by Chris Potts

Who Moved My Goalposts?

Opinion
Jun 26, 20081 min
Careers

A strange advert reminds us to recruit IT people who expect the goalposts to move, and enjoy the challenge.

A full-page advert for a recruitment web site, in a leading IT industry magazine, is white space with this written in the middle: “45% of CEOs blame IT for missing strategic goals. Shouldn’t move the goalposts then.” (note: the advert is in a UK publication so it’s referring to the goalposts in Soccer)

It’s just possible it was meant to be ironic, but I’m assuming not.

Business leaders have to move goalposts. It’s an essential principle of corporate agility and teamwork. The environment is forever changing, and some things don’t happen as planned. Freeze-framing the target so it will be easier to hit is often not a viable option. (Apologies if I’m just stating the obvious.)

Recommendation 1: recruit team players who enjoy scoring in goals that move. And if they miss, they figure out why and change their technique.

Recommendation 2: actively reject the mindset the advert is promoting, ironic or not.