As a leader, it’s a great time of year to reflect on the past and plan for the future — for both yourself and your people. In a very powerful way, you can apply your executive coaching skills to help bring out the best in people and get them excited for the year to come.
As our gift to you, there’s a link at the bottom of this post giving you access to our 39-page goal setting guide. I originally created this guide years ago as I became more and more interested in being the architect of my personal and professional life. I’ve since revised and improved it almost every year and it’s a gift from our Boulder-based leadership development business to you.
But wait!
There is one new tool I’d like to introduce you to that will compliment the goal setting guide and give you a solid “look back” on 2019.
Reflect on 2019
As a manager and coach, you can help your people reflect on 2019 by following a standard after action assessment process. The after action assessment process was originally developed by the U.S. Army and is a great model not just for year-end reflection but for anytime throughout the year to help yourself and others learn from the past and generate ideas for the future.
Allocate about 20 percent of your time to steps 1 and 2 below, and 80% of your time on steps 3 and 4.
STEP 1: What did you INTEND to accomplish in 2019?
- What were your professional goals for the year?
- What were your personal goals?
- What skills and competencies did you intend to build?
- What relationships did you intend to enhance?
STEP 2: What ACTUALLY happened ? Review the year, quarter-by-quarter. This will force a more complete reflection and move you away from a recency bias. I know that for us at 5.12 Solutions, we’ve accomplished a ton this year and Q1 seems like ages ago. It’s not. For example, we improved our Coachmetrix technology and significantly increased the user base. We spoke at the ATD national conference and helped thousands of leaders throughout the year. Ensure your reflection is from the entire year, so you don’t miss out on key insights that may have occurred last spring.
- What did you accomplish?
- What was aligned? Mis-aligned?
- What worked?
- What failed?
STEP 3: What did you LEARN? This step is ultimately about gaining insight from your experience.
- Why did you get the result you got?
- What were your contributions to that result?
- What other factors impacted your ability to get that result?
- What motivated you the most/least?
STEP 4: What are your NEXT STEPS? Now take your learnings and apply them toward your 2020 plan.
- What are you doing well that you’ll continue doing in 2020?
- What will you start doing in 2020?
- What will you stop doing in 2020?
- What will you make peace with that just wont change (something about yourself, others or your company)?
The after action assessment process is a simple, yet powerful, coaching tool to help you coach yourself, peers, direct reports and others. In this volatile and chaotic world, it’s often difficult to slow down and take the time to focus on the important. The urgent easily takes over and your focus shifts from your goals to other people’s goals. As a coach you can help others see this by utilizing this simple after action assessment approach.
Get your complimentary Ultimate Goal Setting Guide Here!
If you want to get ahead of the game and create your best year yet in 2019, download our Ultimate Goal Setting Guide now for free. This detailed, 6-step, 39-page guide is the real deal. You’ll find reflection exercises that will challenge your current state and set you up for success the New Year.
Use it yourself, share it with others, and make 2020 intentional!
Wishing you and your loved ones a safe, happy, healthy and peaceful holiday season.
Sal Silvester and the entire 5.12 Solutions Consulting Group Team.