Many management teams fail to take advantage of the most strategic conversation available at year-end—the one that unveils the hidden gems of learning that can profoundly impact next year’s strategy and plans.
What is the crucial conversation, you ask?
It’s the year-end review of the past year’s successes and failures. Having this discussion with the entire executive team present and doing it thoroughly ensures that the gems of strategy are mined, extracted, and polished to spectacular brilliance. Then, the polished findings can be incorporated in the strategy and budget ready for when the year begins.
If you already have the budget and strategy for next year, but they were not created after a full exploration of this year’s successes and challenges, then pull the team together right now and conduct a year-end review, keeping the following tips in mind:
1. Set aside sufficient time to complete the process—at least a half-day, but two days is best to flush-out issues and implications.
2. Ensure the entire executive team is present. If that is not possible, waiting until the beginning of the new year is okay. It’s better to do it right, even if it’s a little late.
3. Make sure all the issues are discussed and sufficiently explored and that conclusions are drawn and decisions are made. Hiring a facilitator to manage this discussion is a good idea.
4. Meet with each executive team member before the debriefing meeting. This will prime the participants so they can dig into and think more about the most critical issues and have conversations with others before the meeting. They may need to pull their team together to prepare. This will make the review more productive and strategically relevant.
5. Include discussions about the elephants in the room, and don’t pull back if it gets messy or heated. Business is just as much about the people who operate it as about the organization, its process, strategies, and numbers. Those “hot” issues are the ones holding the business back, and they are another good reason to have the meeting professionally facilitated.
Completing the year with valuable new insights and new plans will have your team lead more effectively at the start of the year.
