When Peter Drucker famously said, “What gets measured gets managed,” he offered timeless advice. Yet, for modern organizations, some of the most critical outcomes—like culture, trust, innovation, resilience—seem almost immune to measurement. You can’t hold “trust” in your hand. You can’t photograph “resilience.” You can’t plug “culture” into a spreadsheet.

And yet, in the world of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), visibility is non-negotiable. Outcomes, even the most intangible ones, must be made verifiable—because without proof, alignment turns into assumption, and execution loses its edge.

The challenge, then, isn’t that intangibles can’t be measured. It’s that they demand more creativity, discipline, and care to measure meaningfully. This article unpacks how to translate the invisible into observable progress—without reducing rich, complex phenomena into meaningless checkboxes. Through practical strategies, examples, and stories, we’ll explore how even the “softest” outcomes can drive the hardest results.

Understanding Intangibles

Intangibles are outcomes that matter deeply yet resist easy measurement. They cannot be neatly counted like inventory or weighed like profits. Instead, they exist in the subtle shifts of how people think, feel, and behave—shaping everything from brand loyalty to innovation.

Broadly, intangibles fall into four domains:

• People: Trust, engagement, leadership effectiveness, psychological safety.
• Customer: Loyalty, brand love, emotional connection to a product or service.
• Organization: Culture, resilience, ability to innovate and adapt.
• Market: External reputation, goodwill, strength of partnerships.

Consider the story of Nokia—a brand that once ruled the mobile phone world but underestimated the intangible power of innovation culture and market perception. While they focused on devices, Apple focused on desirability. The result was a shift not just in market share, but in emotional allegiance.

Intangibles often create or destroy value quietly—until their impact is too big to ignore. In the long run, they are the unseen levers that determine whether strategy thrives or withers.

Principles for Measuring Intangibles

Measuring intangibles isn’t about forcing false precision; it’s about capturing meaningful change. To do it well, a few guiding principles are essential:

1. Look for Change, Not Activity

The goal is to track shifts in behavior, sentiment, or outcomes—not just busywork. A company that hosts 20 leadership workshops may still fail to grow a single true leader. The measure is not workshops held, but leadership behaviors adopted.

Example:
A multinational tech firm ran 15 “Innovation Days” to spark creativity across departments. Attendance was high, but the true success metric wasn’t event participation—it was the number of new ideas that moved from concept to pilot projects. Only after tracking pilot launches did the company realize that only two events led to real innovation outcomes.

Good KR: “Launch 10 new employee-initiated pilots based on Innovation Day ideas within the next quarter.”

2. Use Proxies

Because you can’t measure trust or creativity directly, find measurable signals. Rising employee referrals, for instance, often proxy deeper organizational trust.

Example:
A media company wanted to strengthen creative freedom among employees, a deeply intangible cultural value. Instead of surveying “Do you feel free to innovate?” they used proxy indicators like the number of projects approved without senior leadership sign-off and employee-initiated projects reaching production.

Good KR: “Increase employee-initiated project approvals by 20% without executive review by Q4.”

3. Blend Quantitative and Qualitative Data

Numbers tell you what is happening; narratives often reveal why. When Airbnb rebranded around belonging, they didn’t just track bookings—they analyzed customer stories of connection.

Example:
After relaunching its loyalty program, an F&B company tracked quantitative metrics like enrollment numbers and average spend per member. But they also collected thousands of open-text customer feedback snippets through their app. It was in these qualitative stories that the organization learned customers didn’t just love the discounts—they loved feeling part of an exclusive community.

Good KR: “Achieve a 10% increase in member-reported sense of belonging via quarterly app feedback surveys.”

4. Baseline and Trend

One data point means little. Measurement must reveal movement. Is brand perception improving quarter over quarter? Is employee advocacy strengthening year after year?

Example:
When a leading SaaS company set out to measure psychological safety, it didn’t just run a one-time survey. They set a baseline (“Current psychological safety index: 62% favorable”) and then committed to tracking changes quarterly after interventions like leadership training and team norms workshops. Over a year, their score climbed steadily, validating both their effort and their approach.

Good KR: “Improve Psychological Safety Index by 8 percentage points over two quarters.”

5. Measure Perceptions Where Needed

Sometimes, how people feel is the outcome. Surveys, sentiment analyses, interviews—these are not “soft” measurements when designed thoughtfully. They are windows into the very shifts that matter most.

