No. Copying your CEO's or your manager's OKRs looks efficient, but it blurs focus and ownership. Use their OKRs as the starting point and write your team's own OKRs that show how you contribute.
Why copying does not work
- Different scope. The CEO's OKRs describe company-wide outcomes. Your team influences a smaller part of the business, and your OKRs should reflect what you can directly move.
- No ownership. Teams commit to goals they helped define. Inherited OKRs lead to passive teams.
- Unclear accountability. When several teams carry the same OKR, nobody knows who is responsible for what.
Align without duplicating: localize
Wave Nine recommends localizing OKRs rather than cascading them:
- Understand the intent. Read the leadership OKRs. What are they trying to achieve, and why now?
- Find your lever. Which one or two company Objectives can your team influence most?
- Write your own OKRs. Set 1 to 3 Objectives with 2 to 4 Key Results that measure the outcome your team creates.
Example
CEO OKR:
- Objective: Become the market leader for enterprise customers in our category
- KR1: Increase annual revenue from $40M to $52M
- KR2: Win 3 new enterprise contracts above $1M each
- KR3: Raise enterprise customer satisfaction from 82% to 90%
Product team OKR:
- Objective: Deliver a product experience that enterprise customers love
- KR1: Increase weekly active use among enterprise accounts from 45% to 65%
- KR2: Reduce product-related support tickets from enterprise accounts by 30%
- KR3: Raise feature satisfaction among enterprise users from 7.1 to 8.5
Building the three most requested enterprise features is an action under these Key Results, not a Key Result itself. Sales and marketing write different OKRs for the same company Objective, for example raising the enterprise win rate or growing qualified enterprise pipeline.
What about my manager's OKRs?
The same logic applies. Wave Nine does not recommend individual OKRs, so you do not need a personal version of your manager's OKRs. Instead, help your team write its OKRs and take ownership of a Key Result or of the actions where you can contribute most.
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