Stop Confusing Movement with Progress

You’re busy. 

Your team is busy, bustling with activity. 

Meetings are happening, action items are being checked off at a furious pace, reports are being generated, and everyone seems to be working hard. Then the quarterly review rolls around, and you're scratching your head wondering why, despite all this effort, you don't feel like you've actually moved the needle on anything important.

Welcome to the difference between movement and progress.

Measuring What Matters

Here's the thing about traditional goal-setting: we've become obsessed with doing stuff rather than achieving outcomes.

We measure how many emails we sent, how many meetings we attended, or how many features we shipped. But busy doesn't equal effective, and activity doesn't equal achievement.

This is where Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) come in—not as another management fad, but as a fundamental shift in how we think about measurement. When done right, OKRs force you to confront an uncomfortable truth: most of what you're measuring probably doesn't matter.

As Hemingway said, “Never confuse movement with action.” The difference between the two is profound.

That is where OKRs can help an organization succeed. Their beauty lies in their simplicity. You set ambitious objectives (the "what") and define measurable key results (the "how you'll know you got there"). But here's where most organizations go wrong—they treat key results like a fancy to-do list instead of genuine progress indicators.

Why OKRs Fail 

Let's be honest. In some (maybe most) organizations, OKRs don’t work because they measure the wrong things.

Take this example: "Increase customer engagement by hosting 20 webinars and sending 50 email campaigns." Sounds reasonable, right?

Wrong.

You've just committed to measuring activities (webinars, emails) rather than the outcome you actually care about (engagement). You could host 20 terrible webinars that put everyone to sleep, not deliver a single sale and actually turn people away from your brand, and still technically hit your key result.

Organizations often default to measuring activities because they're easier to control and predict. You can guarantee you'll host 20 webinars. You can't guarantee those webinars will actually engage anyone or cause the cash register to ring. There is a measure of safety in this that drives people to continue to adopt these ultimately meaningless OKRs - you can control the process but you can’t guarantee the outcomes. 

But the outcomes are what you’re paid for. 

This activity-focused approach creates what we call "measurement theater"—a performance where everyone pretends that hitting arbitrary activity targets means success. Meanwhile, the real objectives—the ones that actually matter to your business and customers—remain elusive.

Outcomes not Outputs 

Progress means getting closer to an outcome that matters. Movement is just...moving.

Think about it this way: if you're trying to lose weight, walking on a treadmill for an hour is movement. Losing two pounds is progress. The treadmill time might contribute to the weight loss, but it's not the goal itself. 

Too many OKRs focus on treadmill time.

Real progress indicators have a few key characteristics. They measure outcomes, not outputs. They connect directly to business value or customer value. They can go up or down based on the quality of your work, not just the quantity. And importantly, they make you slightly uncomfortable because you can't completely control them.

Consider the difference between these two approaches:

Movement-focused: "Publish 12 blog posts per quarter" Progress-focused: "Increase organic website traffic by 25%"

The first one is easy to game—you could publish 12 terrible blog posts and call it success. The second forces you to think about whether your content actually resonates with people. It measures the impact of your work, not just the work itself.

Be a Little Nervous

So how do you escape the activity trap? Start by asking better questions.

Instead of "What can we do?" ask "What needs to change?" Instead of "How much can we produce?" ask "What outcome would indicate we're succeeding?" These subtle shifts in questioning lead to dramatically different—and more effective—key results.

The best key results often include words like "increase," "reduce," "improve," or "achieve" followed by a specific, measurable outcome. They rarely include words like "complete," "launch," or "deliver" unless the delivery itself is genuinely the end goal.

Here's another crucial point: good key results should make you a little nervous. If you're 100% confident you can hit every key result, you're not being ambitious enough, and you're probably measuring activities rather than outcomes. The sweet spot is about 70% confidence. That’s challenging enough to require excellent execution, but not so impossible that your team gives up.

Making the Shift

Transitioning from activity-based to progress-based measurement requires a fundamental mindset shift that is not always comfortable.

Progress-based OKRs require you to acknowledge uncertainty and give up some control. This makes some leaders nervous, but it's precisely why progress-based measurement is more valuable. If you could guarantee the outcome, you probably wouldn't need to set it as an objective in the first place.

You'll also need to get comfortable with failure, or at least, with not hitting 100% of your targets. Activity-based goals can often be gamed to show perfect completion rates. Progress-based goals are harder to manipulate, which means your success rates might look lower on paper while your actual impact increases dramatically.

The key is creating psychological safety around this shift. Teams need to understand that missing a progress-based target while learning something valuable is infinitely better than hitting an activity-based target that doesn't move the business forward.

The Ripple Effect 

When you start measuring progress instead of movement, something interesting happens. Teams begin focusing on impact rather than effort. They start asking "Is this working?" instead of just "Are we doing this?" Strategic thinking improves because people are forced to connect their daily work to meaningful outcomes.

You'll also find that progress-based OKRs naturally encourage innovation and experimentation. When your key result is "reduce customer churn by 15%" rather than "implement three retention features," teams have the freedom to find creative solutions. Maybe the answer isn't more features—maybe it's better onboarding, improved customer service, or fixing existing bugs.

 Philosophy for Success

OKRs aren't just a framework—they're a philosophy about what matters. They force you to distinguish between looking busy and being effective, between checking boxes and creating value.

The organizations that master this distinction don't just hit their targets - they transform their entire approach to work. They become places where activity serves strategy, not the other way around. Where teams are empowered to find the best path to meaningful outcomes rather than just following predetermined activities.

Bureaucracies wallow in movement. The best companies focus on progress.

Start measuring whether you're actually getting anywhere.