Inspecting What You Expect: The Importance Of Year-End Reviews

Three significant things to consider before you review

It’s just about that time again.

As we round the corner to Q4, the reality hits that it’s time for year-end reviews. Maybe some of you are rejoicing right now because they’re your jam. If so, more power to you!

But for the rest of you who may have grumbled or let out a defeated-but-knowing sigh, fear not.

But listen. Let’s address the elephant in the room.
 

Year-end reviews are work. They’re time-consuming. And sometimes, they’re hard. Awkward, even.

But something else they are? Absolutely, non-negotiably necessary. Why? Because experience doesn’t make you wiser. Evaluated experience makes you wiser.

So my goal today is to help you learn how to conduct a year-end review – one that focuses not just on financial performance but team performance and organizational culture.

I’ll outline a few things you can do on your own or with your team to wrap up and review the year to help you maximize what you learned from this year, remind you of all that you accomplished, and give you something to go back and celebrate with your team.

Why Metrics Matter

Metrics help leaders see and understand the greater narrative in business. They help you discover the bigger story through mistakes and successes when we pause to evaluate them.

Put simply, it’s hard to clearly see where you’re going when you don’t know where you’ve been.

But surprisingly, I’ve worked with thousands of leaders and business owners and the majority of them don’t do a year-end review.

Why?

Because they’re not organized. They don’t have good habits. And they don’t have a process in place. Maybe they don’t even have goals or they’re completely unclear on what they are as an organization.

That’s not to suggest they’re not good leaders. They’re probably good at a certain area of the business. Maybe they were the visionary to create the business but at the end of the day, they fall short when it comes to actually reviewing the metrics and diving down into the lessons and celebrations from a year of success that they had.

But success means measuring, monitoring and reviewing things so that you can continue to grow and make right decisions. It means inspecting what you expect. Without metrics, you can’t make the right decisions if you don’t know how you ended up where you are in the first place.

Things To Consider Before You Review

So you’re feeling motivated. Inspired, even. Let’s keep that momentum going – while considering three important factors:

1. Know Your Why

Start by having really clear goals and a vision for each year.

It’s not just about making X amount of profit, but how are you going about making that profit? How do you plan to go from where you are to becoming even better – the best in your industry or community? How many new clients do you want this year?

This is about taking your vision and putting a plan on paper to get there, making sure you continue to review and measure along the way.

If you don’t do that, how do you know if you’re making progress or faltering?

2. Expect Failure

Don’t be afraid to mess up – because invariably, you will. We all do.

Spend time each year looking back on what went wrong and what you might need to stop doing. These are the things that provided little to no ROI and maybe sounded great on paper but just didn’t pan out.

Don’t continue doing the same thing if it isn’t working, even if ‘you’ve always done it that way.’

The key here is to be honest with yourself, your team, and each other in assessing all the different elements of your company, like products, processes, and more.

3. Prepare To Be Transparent.

At our weekly staff meeting every Monday, I share different metrics and give a quick 10-minute ‘State of BELAY’ address.

Why? Because I choose to treat my team like adults.

When you do, you’ll gain their respect and you’ll never catch them off guard when there’s a big announcement or something changes.

Give revenue updates, hiring news, contractor pool updates, and information about where there might be gaps.

This is also a great time to share positive news and rally the troops. Do all this so when you get to the end of the year, everyone will pretty much already know whether it’s been a good year or not. There will be no surprises.

Putting Rubber To Road

Now, it’s time for the next step – finding a review that works for you and your organization.

To start, you’ll just need a simple template with key questions to ask and areas of the business to consider as you reflect on the year.

In each section, jot down your thoughts by yourself – and encourage everyone fill it out and share their perspective, too.

And with that, you’re one step closer to gathering the metrics you need to unlock limitless growth and opportunities for yourself, your team and your organization.

Tricia Sciortino is the CEO and board member of one of the nation's leading virtual assistant companies, BELAY. In addition to helping thousands of business leaders achieve new levels of success by leveraging the support of an assistant, the organization has landed on the Inc. 5000 list of Fastest-Growing Companies and Best Places to Work list multiple times under her leadership. Tricia is the author of Rise Up & Lead Well: How Leveraging as Assistant Will Change Your Life & Maximize Your Time, where she shares everything she’s learned in her decade at BELAY –leading assistants, training assistants, and even working as one early in her career — and knows the secrets for successfully hiring, training and onboarding one. She also co-hosts the One Next Step podcast, interviewing the most successful and insightful entrepreneurs to equip listeners with practical insight and advice for running a thriving, healthy organization. Visit www.BELAYSolutions.com  Connect Tricia Sciortino