Written by: Brent Lowe, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
At some point, every early-stage company faces the same problem. Your team has grown. Five people then 10, now more than 20. When it was five, you gave each other real-time feedback daily–maybe even hourly. At 10 people, you stumbled through. Founders stepped in to have the occasional tough conversation.
Now your team is too big. Feedback loops need to be more intentional. The idea of traditional top-down performance management cycles makes your stomach churn. Too bureaucratic. Too one-sided. Too old-school.
When a clear path forward is elusive and time is in short supply, we go with what we know, or we avoid making any decision. The company ends up with a painful annual performance review process, or no process at all.
With so many of our clients asking for a solution, we went searching for better options. Not finding any we liked, we began prototyping something new. It’s working well. We call it the personal retrospective.
A retrospective is nothing more than a set of questions for reflecting on–and learning from–the recent past. A personal retrospective narrows the context to a single individual and their colleagues. Unlike annual performance reviews, personal retrospectives recur throughout the year. Having these conversations frequently normalizes the process. It also strips away the emotion (and dread) inherent in the traditional annual review.
A personal retro provides an opportunity to discuss what participants have learned. It covers what has been working well and what will help going forward. The conversations have a comfortable, casual feel.
How often?
We recommend scheduling personal retrospectives every other month, every quarter or every four months. The conversations can also align with the end of a project. Building cadence into your personal retrospective routine takes discipline. There will always be urgent issues fighting for a higher spot on your priority list. Feedback loops—information flowing through the system—are critical to your team’s success and worth prioritizing.
Who Participates?
No one person has the whole story. The more people included in a personal retrospective, the more of the story gets revealed. Personal retrospectives can include as few as two people. We recommend three to five. Participants can come from a preset invitation list or open invitation. Open invitations ensure anyone having helpful information can join.
What Questions?
Come up with a set of questions that work best in your context. To start, consider using the following four questions, each beginning with the letter L.
Liked - What 3-4 things have I LIKED about working together over the last [time period]?
Learned - What 3-4 things have I LEARNED from working with you over the last [time period]? (Learned about each other, about the company, about the industry, about our roles, etc.)
Lacked - Thinking back over the last [time period], where did my performance in my role or my interactions with you LACK? (I could have done better.) *This question is primarily for the individual at the center of the retrospective.
Longed For - Over the last [time period] what 3-4 things have I LONGED FOR, which had they been present, would have made our working relationship and shared output better?
How does it flow?
In a pre-scheduled meeting—usually 60 minutes in length—participants share their answers for each of the questions. We recommend completing rounds, one for each question. For example, when using the 4L questions, everyone shares their likes in the first round. Next everyone shares their learnings and so on. Keep going until everyone has shared every idea they have.
Now what?
On its own, a retrospective conversation is helpful. It unearths new information, clarifies assumptions, and gains alignment. The best personal retrospective goes one step further. It identifies a short list of actions that the individual at the center of the personal retrospective intends to take. The individual sends a note to the other participants thanking them for their time and answering three questions:
What did you hear, learn and take away from this personal retrospective?
What actions are you committed to taking coming out of the conversation?
How would you like to be held accountable to those actions?
Participants can ask clarifying questions. They can also re-engage in conversation if important elements get missed.
Give it a try
It's time to experiment. If you'd like a copy of our Personal Retrospective Guide where we go into further detail including templates, visit BASE Associates here!
Delivering difficult, respectful feedback in a personal retrospective can be a challenge. For tips on how to have the healthiest, most productive personal retrospective conversations, watch out for my next article Personal Retrospectives: Tips for giving difficult feedback
Brent Lowe, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Brent is a leading performance coach helping founders show up as their best selves within thriving, purpose-driven teams. As the Scale Coach for Founder CEOs, Brent works with entrepreneurs and leaders who are growing the size and impact of their businesses to tackle local and global challenges. He is also the lead coach at BASE Associates, a premiere provider of support to early-stage businesses, and co-author of Lead Together: The bold, brave and intentional path to scaling your business. Brent's purpose is to accelerate positive progress in the world, one leader, one conversation, one aspiration at a time.
