What carries over, what dies · From Zero to Goals, lesson 14 of 17
What carries over, what dies
Decide the fate of an unfinished goal (carry, rewrite or kill) and spot the zombie goal.
What carries over, what dies
Quarter three planning starts with quarter two’s unfinished business, and this is where goal systems quietly rot. An unfinished goal has three honest fates: carry (still right, ran out of quarter), rewrite (right direction, wrong shape), or kill (no longer worth its slot).
There is also a fourth, dishonest fate: the zombie, a goal that carries every quarter and moves in none of them. Brightside’s close left exactly this decision on the table.
The 0.2 on the table
From the Q2 close: win rate landed at 22% against a target of 30%, score 0.2. The one-sentence why, written at the close: “We lose on price against bigger agencies, especially with clients over 50 people.”
Q3 planning is on. The lead goal graduated (11 a month is now the standard, not a goal), so there is a free slot, and the question is what happens to the win-rate goal.
What do you do with the win-rate goal?
The third-time candidate
The win-rate goal is settled. Then Sam slides one more candidate onto the Q3 table: “Rebuild internal project templates.”
Its history, from the boards: on the Q1 wishlist, didn’t make it. In Q2’s cut, parked with a revisit date. Now it is back for the third time, and in six months nobody has spent a single hour on it. Sam’s pitch: “third time asking, it obviously matters to us.”
What is this candidate, and what do you do with it?
A carried goal must answer: what will be different this time?
The graduation is the part worth waiting for: a goal that hit standard level, like Brightside’s lead engine, stops being a goal and frees its slot, which is the system compounding. It is also the difference between a team that sets goals and a team that goals have changed.
Run the triage on your last unfinished goal
Take your most recent unfinished goal and give it one of the three fates (carry, rewrite, kill) plus the sentence that justifies it. If you choose carry: what, concretely, will be different this time?
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More on rewriting goals
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.
- SMART goals examples ↗Finished goals to hold your carried ones against, before you decide a rewrite is really a rewrite.3 min read