Premise:
After the hustle bustle and the celebrations of the new year, we are now entering the time of the year, which is fraught with opportunities and dangers in equal measures. This is the time to celebrate the past year, the peaks we scaled and give a pat on our backs for all that hard work. I am sure every team does that. This is also the time to reflect at the valley’s we encountered in the past year and think about the reasons we ended up in there. And think about what did we do get ourselves out of that situation. And analyse what worked and what didn’t. And why? This is the time to do reflections and learn from our past actions – both that led us on the path to success and that which made us dig a hole for ourselves.
Analyse why we succeeded:
The first set of analysis needs to be about our successes. We can use the following framework that can help us analyse our successes:
- What did we do that produced the best results? Why did we decide to take that action? When we took that decision, did we expect this kind of result? Why?
- How much of the success was due to our planning and execution of the plan? How much was it due to course corrections made while executing the plan?
- How much was it luck? If we got lucky, what did we do to get lucky? What would have happened if we didn’t get lucky? Would we have still had a good year?
- What can we learn from these successes? How can they help us plan the upcoming year?
Analyse why we failed:
The next set of analysis needs to be about our failures. We can use the following questions that can help us analyse our failures:
- What did we do that produced the biggest failures? Why did we decide to do these activities? What were the assumptions behind the decision? Which one of them were flawed? Why did we make this assumption?
- How much of the failure was due to poor planning or execution of the plan? Where did we go wrong? Why? How can we ensure we don’t make the same mistakes again?
- How much of it was luck? IF we were unlucky, is there something that we could have done differently to avoid this?
- What have we learnt from these failures? How can these lessons help us plan the upcoming year?
Plan the year ahead:
Based on the learning from the analysis of failure and success and the goals that we need to achieve in the upcoming year, we need to work with the team to come up with a plan that builds on the strengths, compensates for the weaknesses and has the potential to succeed. The one thing that would help us really well, going forward is to document the assumptions that we are making while creating the plan. This will help us course correct as soon as we see that our assumptions no longer hold true.
Every tree sprouts from a seed. A seed that has all the information that is necessary information that it needs to grow into a healthy tree. All it needs is the right environment and some care for it to grow into a tree.
So it is with every team. The seed that will allow us to grow, which has all the necessary information is the past performance and learnings from the same. Once we have this, all we need is the right environment and some care to sprout into a successful year ahead.
Cultivating the Right environment:
Have the right environment that can aid the team to plan well, execute the plan and find its success is the responsibility of the leaders. We need to make the environment that is conducive for the team to execute the plan well.
- We need to remove roadblocks (don’t allow bad behaviour in the team, shield them from the pressure from above, help them navigate organisational politics & bureaucracy, coach the team members based on their individual needs, etc) to the teams’ success.
- We need to pave the way for their success by ensuring that everyone is constantly learning {from their actions, from others actions and some new skills}, are constantly being challenged {giving them the right level of stretch goals, finding projects that can allow them to strengthen a core skill that they need to develop, etc} and are constantly evolving their own leadership skills {personal or organisational, depending upon what they want to become}.
In conclusion:
Once we do our jobs as leaders and provide the right environment, the right plan, the chances that the team does well is really high.
We reap what we sow. This is the time for us to sow the seeds of success so we can reap success at the end of the year…
Here is wishing you all a great planning season and a rock star performance for 2018!
