Even though it happens every 365 (or so) days, there is something magical inherently built into the flipping of a calendar page or the changing of the year’s numerical value to the next number that begs for sentimentality and reflection. Starting a new year allows for a sense of renewal, carrying with it an air of opportunity and hope that it would behoove us to embrace. This evolution from one year to the next can be capitalized on by reflecting on the year that has passed then looking ahead strategically to the upcoming year.
Let’s walk through a few ways leaders can reflect on the year that is coming to a close and prepare their teams for success in the year ahead.
Ways leaders can review the past year
Track progress toward goals
Annually: Did you document goals in Q4 or Q1 for the year? (I hope you did!) If so, revisit that document and assess how much progress you have made toward achieving those goals. Be honest and objective; it won't behoove you to fudge your results, since there are reasons why some things happened as planned and others didn't.
Quarterly: Did you track your progress toward your annual goals each quarter? Or did you break out your overarching annual goals into attainable quarterly milestones? Reviewing these documents or notes will help you evaluate the journey you took this year and whether those steps led to successes or failures; assessing outcome will help you look objectively now at the decisions you made in the moment and will hopefully provide you with a strategic look from the outside at your progress over the course of the year.
Review your output
Take a moment to reflect on the output you have produced this year. For example, if you run a blog, look at all of the posts you published that year. Looking back at your first few posts in January or February may remind you of bundles of work you had forgotten that you did!
Writing a reflective blog post will help you encapsulate the progress you’ve made in one place and lay it all out for your readers and yourself. Your audience will appreciate all you’ve provided over the last year, and you will enjoy revisiting all of the work you had put in over the last year, since lumping it together can prove how substantial and impactful your efforts have been, both in the short- and long-term.
Hold team reflections
Having your team put together some sort of reflection, be it a journey graphic or a blog post or a presentation, will help your team feel empowered to celebrate the year’s wins. Also, committing a team meeting to sharing these wins and reflecting on what worked over the past year and what could be improved will help frame the year’s journey for your team and allow you to give strategic “color commentary” to your direct reports’ wins, giving context and insights into purpose and impact that will help your team feel that their tactical advancements have contributed to a larger cause.
Consider your current position
Reflect on what you are doing right now and consider whether you feel fulfilled, challenged, and accomplished. Ask yourself: Am I happy right now? Do I like how I am spending my time right now? Responding to these types of questions can spur thoughts around the way the year has progressed that has brought you to this moment. If you aren’t happy with where you are right now, that could be because of things that happened this year that pushed you down a road you aren’t thrilled with. Identifying what went wrong is a great start toward fixing your dissatisfaction and carving out a new path forward. And if you are happy, ask yourself why. You may be able to identify a stimulus or impetus to change or a shift in mindset – or you may not. Whether it was causal or gradual, looking back at the steps you took this year to get to where you are today can give you a well-deserved sense of pride and accomplishment.
Frame for the future
Frame the progress you’ve made this year in terms of how it will set you up for success in the coming year, aligning your current standing (which is the amalgamation of all of your work over the last year!) with the upcoming year’s goals. This is the perfect segue into the next section!
Ways leaders can prepare for the upcoming year
Perform a content/process audit
Another great way to prepare for the upcoming year is to perform an audit of your content or your processes. Take a step back and evaluate your resources, output, business processes, and systems with an objective eye. While being agile means always staying abreast of these strengths and weaknesses and adjusting along the way, taking a yearly deep dive can feel refreshing and give you a chance to carve out time for the more strategic side of your leadership position. Evaluating processes will also help you pinpoint bottlenecks and identify tweaks you could make to improve efficiency and productivity. An audit should list the facts surrounding what you currently have (sometimes framed as an “as is” model); reviewing this will help you decide what changes to make as you embark on a new year.
