Sorry to say it, but the year is basically over.
We know. It’s nuts.
And in the tumult of wrapping up the year—in the hustle of completing projects and getting ready for performance reviews—it’s easy to lose sight of the annual opportunity that the fourth quarter presents: a chance to take stock, to reset, and to refine your strategy. It’s the chance, every year, to figure out what’s next .
Here’s a secret: the solution designers at Collective Next love this time of year. They love getting a team together into a room to talk about the big ideas and big challenges, getting the opportunity to explore the stuff you tried this year that didn’t work and trying to figure out why. But how do you have these conversations in a productive way? How can we get ready, and excited, to have the best year ever?
You gotta look back to look forward
Thinking about next year should always begin with a thoughtful analysis of this year. Before the details escape you, before you get completely sucked in to the impending Q1 that’s just around the corner, this time of year is the perfect opportunity to ask yourself and your team some questions:
How do we feel about the year overall?
What worked well? What do we deserve to celebrate? What was amazing and what did we achieve, whether we expected it or not?
How do our customers feel about the year we just had?
Have we asked them what worked and what didn’t work? What insights do they have to share with us?
Where did we gain momentum?
Did we make a change to our overall strategy or ways of working that we don’t want to lose sight of?
Overall, what did we learn this year?
What insights do we have about the year as it concludes? When you think about the year as whole, what sticks out to you?
Answering these questions isn’t just an intellectual exercise or a chance to pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. It’s the beginning of a critical reflection that we don’t always take the time to perform, especially when things are busy. But it’s during those hectic times, when we’re feeling overwhelmed, that it’s most important to pause, to take a breath, and to focus. Taking the time to ask these questions lets us slow down so that we can speed up.
It’s one thing to think about the answers to these questions yourself, or even to have some one-on-ones with members of your team to gather their thoughts. But to really begin the process of getting ready for an amazing 2024, we recommend pulling your entire team together to generate and capture their insights.
What else might be involved in such a collaboration? We’ll explore that and a whole lot more in the coming months. Stay tuned for our next newsletter or, if you just can’t wait to find out more, reach out to us today.