel-good statements that sound important in PowerPoint. ‘Improve customer satisfaction.’ ‘Become market leaders.’ ‘Drive innovation.’ Vague enough that they can never really fail, specific enough that fake bosses can pretend they’re providing direction instead of just avoiding the hard work of real guidance.

Key Results are where people who won’t guide get their measurement rocks off. ‘Increase NPS from 7 to 9.’ ‘Capture 25% market share.’ ‘Reduce churn by 15%.’ Numbers make non-guides feel scientific.

But here’s where Tom Gilb’s wisdom becomes crucial: these people are measuring the wrong things. Tom suggests that measurement is essential—’you can’t control what you can’t measure’—but he also warned that measuring activities instead of outcomes, measuring what’s easy instead of what matters, and measuring for the sake of the system instead of for the sake of the Folks That Matter™ is worse than not measuring at all.

OKRs almost always measure the wrong things. They measure what can be easily quantified in quarterly cycles rather than what actually meets the needs of the Folks That Matter™. They measure team activities rather than outcomes. They measure adherence to the process rather than progress towards meaningful goals.

The whole system runs on quarterly cycles because most people in positions of authority have the attention span and strategic thinking ability of caffeinated squirrels. They’d rather shuffle metrics than do the hard work of actually guiding people through complex challenges.

Remember what Grace Hopper taught us: you manage things, you guide people. OKRs are a system for managing people like they’re inventory. That’s not guidance—that’s cowardice.

You’re Not a Manager—You’re Supposed to Guide People

Let’s get something straight right now: the word ‘manager’ has rotted your brain. It’s made you think your job is to control people through systems instead of enabling them to meet folks’ needs.

Guiding people means having the courage to make difficult decisions. It means taking responsibility when things go wrong. It means supporting people to do their best work, not controlling them through elaborate measurement systems.

But guiding people is scary because it’s personal. When your guidance fails, there’s no framework to blame. There’s no system to point to. There’s just you, and your failure to guide effectively.

So instead, you hide behind ‘management’. You create OKR systems that let you pretend you’re guiding when you’re really just measuring. You build elaborate frameworks that give you the illusion of control without requiring any actual people skills.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: people don’t need to be managed. They need to be supported. And if you can’t tell the difference, you have no business being in charge of anyone.

Stop Making Excuses—You’re The Problem

Before we go further, let me introduce you to a concept from Ray Immelman’s brilliant work: there are two types of people in positions of authority. Great Bosses and what he calls ‘Dead Bosses.’

Great Bosses understand the difference between managing and guiding. They support people and manage systems. They take responsibility for results, focus on the Folks That Matter™, hire good people, make tough decisions, and remove obstacles. When something goes wrong, they look in the mirror first.

Dead Bosses try to manage people like they’re inventory. They collect fads and make excuses. They think the right framework will solve their people problems. They’re scared to make real decisions, so they hide behind processes. When something goes wrong, they blame the framework, the market, or their people—anyone but themselves.

Dead Bosses are framework junkies because frameworks give them something to hide behind. ‘It’s not my fault the numbers are bad—people aren’t following the OKR process correctly!’

Bullshit. You’re supposed to guide people towards success. The results are your responsibility. Stop looking for systems to manage people and start supporting them towards better outcomes. Ask them what they need.

The Framework Addiction Cycle (And Why You Keep Falling for It)

John Gall understood something that most people in charge refuse to accept: ‘A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work.’

But that doesn’t stop incompetent people from trying. I’ve watched the same people cycle through framework after framework for decades:

• 1990s: Total Quality Management
• 2000s: Six Sigma
• 2010s: Agile Everything
• 2020s: OKRs

Each time, these people convince themselves they’ve found the holy grail. Each time, they design elaborate systems from scratch. Each time, exactly as Gall predicted, the systems don’t work and can’t be patched up to work.

But here’s where Gall’s deeper insight becomes terrifying: these systems develop their own agenda. The OKR system stops being about results and becomes about feeding the OKR system. People spend more time updating OKR dashboards than talking to customers. Teams optimise for OKR scores rather than customer value. The quarterly review process becomes more important than quarterly results.

As Gall warned: ‘The system always kicks back.’ OKRs, designed to create alignment, create misalignment. Designed to improve focus, they create distraction. Designed to drive results, they drive process compliance.

