The week-six crisis · From Zero to Goals, lesson 12 of 17
The week-six crisis
Choose between cutting scope, swapping a key result, pushing, and killing a goal, and know which one you’re doing.
The week-six crisis
Six weeks into the quarter, most goals are neither on track nor dead. They are quietly behind. What you do in that week decides whether the quarter ends with an honest score or a story.
There are only four moves. Each is right somewhere. By the end of this lesson you’ll know which one you’re making, and which one you’re avoiding.
0.2 at week six
The content engine: 0 → 8 published pieces a month by June, owner Leo. Week 6 of 13. Published so far: two, plus one in draft. Score if you are honest: 0.2.
Two weeks ago his check-in said “on track, good momentum”: the update you flagged in the last lesson. Pressed for numbers this week, the mood finally converts into a fact: client work owns four days of his calendar, and writing gets what is left, which is nothing.
At the check-in Leo says: “It’ll catch up. June is quieter for client work.” Last quarter he said the same about a different promise. It didn’t catch up.
What do you do?
The swap is decided. Now: how does it go public?
Dana picks the swap: 6 a month plus the template. The next question is quieter but decides what everyone learns from this: HOW does the board change?
It is week six. Seven weeks of check-ins and one close are still ahead, and the whole team watched this goal read “on track” a fortnight ago.
How does the renegotiation reach the board?
A stuck goal is a message about the system
Not about the person. Pressure without a system change only buys you better-sounding updates, and better-sounding updates are exactly what you will get: week six is when a team learns whether bad news is safe here.
Old number, new number, named bottleneck, one announcement. A renegotiation the team watched is a lesson in honesty; one they discovered is a lesson in erasers.
Write your own trigger rule
At what score, by which week, does a goal in your team trigger this conversation? One sentence, plus where the renegotiation gets announced, so it never happens silently. You’ll need this rule in the exam.
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More on keeping goals alive
All optional, and none of it is needed for the certificate. Each opens in a new tab, so your place in the lesson is kept.
- How to track goals ↗Keeping a goal alive between the day it is set and the day it is scored, which is where quarters are lost.8 min read