Open Goal Policy
Reopen goals when context changes, diagnose blockers, and reset the playing field.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 97%
Treat goals as open to evidence-based revision rather than fixed commitments made under an assumption of perfect foresight. When progress stalls, the leader steps in to diagnose the blocker. If external conditions make the outcome uncontrollable or irrelevant, choose a new objective. If the team underestimated the required time, money, or staffing, reallocate resources or adjust scope. If execution is the issue, preserve the goal while supplying coaching and accountability. This creates what the hosts call an open goal policy: teams can raise problems without believing that failure is automatically career-threatening. The mechanism reduces risk-mitigation behavior, keeps work connected to achievable results, and allows leaders to absorb environmental confusion before passing clearer priorities back to the team.
Origin
Extracted from Marketing Against The Grain as an alternative to symbolic open-door leadership policies during uncertain conditions.
Core principles
- 01Goals are hypotheses that must respond to new information.
- 02Leaders absorb uncertainty and convert it into clarity.
- 03A missed goal requires diagnosis before judgment.
- 04External barriers, flawed estimates, and execution problems require different responses.
- 05Flexibility reduces defensive risk mitigation without removing accountability.
How to run it
- 1
Surface the threatened goal
Create a regular forum where teams can identify goals at risk and explain what has changed.
Pro tip Ask for evidence and assumptions, not just status colors.
Watch out Do not punish early disclosure or teams will hide problems.
- 2
Diagnose the blocker
Determine whether the barrier is external, resource-related, based on flawed estimation, or caused by execution.
Pro tip Gather context directly from the people closest to the work.
Watch out Do not assume a missed trajectory proves low effort.
- 3
Test controllability and relevance
Ask whether the team can still influence the outcome and whether the objective still matters under current conditions.
Pro tip Separate temporary noise from a structural change.
Watch out Do not retain a goal solely because it was previously announced.
- 4
Reset the playing field
Choose among preserving the goal, changing the objective, adjusting scope, extending time, or reallocating resources.
Pro tip Make the smallest change that restores a credible path to the intended value.
Watch out Do not quietly revise expectations without aligning stakeholders.
- 5
Restore clarity and accountability
Communicate the revised goal, rationale, ownership, resources, and next review point.
Pro tip Record which assumptions should trigger another review.
Watch out Flexibility without a new explicit commitment creates drift.
In the wild
A marketing team is executing its agreed plan well, but a sudden market contraction sharply reduces category demand. The leader reviews the evidence, separates execution quality from the external shock, lowers the obsolete acquisition target, reallocates effort toward retention, and defines a new review date.
→ The team stops defending an impossible target and focuses on a result it can influence.
Common mistakes
Keeping goals fixed by default
Stagnant goals assume leaders accurately predicted every dependency, resource requirement, and environmental change.
Rewarding activity without results
Goal flexibility should not become permission to celebrate busy work disconnected from an important outcome.
Changing goals without diagnosis
Premature revision can conceal execution problems that require coaching or accountability rather than a new objective.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for leaders managing goals in volatile environments where teams regularly encounter new constraints and information.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal as an excuse to lower expectations whenever ordinary execution becomes uncomfortable.
From the transcript
“your job is to reset the playing field for everybody.”
“the leader has to step in and say, why are we blocked? Are there things completely outside our control? If so, then maybe we want…”
“if you're gonna have an open anything policy, it's an open goal policy.”
From the episode
Leadership That Drives Growth (Insights from Kipp and Kieran)