Looking Back Gets You Ahead

I’m a big fan of The Lookback. It’s a long standing business ritual at this time of year for me and has been for decades. Although I can’t say that I loved the idea when my Dad first proposed the assignment to me as a young portfolio manager eons ago when all my energy was focused on forward motion.

Who had time to capture the past when there was so much to do going forward? I loved my Dad and respected him for the brilliant strategist he was and he had retired from a terrific banking career so I knew I’d better listen if I wanted to develop successful habits so I grudgingly followed his advice. Am I glad I did.

We talk a lot these days about “ building muscles” in the Human Workplace. We know that everyone has to find a starting point for building up confidence or communication skills or a can-do attitude. I know that mine unwittingly started with a simple file.

Way back in the day, it was an actual paper file and the memory device was a paper notebook Daytimer. I actually still prefer a DayTimer and have my original NYC commuter battle scarred cover that keeps me mindful of the past.

My Dad suggested that I use the file to hold slips of paper with details of projects completed, portfolio performance benchmarks reached, marketing goals met and any great quotes from my clients and co-workers about working with me.

It was a pretty humble and thin file at first but I was amazed as the year went by how the gems in there accumulated. I was especially shocked after a year how much of what was in that file seemed fresh and new to me as I read through it because so many of the fine points and details had faded with the onslaught of the events of the year.

It was a lifesaver at review time and made answering all those “what have you done for us lately” and “how do you back that up” questions a breeze.

One year, a Lookback yielded a definite can’t-be-denied-I-gotta-get-outta-this-job bottom line as I saw the accumulated evidence of not exactly being appreciated for all my over and above the call of duty work.

I had really buried myself in the day to day of where I was, slogging ahead to meet or exceed goals without taking time until the end of the year to get what we now call at the Human Workplace, “ Altitude”, on my situation. I actually received a “Does not meet expectations box” checked--Yikes, are they really talking about me?!

I used my accumulated data to propel me into a stealth job search fast. It seems I hadn’t taken my nose off the grindstone to pay attention to the fact that I wasn’t meshing with new management that came with a merger.

My energy shifted dramatically after I took the time to really lookback over the year and that shift powered and pushed me to land a much better job.

Since that simple beginning, I’ve refined The Lookback. Now it all starts with a detailed review of each day of the past year in my calendar. Then I look for A-ha’s, lessons learned and points to improve on for the coming year. This gift to self comes with a commitment.

It’s the most difficult one to give and that’s time. It takes time to remember all the people that I met and talked with, lunches, phone consults, planning sessions, scrapped as well as new product ideas and the good, the bad and the ugly outcomes that resulted from it all.

I actually take some notes while looking back in detail over the past year and formulate those ideas into the goals for the next year. I post the goals in a real simple bullet point format in a four box grid for the four quarters of the coming year and make the all important notes in my calendar to “Go review your quarter goals”.

This sounds awfully simple I know, but it takes real discipline for me to actually take the time when the end of the quarter is suddenly upon me to do it.

It’s the end of another year already and I’ve been hearing: “I can’t believe the year is over!” more and more from our clients who are harried and overwhelmed. What they say is that they feel the year went by too fast and they missed something in the passage.

We coach that there is wisdom in their own history if they will be willing to take the time to learn from what they did through the year.

Working with Liz Ryan means that we all at the Human Workplace operate on high test fuel daily to keep up with her and with the supersonic forward growth of our company. It is exhilarating to say the least!

I’m thankful at this time of the year that I have the clear details of what I did daily to build next year on. Having taken the time to grow my muscles to make myself more conscious of people, time and events and stick to my simple schedule of looking back on each quarter as well as the whole year in order to plan the next makes me more able to grow and develop with our worldwide expanding mission to make work more human.

Try this Lookback for 2014 and see if it doesn’t help you have a more successful and happy 2015!