Pull the Goalie

There’s a saying I heard last night that I’ve thought a lot about: Pull the Goalie.

It comes from hockey and refers to a move coaches sometimes make in the final minutes of the game to pull their goalie out of the game and put another offensive player in.

This move is usually made when the team pulling the goalie is losing by one or two points. The odds of that team giving up a goal increases but so too does their chance of scoring a goal to tie the game in the final seconds. If they give up a goal, well, they were losing anyway. But if they score, the risk was justified.

This idea resonated with me because there are so many parallels with starting and running a business.

Pulling the goalie is the taking of a small risk at something that’s not going your way in order to give yourself a better chance at getting ahead. Like quitting a safe but unfulfilling job to go all-in on your business. Or abandoning an underperforming product or service to focus on your main product. Or not paying yourself for a period of time to invest in the business.

Here’s the kicker: there is detailed statistical analysis (according to the person who explained this concept to me) that pulling the goalie is the statistically correct move yet coaches very rarely actually do it. They aren’t aggressive enough or are afraid of how it’ll make them look. So, they lose those games where they could have tried it.

Same thing in business. People are too afraid to take risks that would take them to the next level in business. For example, in the case of the abandoning an underperforming product or service, sometimes cutting it and focusing on more marketing and development efforts on the winning product is the right move.

Where are you being too cautious? Where are you putting too much effort on defense? Pull the goalie.