We can’t say it any better than the Nobel Prize Winner, Bob Dylan:
The times they are A-changin’.
Technology, Social Media, World Events. You name it, the world moves quickly and you have to adapt. These are just a few of the elements that impact your business.
With each new day, it can feel like there is more that you have to learn and then determine how to respond.
What is essential to being agile and adapting to the changing business environment?
A responsive and inclusive debriefing system.
Instituting an effective debriefing system not only makes you able to respond to changing market conditions, it builds a culture of trust and learning leading to high performing teams.
According to Doug Sundheim a leadership and strategy consultant, and author of Taking Smart Risks: How Sharp Leaders Win When Stakes are High,
“Debriefing is a structured learning process designed to continuously evolve plans while they’re being executed. It originated in the military as a way to learn quickly in rapidly changing situations and to address mistakes or changes on the field. In business, debriefing has been widely documented as critical to accelerating projects, innovating novel approaches, and hitting difficult objectives.”
And like everything, the devil is in the details. The art of debriefing is in the execution.
You want a discussion that gets to core issues and stimulates creative thinking for the future of the company. Part of the process is highlighting both what went right as well as what went wrong.
If not done correctly, a debriefing session can collapse into finger pointing or territory guarding.
You want people to leave a debriefing session feeling valued and energized to take on the next challenge. To do that, it is necessary to create an atmosphere where everyone is on a level playing field and feels empowered to speak their mind.
Debriefing sessions can be as little as 10 minutes or as long as a couple of hours depending on the scope of the project. To have value, debriefing should happen regularly. Some companies do mini debriefing sessions daily to set the agenda for the day, while others have sessions after completing bigger projects.
The key to success is that the debriefing feels valuable to all participants.
Check out our next blog where we will provide a step by step way to institute an effective debriefing process.