You’ve probably heard this before: “You need a good plan if you want to succeed.” I’ve always been resistant to planning. It takes so much time — time away from getting important things done. And everything is always in flux. How could I possibly plan when things probably won’t turn out the way I want them to anyway? The COVID lockdown is a prime example.
Yet here I am, writing to you about planning with your teams. As much as I resist planning, I do it because it brings results and I feel good about myself when that happens. Like, “Oh yeah, I willed that into existence six months ago and did what it took to bring it to life regardless of the circumstances.” I have also learned to enjoy the process of looking back and learning from the past. It makes planning more grounded in reality. So yeah, I’m writing to you about planning your next quarter, year, and even five years, in spite of what is ahead of you.
But before you start planning for 2022 with your teams, have you taken a look back at what you’ve already done in 2021? Also called a retrospective, the activity is the number one practice for creating a business culture of learning and growth. That’s because retrospectives offer the opportunity to identify what worked well and what needs more attention.
Retrospectives point to not only what needs more resources like support or planning, but also to ways of being. For instance, when evaluating how you show up for work, are you frequently distracted? Are you perhaps overwhelmed and frazzled? If you don’t look at the past, you’re likely to keep enacting the same old patterns. Nothing changes if nothing changes.
Here at LUMAN, we don’t save retrospectives for the end of the year. We have them at the end of every week. There are numerous formats for retrospectives (for ideas, head over to Fun Retrospectives, Miro, or Canva), but the one we use most often is “roses, buds, and thorns.”
How to Use Retrospectives
For roses, buds, and thorns, each member of your team shares what went well during their week (roses), the opportunities or new projects on the horizon (buds), and the challenges or what could have gone better (thorns).
What I like about the practice is it helps me to consider the past and prepare for the future. Often I get to the end of the week and wonder “what happened? What did I accomplish?” A retrospective provides the opportunity to celebrate the things I finished and the progress I made. Plus, it’s a great way to find the things that aren’t working well. Like if I spent my week feeling distracted, what distracted me? Was it notifications from my phone beeping every 10 minutes? Turning off those notifications means I’m more focused, and I can be more efficient and effective at work. But if I don’t ask the questions, I’ll never get the answers.
Retrospectives can be used weekly, but they can also be used for specific projects, sprints, quarters, and even business relationships. For instance, if there’s a communication breakdown, a retrospective can help all parties determine what happened and how each person contributed to the breakdown. Knowing what led to the breakdown means it can potentially be prevented in the future. Maybe that means spending more time planning, or checking in about the project more frequently.
Why Retrospectives Gets Results
Retrospectives are empowering because they encourage people to take ownership of their actions. We’re constantly making agreements with one another — “Yes, I’ll order more office supplies,” “Sure, I’ll write that white paper,” but if you don’t honor those agreements, retrospectives support you in acknowledging that you dropped the ball and helps you see how you can do things differently next time. Is it because you had too many other projects? Is it because you were out sick and missed the email? Whenever someone on our team misses the mark, we take ownership of it. Sharing, “I failed to fulfill my commitment because X happened. Next time I’ll do Y,” is a great way to move from blame and making excuses to something more productive. That being said, you still have to follow through with what you say you’re going to do or else people won’t trust you.
When something fails, every single person has the ability to respond to the failure. Everyone can be “response-able.” Instead of placing the blame on one person, retrospectives let everyone involved determine how they played a part and what they could have done differently. For instance, “I noticed you were overwhelmed. Next time I’ll check in with you and see what I can take off your plate.”
We see examples of collaboration in nature. Sure, sometimes nature has the ethos of “survival of the fittest,” but other times, the strong support the weak. For instance, trees in a forest are often linked to each other via an older tree called a “mother” or “hub” tree. The mother trees can facilitate the growth of seedlings because the old trees pass a little bit of carbon, nutrients, and water to the little seedlings at crucial times in their lives that help them survive, according to NPR.
The same is possible for humans where the stronger, more resourced team members can support those who are struggling. You’ve heard it before but it bears repeating: There’s no “I” in “team,” but there is a “me,” meaning each person has an individual responsibility on the team. Every project you’re responsible for or associated with, you have a particular role to play and a way of showing up, a way of contributing (or not). Retrospectives reveal that information.
Results That Ripple Out
Not only can retrospectives support you in showing up differently for your own projects, or on your own team, they can also help with cross-functional teams, the organization as a whole, and how the organization contributes to the world in general! No team operates in a vacuum. If your team is firing on all cylinders but another team you work with is not, the same retrospective questions apply: “What could you have done differently?” “How can your team support the other team?”
At LUMAN, we call this “spheres of influence.” Your influence is not limited to what you, personally, accomplish. It’s also how you interact with others and that influence keeps expanding. That influence has ripple effects. What you do matters. What you don’t do also matters; not only now, but in the future. Along those lines, what does your future look like? Do you like where you’re heading?
A beautiful word and image that encompasses this whole process is sankofa, which comes from the Akan Twi and Fante languages of Ghana that translates to “retrieve.” Sankofa also refers to the Bono Adinkra symbol represented either with a stylized heart or by a bird with its head turned backward carrying an egg in its mouth while the bird’s feet face forward. The associated proverb is, “Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi,” or, “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.”
What have you forgotten that you can fetch and bring with you into the future? Use the past in order to learn and grow. Use a retrospective to teach you vulnerability regarding your failures, but also celebration regarding your successes. And then let me know how it goes. I’m curious to hear what you find.