Run team strategy sessions
Discussion: Pose some forward-thinking questions to your team, such as: What can we do better? Where can we be more efficient? How can we remove roadblocks? What can we templatize? Etc. Provide these questions to your team so they have time to formulate answers; then, host a meeting where the only agenda item is this discussion. (Feel free to combine this with a reflection meeting by starting with, “What did we do well this year? What didn’t go so well?” and moving into, “Where can we improve?” to make the feedback actionable; you know your team, your calendars, and your strategies, so you can decide whether you need two separate sessions or if one with a clear agenda will work best.) As a leader, it is important to listen to your team members and involve them in strategy formation, at least in the early intel-gathering rounds, so they feel tied to your mission and feel their voices are heard.
Presentation: After your discussion-based strategy meeting(s) with your team, it is up to you to synthesize the feedback you have received and the thoughts you have since formed and put together new strategic plans. But after you create these plans, the key is to document and communicate them to your team. An easy way to do this is to put together a PowerPoint presentation that matches the successes and failures of this year to actions for the following year and lays out the strategies that will guide subsequent decision-making and tactical execution across the team. This will allow your team to recognize that you have considered their feedback, you have done individual work at a higher level to tie your team’s goals back to the overarching business goals, and you have a clear path forward. This type of clear, organized communication will elicit trust from your team members and help your upcoming year go smoothly.
Adjust strategies and goals
Write out new strategies for the year ahead. You can use last year’s strategic documents as a template or as reference, but don’t feel beholden to that content, since it is likely outdated. Consider higher level business goals and envision where you’d like to be in the future, then form and document strategies that will guide movement toward those objectives.
Set and monitor new OKRs/goals
Choose goals that will help your team achieve and deliver on the strategies you have set. Decide which level of granularity you prefer for your goals; you may want to distinguish company goals from department goals from team goals from individual goals. Some teams choose goals; others prefer the objectives and key results (OKRs) model. As a leader, it is up to you to plot out the structure of these goal-setting programs depending on what is best for your team.
Schedule regular check-ins to monitor progress on reaching goals. Many leaders will hold quarterly review sessions where they review their team members’ performance and discuss progress toward quarterly milestones that will lead to the achievement of annual goals, breaking the overarching goal into more digestible bites. These check-ins will allow you and your team members to stay on the same page, will maintain open communication about performance and goal-setting, and will ensure there are no surprises when the next year-end review comes along in twelve short months.
Take action
Strategy is vital, but action is the only way to make an impact. Make changes based on this year’s successes and shortcomings and set yourself up for another year of success. Be open to new ideas; don't let yourself say, "That's how we've always done it." As your business needs change, your strategy should change with them (and then, as a result, your structure and output should follow). Plus, following up on your strategies and doing what you planned will elicit trust from your team members and will prove that you are an accountable and reliable leader.
Bonus: Celebrate
Don’t forget to celebrate another revolution around the sun! Especially if your team has been feeling stressed out lately, schedule a non-work-related outing (virtual or in-person, depending on the environment!) to connect on a human level. Consider hosting a virtual lunch hour, happy hour, or event (such as trivia, a murder mystery party, a TV showing – the possibilities are endless!). While your team members will feel happy that they have a chance to relax a bit and have more casual conversations, you will benefit by (hopefully) having a more connected, collaborative, supportive team with higher morale. Don’t forget to take the time to reflect on your hard work, pat everyone on the back, and celebrate your wins.
Many of us operate at full speed all the time and rarely give ourselves a chance to slow down. While we may think we’re being incredibly productive, we could be hurting ourselves by leading to burn out or moving too fast to allow time for strategic thought. If it is our role (which it is, if we are leaders), it is up to us to make time to pause and think strategically and reflectively. And contrary to some cynics’ beliefs, it isn’t a waste of time – it allows you to learn and improve. Leaders are often those among us who want to yield better results, usher in a better world, and guide people toward higher levels of success; this can only be possible with a balance of action and strategy (and strategy should always come before structure, so if you are considering changing your structure, be sure to update your strategy first and let your structure support your new plans). Take time to debrief projects, review your strategies, and adjust as needed, then remember to follow up on your actions to remain accountable and instill trust among your team members. Everything you have done in the past has laid the groundwork for everything you are about to do. Keep moving forward, but don’t forget to pause, reflect, and celebrate once in a while.
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