I'm not forcing them to write the words.

If they want to say "we tried, it did not work, the economy got worse than we expected, yet we think we're still in the best position to run the companies, but we have to make hard decisions now", that's their stuff.

I wonder how it would play out for any other employee using this strategy in performance review.

"I take full responsibility for not fulfilling my OKRs, and therefore I will demand that your fire every one else in the team to afford my promotion and raise."