Here’s the pattern every single time:

Month 1: Person in charge reads about Framework X, gets excited about having a ‘solution’ Month 2: Expensive consultants arrive promising transformation, everyone drinks the Kool-Aid, consultant bank accounts get fatter Months 3-6: Implementation hell, productivity crashes, good employees start job hunting, consultants bill for ‘change management support’ Months 7-12: Framework quietly dies whilst the person in charge discovers Framework Y, consultants pivot to selling the next shiny system Repeat forever: Company culture becomes a graveyard of half-dead initiatives, consultants get rich, actual problems remain unsolved

Notice the pattern? Consultants are the drug dealers of the framework addiction cycle. They’re not selling solutions—they’re selling dependency. OKRs are perfect for this business model because they’re complex enough to require ‘expert’ help but vague enough that failure can always be blamed on implementation rather than the fundamental idiocy of the approach.

The best consultant gig in the world is one where you never have to show that your client’s business actually improved. OKRs deliver exactly that—months of billable workshops, coaching sessions, and ‘alignment facilitation’ with built-in excuses when nothing gets better.

You know why this keeps happening? Because it’s easier to implement a framework than to admit you don’t know how to guide people. It’s more comfortable to blame the system than to take responsibility for your results. And it’s easier to pay consultants to make you feel busy than to do the hard work of actually improving your business.

The system becomes the solution. The solution becomes the problem. And you become the person who can’t see that you’re the real problem.

Stop making excuses. Stop looking for silver bullets. Stop enriching consultants who profit from your incompetence. Your problems aren’t systematic—they’re personal. You’re just bad at supporting people, and no framework is going to fix that.

Why Bad Bosses Love OKRs (Hint: It’s Not About Results)

OKRs are perfect for incompetent people in charge because they solve all the wrong problems—and consultants absolutely love this dynamic:

They create the illusion of strategy: Instead of actually figuring out what the Folks That Matter™ need, bad bosses can spend months cascading objectives and aligning key results. It feels strategic without requiring any actual strategic thinking or personal accountability. Consultants love this because they can bill for endless ‘strategic alignment workshops’ without ever having to show that the Folks That Matter™ are happier or business results improved.

They delegate responsibility: Why make hard decisions when you can just set objectives and let the framework sort it out? Bad bosses love systems that make guiding people seem automatic because they’re terrified of being held accountable for actual decisions. Consultants love this because they can sell ‘OKR coaching’ and ‘implementation support’ without taking any responsibility for whether things actually gets better.

They generate endless meetings: OKR planning sessions, alignment workshops, quarterly reviews, cascade meetings. Bad bosses mistake activity for results and confuse being busy with being effective. John Gall called this perfectly: ‘The system tends to oppose its own proper function.’ The OKR meetings become more important than the work the meetings are supposed to coordinate. Consultants absolutely love this because every meeting is billable hours, every workshop is revenue, and none of it requires them to actually improve business outcomes.

They measure everything except what matters: Tom Gilb spent decades helping organisations measure effectively. His core insight: measure what the Folks That Matter™ need, not what’s convenient for your process. But OKRs typically measure internal metrics (‘reduce deployment time by 20%’) instead of outcomes (‘increase customer satisfaction with product reliability’). They measure team activities instead of business results. They measure adherence to quarterly cycles instead of progress towards meaningful goals. Consultants love this because measuring the wrong things means they never have to prove their consulting actually works—the client has to blame poor ‘OKR adoption’ instead of poor consulting.

They produce pretty reports: Nothing makes an incompetent person in charge feel more important than a well-formatted OKR dashboard. All those numbers! All that alignment! It must be working! But as Gilb warned, measuring the wrong things systematically is worse than not measuring at all—because it gives you false confidence whilst you optimise for irrelevance. Consultants love dashboards because they look impressive and keep clients paying for ‘refinements’ to the system.

They provide built-in excuses: ‘We missed our targets because people didn’t embrace the OKR mindset.’ Translation: ‘It’s not my fault—it’s the system’s fault, or the people’s fault, or anyone’s fault but mine.’ The system designed to create accountability becomes the excuse for avoiding accountability. Consultants love this most of all because when OKRs inevitably fail to improve results, they can blame ‘change management’ or ‘cultural resistance’ rather than admit they sold a turkey.