Example:
When a clothing and apparel company deepened its environmental commitments, it didn’t only track donations or products made from recycled materials. They ran brand sentiment analyses to understand how customers felt about their leadership on sustainability—and adjusted campaigns based on emotional resonance, not just sales data.

Good KR: “Achieve a 15% increase in positive brand sentiment regarding sustainability leadership in brand surveys by year-end.”

Practical Approaches to Making Intangibles Measurable

Even if you can’t put a tape measure around trust or innovation, you can track their fingerprints—the real-world signals that change is happening. The key is not to force false precision but to design KRs that honor both the nuance and the necessity of measurement.

People and Culture Intangibles

Examples: Trust, engagement, leadership capabilities, inclusion, psychological safety.
Tools: Surveys, 360-feedback, behavioral observations, engagement platforms.

Sample KRs:

• KR 1: “Increase the psychological safety score on team pulse surveys by 10% over six months.”
• KR 2: “Achieve 80% positive ratings in 360-feedback on ‘manager supports risk-taking’ behavior by Q4.”

Customer and Market Intangibles

Examples: Brand trust, loyalty, customer experience, reputation.
Tools: NPS, CSAT, customer reviews, sentiment analysis, repeat purchase rates.

Sample KRs:

• KR 1: “Increase Net Promoter Score (NPS) among first-time customers by 7 points by year-end.”
• KR 2: “Achieve a 15% increase in positive social media sentiment mentions regarding customer service.”

Organizational Intangibles

Examples: Innovation capacity, resilience, adaptability, collaboration culture.
Tools: Innovation pipelines, failure rates, time-to-market metrics, resilience audits.

Sample KRs:

• KR 1: “Launch 5 employee-driven innovation pilots this quarter, with at least 2 reaching MVP (Minimum Viable Product) stage.”
• KR 2: “Reduce average time-to-market for new feature releases by 15% compared to last quarter.”

External Environmental Intangibles

Examples: Strategic partnerships, societal impact, ESG reputation.
Tools: Partnership growth metrics, CSR impact studies, ESG indices.

Sample KRs:

• KR 1: “Establish three new strategic partnerships with sustainability-focused organizations by Q3.”
• KR 2: “Achieve an ESG rating improvement of one tier level from current external benchmark.”

Quick Takeaway Table

Domain	Example KR	Creative Measurement Technique
People & Culture	Improve Psychological Safety Score by 10%	Pulse surveys, 360-feedback
Customer & Market	Boost NPS by 7 points	Post-experience feedback, sentiment tracking
Organizational Innovation	5 Innovation Pilots, 2 MVPs launched	Innovation funnel tracking
External Environment (ESG)	Improve ESG Rating One Tier	ESG benchmark tracking, CSR impact surveys

Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Measuring Intangibles

Even with the best intentions, organizations often stumble when trying to measure the invisible. Avoiding these classic mistakes can mean the difference between real insight and misleading noise.

1. Activity Bias

Measuring action instead of outcome is a seductive trap. A leadership team might celebrate the number of mentorship sessions held, but unless mentees are actually growing in competence or engagement, the metric is hollow.

2. Over-Engineering

In the rush for precision, teams sometimes create convoluted formulas to measure “trust” or “innovation.” Often, a simple proxy—like employee referrals or repeat customer rates—offers more actionable truth than an overly complex index.

3. Neglecting Context

Numbers alone can deceive. A sudden jump in customer satisfaction may look good—until you realize it coincided with heavy discounting that eroded margins. Intangibles live within stories; without context, metrics risk misinterpretation.

4. Inconsistent Measurement

Switching survey questions or measurement methods midstream erases the ability to spot real trends. As one HR leader once joked, “You can’t claim you grew taller if you keep changing the ruler.”

Conclusion: Embrace the Art and Science of Measurement

Measuring intangibles is part science, part art—and entirely necessary. It demands creativity to find the right signals, discipline to track them consistently, and flexibility to adapt without losing intent.

Perfect measurement is a myth; what matters is meaningful progress. As one seasoned CEO put it, “I’d rather act on a 70% clear signal than wait forever for 100% certainty.” With thoughtful proxies, triangulation of data, and a clear-eyed focus on outcomes, the invisible becomes visible—and intangibles transform from hopeful ideals into tangible engines of real performance and growth.

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