A Year in Review - Your Future Self Will Thank You
If you are limping into the last week of work before Christmas, it is more than likely that the last thing you want to do is a: “Year in Review”, but your future (post New Year) self, will thank you if you do. It may be a cliché to say: to look forward you need to first look back, but it is not a well-known cliché for nothing!
Human nature loves beginnings and endings. We are all about one door closing and another opening, we love a win-win situation. So, tap into this goldmine of value and look back at what last year brought to the table and what you can learn from it.
Making the Same Old Mistakes - They say, that you need to let people make mistakes so that they can learn from them – and that is true. But a mistake, is just a mistake, if you don’t learn a thing!
If knowing is the first step, then make sure that you learn enough to make a different mistake next time around!
Reflection in Isolation - By not reflecting with others you are only reviewing your own point of view. Although I am sure that it would be very interesting to review all your OWN feeling, beliefs, achievements and failures for the year; there is a chance (even a very small one)that another point of view could be helpful**
**if only there was a sarcasm font!
Lessons Learnt - Some business’s even call their review meetings what they are: Lessons Learnt. They are an opportunity to ensure that you and your team are constantly evolving and improving. They can generate ideas, improve practices, clarify confusion or totally change a strategy for the future. They can also be a place where people are brutally honest about what worked and what did not work. What outside the box thinking was needed, what ducks need to be put in a row, and what value-add can be provided for next time?
When You Find Your Passion You Will Never Work a Day in Your Life - I do not actually believe this to be true, however if you do find your passion there is a fairly good chance you will be much happier doing what you have to do every day! So when you are reflecting take a look at what individuals (or groups) remember as the ‘best’ time they had, the ‘best’ client, the ‘best’ project and see if there is a way you can take it to the next level and make these things a part of the Strategy for next year.
It Is What It Is… Feedback - You may not like it, but it is the best way to know if you are doing it right. Where did you nail it? What successful ideas did you run up the flagpole? What things should you put a pin in? Whatever way you want to put it, Feedback is your friend.
And one last final word on The Strategy/The Plan/The Goal, whatever you want to call it – the ‘Thing’ that says what you are aiming for next year, the reason why you put yourself through that “Year In Review”!:
Quit worrying about where to start and just start!
You got to be in it to win it.
Actions speak louder than words.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!
Strategy and Planning is Hard. There is no doubt you will over think it, and as many do, you will have a Grand Plan to leap into the New Year with The Strategy Plan that will blow all other Strategy Plans out of the water.
More likely, the reality will be that in February you will finally get around to scribbling something down before a Strategy meeting, or even more likely you will not get around to that Strategy Plan at all. But we get that. Life is like that sometimes.
However if you need help with your Year in Review or your Strategy Meeting/Plan, let us know. Strategy (and the all important Action Plan) are one of our ‘best’ things.
