Reboot Podcast Episode Wisdom for Work #17 – The Power of Retrospectives: Learning From the Past To Shape the Future – with Andy Crissinger

Top Quotes:

“A retrospective is just a process by which we analyze and codify learnings from some kind of past action.” – Andy Crissinger

“Essentially, a retrospective is an opportunity for us to pause, zoom up a little bit, reflect on past action, draw out some learnings so that we can carry those learnings forward in future decisions and actions and processes that we take with our teams.” – Andy Crissinger

“I think these are these kinds of exercises are important to do on a regular basis, regardless of whether an initiative is going well or has been successful, or whether it’s gone poorly or gone off the rails.” – Andy Crissinger

“The emphasis is on ‘we,’ what can we learn together? And it acknowledges that a team is a system of multiple parts.” – Andy Crissinger

“The retrospective process, having a regular ritual of collective learning that you can come back to, I think helps build a sense of resiliency among the team. having that process built into your team experience, I think can help a group become more resilient and have more of a sense of stability even in highly dynamic conditions.” – Andy Crissinger

“If you practice this, the team will get better at it. They’ll start to internalize the pattern of inquiry. And it’s something that can happen without a lot of you know, heavy lifting around process and setting things up.” – Andy Crissinger

“It’s important as we think about retrospectives. To also think carefully about our concept of failure, especially if we’re in the leader’s seat, how we frame failure goes a long way. Are we creating an environment where we’re actually making people afraid of failure.” – Andy Crissinger

“There’s an opportunity again to destigmatize, reframe failure as more of a natural byproduct of what happens when we experiment and innovate.” – Andy Crissinger