They create dependency: Here’s the dirty secret consultants won’t tell you—OKRs are designed to be complex enough that you need ongoing ‘expert’ help to implement them correctly. The quarterly cycles create perpetual opportunities for ‘optimisation’ and ‘coaching’. The cascade complexity requires facilitation. The scoring methodology needs calibration. It’s the perfect consultant product: high complexity, low accountability, recurring revenue.

What OKRs Actually Do to Your Company (Whilst You’re Making Excuses)

Whilst bad bosses are masturbating over their OKR spreadsheets, here’s what’s happening to their companies:

The system takes over: John Gall observed that ‘systems tend to grow and encroach’. What starts as a simple quarterly goal-setting exercise metastasises into cascading alignment sessions, mid-quarter check-ins, OKR coaching, dashboard maintenance, scoring calibration meetings, and retrospective workshops. People spend more time feeding the OKR system than doing the work the system was supposed to organise.

Innovation dies: Nothing kills creativity faster than making everything measurable within 90 days. But here’s the thing—you don’t care about innovation. You care about covering your arse with metrics that make you look busy. Tom Gilb understood this: when you measure short-term activities instead of long-term value creation, you systematically destroy your ability to build anything meaningful.

Good people quit: High performers don’t need frameworks to stay focused. They need clear priorities, adequate resources, and people in charge who take responsibility instead of creating administrative bollocks. When you bury these people under OKR theatre, they leave for companies with competent guidance. As Gall predicted: ‘The system tends to oppose its own proper function’—OKRs, designed to retain talent, drive talent away.

Gaming becomes the job: Make the numbers the target, and people will hit the numbers by any means necessary. Teams manipulate metrics, focus on vanity projects, and optimise for looking good instead of being good. But hey, at least your OKR dashboard looks pretty. This is exactly what Gilb warned against: when you measure the wrong things, you get more of the wrong things.

Real problems hide: When everyone’s focused on hitting their OKR targets, the actual business problems—customer complaints, product failures, competitive threats—get ignored. The framework becomes a distraction from reality, which is exactly what bad bosses want. The system designed to surface problems becomes the problem that needs surfacing.

How Great Bosses Actually Work (No Frameworks Required)

Great Bosses don’t need OKRs because they understand what Grace Hopper taught us: they support people and manage systems, not the other way around. They also understand John Gall’s wisdom: simple systems that work are better than complex systems that don’t. And they apply Tom Gilb’s measurement principles: measure what the Folks That Matter™ value, not what’s convenient for your process.

Great Bosses hire adults: They find people who are better than them at specific jobs, then guide those people towards shared goals. They don’t need cascading objectives because they hire people who already understand what needs to be done and inspire them to do their best work.

Great Bosses communicate reality: Instead of setting arbitrary targets, they explain the business situation honestly—what’s working, what’s not, what needs to change. Then they guide competent people towards solutions instead of trying to manage them through metrics.

Great Bosses measure what matters: Following Gilb’s principles, they measure customer outcomes, not internal activities. They measure long-term value creation, not quarterly process compliance. They measure what their stakeholders—customers, employees, shareholders—actually care about, not what’s easy to put in a dashboard. When they measure ‘customer satisfaction’, they mean actual customer feedback, not proxy metrics like ‘response time to support tickets’.

Great Bosses evolve gradually: Instead of implementing complex systems from scratch (which Gall pointed out never work), they make small improvements to things that already work. They don’t redesign their entire goal-setting process every year—they incrementally improve their communication, their decision-making, and their obstacle removal.

Great Bosses remove obstacles: Whilst fake bosses are creating new processes to manage people, Great Bosses are eliminating the bureaucratic bollocks that prevents good work from happening. They understand that their job is to make the system serve the people, not the other way around.

Great Bosses make decisions: When there’s ambiguity or conflict, Great Bosses actually decide things instead of hoping a framework will decide for them. They take responsibility for those decisions and guide their people through the consequences.

Great Bosses stay consistent: They don’t chase new frameworks every year, because they’ve figured out how to support people effectively and they stick with it. Their teams aren’t exhausted by constant change because effective support provides stability and direction. If something works, don’t fix it.

