Rhythm · Phase 3: organising
Looking back on the month
You fill in your monthly reflection so that something comes out of it: you start with what you wanted last month, look for the cause of every gap, and choose a focus you can tick off in four weeks.
Does this sound familiar?
- You fill in the monthly reflection on the last day, in five minutes, and write roughly what you wrote last month.
- Next to every setback it says 'it was busy'. That's true, but you don't learn anything from it.
- Your team's reflections only mention what went well. You hear what went wrong at the coffee machine.
- Your focus for next month is 'sell more'. In four weeks you won't be able to say whether it worked.
Who it's for, and when
For anyone who fills in a reflection every month and finds little comes out of it, and for anyone who leads a team. It starts to pay off in Organising, once you can no longer see everything yourself. Before that, looking back once a week is enough.
The model
After an exercise, a US Army unit answers four questions. What did we want to happen? What actually happened? Why was there a difference? What will we do differently next time? It works because the starting point is fixed: you put what happened next to what you wrote down beforehand. Without that, every month becomes 'pretty good'.
The monthly reflection in Boldcaster asks the same four questions. The accountability check puts last month's focus next to what happened. For your priorities, you write what happened and why. Your focus for next month is what you'll do differently, and the yardstick for next time. This lesson doesn't ask those questions again. It's about how you answer them.
Everyone fills in their own reflection. If you lead a team, you read your team's reflections beforehand and open the conversation with your own, even when it's disappointing. The conversation is about what happened, not about who got it wrong. Syed shows how aviation learns from every accident because a mistake there is information. People who fear being blamed only write down what went well.
Solve a problem that comes out of the reflections the way the lesson Solving problems instead of discussing them shows. Take three months of reflections together into the lesson The quarterly session.
The US Army's After Action Review, introduced in the 1970s and set down in the manual TC 25-20, A Leader's Guide to After-Action Reviews (1993). In Black Box Thinking (2015), Matthew Syed writes about learning from mistakes, using aviation as his example.
What did you want?
Last month's focus and this quarter's priorities. You wrote those down beforehand. Always start there, not with what you remember.
What happened?
The facts: done, partially done or not done, and where your priorities stand.
Why was there a difference?
The cause, even when things went better than expected. A priority that turned green on its own tells you something too: was it too easy, or were you lucky?
What will you do differently?
One focus for next month, concrete enough that in four weeks you can answer yes or no. 'Send out next week's schedule every Friday before noon' passes that test. 'Plan better' doesn't.
Pitfalls
'It was busy' as the cause
It's always busy. Ask why this particular thing slipped while something else kept going. Then you'll see the choice you made.
Looking for someone to blame
If a setback in the meeting leads to the question of who dropped it, nobody writes honestly any more. Read a setback as information about the work.
Filling it in and doing nothing with it
If nobody reads the reflections, filling them in becomes a chore and people write what you want to hear. If you ask for a reflection, read it.
Watch and read
The model step by step: the questions of the After Action Review, and how a team discusses them without looking for someone to blame.
Watch on YouTubeWhat an After Action Review is, in two minutes: what happened, why, and how it could be better.
Watch on YouTubeWhy aviation learns from every mistake and most organisations don't. You need that attitude to look back honestly.
Watch on YouTubeRead
Black Box Thinking: Marginal Gains and the Secrets of High Performance
Matthew Syed · 2015 · ISBN 9781473613782
A readable book about learning from mistakes, with aviation as the example. Plenty of stories, little theory.
View the bookApply it
- 1
Block out a fixed half hour in your calendar
In the last week of the month, not on the last day squeezed between two meetings.
- 2
Start with what you said last month
Read last month's focus back and say honestly: done, partially done or not done. Only then look at the rest.
- 3
Write down why for every gap
If something fell behind or ran ahead, write one sentence on why. Use the list below when you catch yourself writing an empty sentence.
- 4
If you lead a team: read beforehand, and start with yours
Read your team's reflections before you discuss them together. Look for two or three things that come up for more than one person. Start with your own accountability check.
Examples
Ready to use: empty sentences and what to write instead
'It was busy.' Write: 'Twice the schedule only went out on Monday, because on the Friday I was dealing with breakdowns first.' 'Had a good month.' Write: 'Focus achieved: the schedule went out before noon on four Fridays out of four.' 'Fell a bit behind.' Write: 'Two weeks behind, because the supplier only delivered on the 20th and I only chased them then.' 'Sell more.' Write: 'Call one existing client every week about a follow-on job.' 'The team needs to communicate better.' Write: 'I only heard in week three that the schedule had slipped. From now on I'll ask about it in the daily start.'
Ready to use: discussing the reflections with your team (30 minutes)
Who: the team and its leader, in the first week of the new month. Ready beforehand: everyone has submitted their reflection. The leader has read them and picked two or three things that come up for more than one person. 0 to 5 minutes: the leader reads out their own accountability check, even when it's disappointing. 5 to 15 minutes: everyone gets a minute: focus achieved, yes, partly or no, and their one insight. 15 to 25 minutes: the two or three things that keep coming up. What's the cause? 25 to 30 minutes: everyone states their focus for next month. If one sounds like something you can't tick off, ask how you'll know in four weeks. By the end, this is settled: everyone's focus is in their reflection. Whatever came up and wasn't solved in the meeting goes on the issues list with an owner. Anything the team can't solve itself, the leader takes to the leadership team's monthly meeting, which opens with the monthly reflections (the lesson A meeting that's about something).
A project manager who missed his focus
He wanted to send out the schedule every Friday before noon. He managed it two times out of four. Why? On those Fridays, urgent jobs came in during the morning, and they took priority. New focus: get the schedule ready on Thursday afternoon, so on Friday only the urgent work gets added.
A founder who only read good news
For months, his team's reflections said little about what went wrong. He noticed that with every setback he asked who had dropped it. From then on he asked what had happened, and read out his own reflection first when the team discussed the reflections.
Do this in your own business
Everything up to here is free. What you fill in for your own business, you keep in Boldcaster.
- Go to Monthly reflection. Under My reflection you do the accountability check on last month's focus, add notes to your priorities, write down one insight and choose your focus for next month. Anyone allowed to read the team's reflections sees them in the Team overview and can show them with Presentation when you discuss them together.
- You look back on a situation from your own work. Only you can read what you write.
- You set a date with yourself, and on that day the app asks how it went.
- You assign the lesson to your team and see who has done it.
- The quiz counts towards your progress, and you see which lesson comes next.
Four weeks free. You'll land straight in this lesson.
Quiz
7 situations. You need 6 of 7 right. You can try again at any time.
1.A team leader writes 'had a good month' in his monthly reflection. According to the After Action Review, what's the first thing missing?
2.About a missed focus, a team member writes: 'it was busy'. What's the best next question?
3.For months, your team's reflections have mentioned almost nothing that went wrong. What's the most likely cause?
4.At the end of the month a priority is green, even though little was done on it. What do you write in your reflection?
5.Four team members write down their focus for next month. Which one lets you say yes or no in four weeks?
6.You're discussing the monthly reflections with your team. How do you start?
7.A supplier delivered late and your project ran a week over. What do you write as your own part?
Nothing is saved here. In the app, the quiz counts towards your progress.
Read next
- The quarterly session · Every quarter you hold a half-day session with your team. It closes off the priorities, draws the lessons from them, and ends with a few new priorities and the KPI targets for the next quarter.
- Influence and concern · You put your energy into what you can change at work yourself. With what's out of your reach, you make a deliberate choice: take it to the owner, or let it go.
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