Don’t let 2020 be Hindsight

Happy New Year!

In our last post of the last decade, we recapped HR in 2019 and encouraged you to reflect back on your own year – individually, or within teams. As we move into a new year/decade, we invite you to start by answering three questions which are intended to help focus, clarify and align how you move forward into 2020 and beyond.

Reflecting and intentionally answering these questions can be done on your own, or with your leadership team, as part of a strategic process; it can be led by managers with their teams, and/or it can be done organizationally. Whether part of, or in addition to, a formalized goal setting process (refer to our first post of 2019) or performance program, answering the questions can help shape the year, get everyone on the same page, and serve as a teambuilding or realigning process after the holiday break. For example, your leadership and/or management team could address these questions at a strategic level, followed by your managers working with their teams to do so. The summary of responses amongst each group could then be shared by each team at an organization-wide meeting.

While the questions can be adjusted to serve your organization, the gist is as follows:

What do you need to let go of/stop doing from the last year (or decade)?
What should you carry forward that worked/served you well?
What do you need to focus on in the coming year (and beyond)?

One part intentional focus/reflection, one part alignment/clarity and one part teambuilding/sharing, answering these three questions can be a powerful exercise as you move into the new year. As the saying goes “Hindsight is 20/20”. With foresight, let the year 2020 be an opportunity to ensure you don’t look back a year from now only understanding then what would have been the right thing to do or wishing you had done things differently.