The Real Cost of Your Framework Addiction (And Why You Need to Stop)

Every framework-addicted person in charge thinks their process obsession is harmless. ‘We’re just trying to improve!’ they say. But this has real consequences—and a whole consulting industry getting rich off your incompetence:

Your best people leave: Nobody wants to work for someone who’s more interested in process optimisation than human support. High performers go where they can do meaningful work without administrative theatre.

Your consultant bills skyrocket: OKRs are a consultant’s dream—complex enough to require ‘expert’ facilitation, ongoing enough to generate recurring revenue, and vague enough that failure can always be blamed on ‘poor implementation’ rather than a fundamentally stupid system. You’ll pay for initial training, quarterly workshops, mid-cycle coaching, dashboard setup, scoring calibration, change management support, and ‘OKR maturity assessments’. The consultants get rich whilst your real business problems remain exactly the same.

Your culture becomes cynical: After watching people in charge chase fad after fad, employees stop believing anything will actually change. They develop learned helplessness and stop trying to improve anything. They’ve seen the consultant parade before—expensive suits promising transformation, delivering PowerPoints, and disappearing as the results fail to materialise.

Your competitive advantage erodes: Whilst you’re in OKR planning sessions paying consultants to facilitate alignment workshops, your competitors are shipping products, talking to the Folks That Matter™, and solving real problems.

Your results get worse: All this process creates layers of bureaucracy that slow decision-making and kill initiative. But you’ll just blame the implementation instead of admitting the whole thing was stupid to begin with. And your consultants will happily sell you more ‘refinements’ to fix the problems their advice created.

The Bottom Line: Take Responsibility or Get Out of Authority

Here’s what every framework-addicted person in charge might choose to understand: your employees don’t need another system. Your customers don’t care about your OKR scores. Your business doesn’t need more measurement—it needs better guidance.

That means YOU need to get better. Not your process. Not your system. YOU.

The best people in charge I know are boring as hell. They hire good people, communicate clearly, make decisions quickly, remove obstacles, and take responsibility for results. They don’t have fancy frameworks because they don’t need them. They have something better: competence.

So here’s my challenge to every excuse-making, framework-addicted person in authority reading this: go one year without implementing a single new system. Instead:

• Take responsibility for your current results instead of blaming external factors
• Talk to your customers every week until you understand their problems better than they do
• Have honest conversations with your team about what’s working and what isn’t—and actually listen
• Make the hard decisions you’ve been avoiding whilst you were playing with spreadsheets
• Remove stupid policies that prevent good work from happening
• Measure customer satisfaction and business results—the stuff that actually matters to success

But I know most of you won’t do this. It’s too hard. It requires actual people skills instead of process management. It means being responsible for outcomes instead of hiding behind frameworks. It means admitting that you’re the problem, not the system.

So go ahead, implement your OKRs. Join the long line of incompetent people in charge who think the right system will fix their broken guidance abilities. Just don’t be surprised when your best people quit, your results get worse, and your competitors eat your lunch whilst you’re updating your quarterly scorecards.

Here’s the truth nobody wants to tell you: you don’t have a framework problem. You have a people problem. And that problem is you.

Grace Hopper understood the fundamental distinction: you manage things, you guide people. John Gall warned us that complex systems designed from scratch never work and always develop their own agenda. Tom Gilb taught us that measuring the wrong things systematically is worse than not measuring at all.

OKRs violate all three principles. They try to manage people like things. They’re complex systems designed from scratch that inevitably take over the organisation they were meant to serve. And they measure internal activities and process compliance instead of the needs of the Folks That Matter™.

Great Bosses build great companies. Bad bosses build great spreadsheets.

Stop making excuses. Start taking responsibility. Or get out of positions of authority and let someone competent do the job.

The choice is yours.

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Further Reading

Gall, J. (2002). The systems bible: The beginner’s guide to systems large and small (3rd ed.). General Systemantics Press.

Gilb, T. (1988). Principles of software engineering management. Addison-Wesley.

Gilb, T. (2005). Competitive engineering: A handbook for systems engineering, requirements engineering, and software engineering using Planguage. Butterworth-Heinemann.

Immelman, R. (2003). Great boss dead boss. Stewart Philip International.

Winget, L. (2004). Shut up, stop whining, and get a life: A kick-butt approach to a better life. Wiley.

Winget, L. (2007). It’s called work for a reason! Your success is your own damn fault. Gotham Books.