Thoughts on birthday, hindsight, and team performance ?

A few months ago, I turned 35—yeah, me! Indeed, I celebrated my birthday and had quite some fun as I returned to one of my life-long passions: skydiving (but more on that in another newsletter).

I also used the occasion to reflect, as most of us do (especially when entering a new decade), and wrote a list of 35 statements. These are insights, things I have learned that I believe are valuable and good to remind myself of regularly.

I thought you might enjoy them. So, have a read by clicking the button below.

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Now, I also encourage you to go through the same exercise. You could do it on your birthday (or close to), like I did, but it is far from mandatory.

This is a powerful practice for introspection.

There are several ways to approach it, so here are a few pointers to help you organise your thoughts.

First, what would you tell your younger self? What are the truces you know now and were oblivious to then??

For me, a key learning was about patience and delayed gratification. As a “go-getter,” I tend to want things for yesterday, which can be great for getting you started but can also depress you when things are in motion but going slowly (like writing a book).?

Then, as you start to have a few statements, you might want to group them into categories, creating an umbrella under which all these different ideas can be connected.

I went with “Growth”, “Decision-Making”, “Leadership and Relationships” and “Practical Insights”.

And I did not overthink this. However, once I got the category titles, I found myself asking, is there more to these? Can I add something else? And it helped me further my thinking regarding ideas and concepts I like.

The “executive committee” and “courage to believe I don’t know” come from this.

Lastly, bad decisions make good stories.?

I like this adage (although it may not always be true) because many poor decisions we make will be, in hindsight, a valuable lesson and birth great stories.

For instance, once, I was so excited to go kitesurfing that I didn’t pay enough attention to the weather conditions. The wind was weak, so I thought, I’m going to take a bigger kite, and I will be OK. There were strong currents, and when the wind completely dropped, so did my “big” kite - which immediately started dragging me far away from my landing beach - and put me on course to collide directly with a bridge.

I ended up safe but with a big scare (and some equipment lost). The moral of the story is: "Better be on land wishing to be on the water than the contrary.”?

So, in summary:

1- What would you tell your younger self?

2- Categorise and reflect

3- Which bad decisions you made would be good stories?

Congratulations! You also learn how to make a post-mortem analysis.

You might wonder what this is? As its name states, it is an analysis you do after something “dies” (or more likely fails or has sub-par results), such as a project.?

It could be a big one, like a company merger, or way smaller, like the rollout of a new software feature—the high-level process remains the same (although you might spend more time on the former than the latter due to their respective size).

The intent is to review the causes of death. We are doing an autopsy of the project to learn what we should do (and not do) next time.?

We are harnessing the power of hindsight.

To do so, ask your team:

1- What would we tell our past selves who were about to start this project with our new knowledge?

2- Can we summarise these insights in categories and find a few more?

3- What poor decisions can make memorable stories and effective reminders to prevent similar issues from happening in the future?

Because post-mortem analysis is a compelling tool for elevating performance, it often comes into play during my workshops. When run collaboratively, team leaders can leverage post-mortem analysis to create a playbook everyone follows.

When we have the opportunity to voice our concerns and ideas, when we can contribute, this raises our buy-in and engagement. In addition, we are more likely to provide insights and follow the new guidelines the team agreed upon.

And ultimately, the team will perform better.

If you are keen on learning more about shaping high-performing teams, you can join me for my next webinar on Tuesday, July 2nd, at 1:00 PM AEST.

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I hope you enjoy this newsletter and let me know what you think of my 35 insights I shared with you.

To your success,

Lison xX

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Whenever you are ready, here are a few ways I can help

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