When planning the next quarter’s goals, it’s tempting to jump straight to big outcomes: “Increase revenue,” “Grow our user base,” “Boost retention.” These top-line results might sound inspiring, but they often fail to offer a clear starting point. To transform these intentions into something your team can act on, it helps to connect the dots between what you want (the lagging indicators) and what you can influence directly right now (the leading indicators).

This isn’t about working harder; it’s about working smarter. By mapping the relationships between your KPIs—like revenue = ARPU x number of customers—you start to see exactly which levers you can pull. This insight doesn’t just happen in a vacuum. It’s shaped by the conversations you have with your team, often sparked during an Objectives and Key Results workshop. Well-facilitated sessions turn what could be a dry goal-setting exercise into a high-impact strategy discussion.

For a deeper dive on how KPIs and OKRs complement each other, check out my earlier post, “Pairing OKRs and KPIs for Real Results.” There, I explored how treating OKRs as testable hypotheses guided by KPIs can transform strategic planning into a cycle of continuous learning.

From KPIs to OKRs: Building a KPI Tree

Think of your business like a branching tree of metrics, each major KPI composed of smaller, more controllable variables. By breaking down your big goals into these smaller pieces, you discover the points of influence that deserve attention. Instead of a fuzzy target like “Increase revenue,” you focus on tangible drivers—bigger deal sizes or a faster sales cycle—that connect directly to results.

An OKRs workshop provides a space to tackle these questions together. With a skilled facilitator at the helm, your team can talk through the logic, challenge assumptions, and uncover data-driven insights without getting stuck in the weeds. Rather than defaulting to gut feelings or personal agendas, facilitation ensures everyone contributes and stays focused on the metrics that matter.

Why Facilitation Matters

A well-run workshop doesn’t just list objectives; it helps your team understand why those objectives matter and how to achieve them. Effective facilitation acts like a guide, prompting your group to articulate the chain reaction: “If we improve demo quality (leading indicator), it should increase our conversion rate (intermediate indicator), which in turn lifts revenue (lagging indicator).”

Great facilitators bring structure without stifling creativity. They ask probing questions: “What metric indicates that the onboarding experience is working better?” or “How can we measure the impact of faster deal cycles?” This structured inquiry stops conversations from wandering and ensures that everyone agrees on the cause-and-effect relationships before locking in objectives.

Turning Insight into Action

Imagine your main lagging metric is customer churn. It’s tempting to say, “Reduce churn by 20%,” but that’s a distant outcome. The real magic happens when you zero in on the levers that drive churn—onboarding, support response times, product adoption. Your OKRs become: “Launch 3 new onboarding experiments” or “Shorten support response from 2 days to 6 hours.”

During a facilitated OKRs session, your team debates which levers to pull, challenges one another’s assumptions, and emerges with a plan everyone understands and believes in. That shared clarity makes it easier for individual teams—sales, product, support—to craft their own OKRs aligned with the company-wide direction.

Making It Stick

This approach might feel like extra work at first. But when you invest in facilitation—whether by bringing in an external expert or training an internal leader—you gain a trusted process for refining goals and surfacing the best levers to pull. Instead of vague aspirations, you have actionable steps that stand on a foundation of data and collective input.

It’s not a perfect science. Some leading indicators won’t move your lagging metrics as expected, and that’s okay. You’ll learn from it. With each cycle, your team grows more adept at knowing which metrics matter most and how to shift them. Over time, the organization builds a culture of experimentation, alignment, and clarity.

Where to Start

As you head into your next quarter, don’t settle for fuzzy goals and hopeful guesses. Begin with the KPIs you have, break them down into more manageable pieces, and identify the underlying steps you can take today. Then, bring your team into the fold. A well-structured objectives and key results workshop—supported by smart facilitation—helps you tie it all together, ensuring everyone can see the cause-and-effect relationships that fuel results.

Embrace this approach, and you’ll turn strategic planning sessions into energizing forums for discovery. Instead of leaving the room with vague goals, you’ll walk out armed with a map showing where to go and what to adjust along the way. And that means better alignment, better execution, and better outcomes.