What Is an After Action Review? How to Study Your Wins Like Your Losses

0:03Welcome to Leadership DNA, a podcast for those who aspire to be a better leader. Alongside Arturo Gomez, I'm Rob Cressy. And today's topic, Study the Wins Just Like the Losses. Arturo, I obviously understand what this is, but what is studying the wins just like the losses? I think it's, well, you know, it's my interpretation of creating a more stable environment for the team. And what I mean by that is that we tend to, as we go through life, and this can be, you know, in our corporate leadership examples, it can be in our home environment, it can be just in everyday life.

0:48We tend to, we tend to focus just on, we tend to analyze or overanalyze the things that seem to be wrong, or the losses. You know, you see it in sports, you see it in school and the academic environment, and you certainly see it in the entrepreneurial or in the corporate environment. And so, one of the things that I started doing years ago was trying to, in this pursuit of really trying to create some consistency with my team, in creating efficiencies and trying to make everybody better every day. I thought that there was something really interesting that my focus with them and my coaching attention was really focused on, was really focused on obviously trying to train them up, prepare them.

1:36But you know, when there were instances where we felt like we didn't achieve what we were looking to achieve, or we, you know, quote unquote lost, there would be a tremendous amount of emphasis on those points. And really kind of how do we get better type of, type of scenario. You know, again, and you also see it in sports. It's like, we've all had those coaches where we lost a game the next, you know, the next day we're running laps and we're, we're doing a bunch of stuff that, you know, is it, is the coaches, was the coaches way of emphasizing, hey, we need to get better in these certain things. And, and I agree that those are real great opportunities to improve. I also found, though, that I was able to create a greater level of consistency with my team by also studying the wins. Okay. And so when, when we win or when we achieve success, there's a lot of things that go into that in its preparation, its talent.

2:33But there's also a big chunk of that that's luck. And so I think when you, when you kind of step back and you sit down with the leaders of your group or your teammates, and you actually start analyzing the reasons that we won and having dialogue and emphasizing and reemphasizing those type of behaviors that you get closer to this level of efficiency.

2:57And this kind of this level of teamwork and camaraderie that everybody is searching for. I also think that the reinforcement of positives, positively reinforcing positives actually gets you to a point way faster than actually trying to reinforce and coach things that maybe didn't go wrong. So you have to discuss both part of coaching and party leadership is guidance.

3:23And it's always giving feedback, whether things were great or whether things could be improved. But I've, I've found that by actually analyzing and emphasizing here are the reasons that we won guys, you guys did a fantastic job. Let's do that again. And it, you know, it really, it really developed a stronger cadence, marching us down the field towards success.

3:45Let's talk about luck for a second, because that's a key word that stands out that we often hear about people who get lucky, but then anybody who's has a growth mindset knows that luck oftentimes is when preparation meets the opportunity. So you are someone who was prepared to take advantage of the opportunity. So something good happens. So when we look at the sort of the juxtaposition between studying the wins and where luck comes into things, I would like to say that, am I someone who is lucky? I don't really think that way. Am I somebody who wins a lot? Yes, I am. But how do you think about the luck side? Because a lot of people think about luck as a thing, and it can almost be a scapegoat for I'm not lucky or we're not lucky or we got lucky.

4:37And what you're talking about of studying the wins almost removes luck from the equation, even though there is a certain element of, hey, some fortunate things did happen to us. But if we're keeping the positive thinking, everything negative doesn't just have to happen to us. No, right. You know, I say, I think, for me, I think that there's always an element of luck or chance involved in a lot of life. I mean, there's, there's, you know, I, there's many examples littered throughout my entire, you know, entrepreneurial career and certainly throughout my life where, you know, you prepare as much as you possibly can and you do the things that you, you should be doing to get to that next level or where you want to go.

5:26So, but, you know, there, oftentimes you just, the, the stars are aligned and things work out. So, but, you know, I don't, I don't put a ton of emphasis on that. I don't really even bring a lot of that into my dialogue when I'm coaching. I think it's something that I keep in the back of my mind that there is, you know, and the same, the same thing also can happen where, you know, again, it's not, it's not necessarily bad luck or the absence of luck, but you can prepare until you're blue in the face. And sometimes you just don't, you just don't win. You just don't get to that level where you want to be. And so I think, you know, that aside, I do think though, again, that there, those opportunities of finding, you know, coachable moments in success rather than just coaching moments where things were not necessarily achieved is a huge driver for development. You know, personal development.

6:23And that really is one of the main responsibilities of a leader. You have to continue to develop your people. And that's also why I believe it is so important to focus on efforts as opposed to the result, because sometimes it's just not going to work your way. But did you give everything that you could? Did you do everything that you can in a situation to put yourself in the best position to succeed? And for me, I'm always going to give the most effort that I can, because that's something that I can control.

6:53And if everything didn't go my way that time, that's okay. That doesn't mean it's a failure. So you talked about things in terms of why this is important and we get it. But I want to reiterate sort of the positive side of things and the repetition of positivity in the good, because you hear, should I focus on my strengths or should I focus on fixing up my weaknesses? And I'm curious on sort of your thought process on those two things, because you hear it a lot in business, in entrepreneurship.

7:24And as someone who started as a solo entrepreneur, you're continually learning and doing things you've never done before. So how do you, do you keep doing more of what you're great at, but does that allow other things that you're not as much? Where should you be focusing your time? I mean, I think it, I think it's, well, you know, from an individual level, again, you know, you can kind of draw back to some of those conversations that we've had about passion versus purpose.

7:50You know, if you're, if we're really discussing the idea of actually having an objective from a entrepreneurial standpoint and really trying to achieve a specific goal. I think that you have to, there's time to work on weaknesses or development. And I think that there's also a time where you have to put strengths in the best places to actually succeed.

8:18And so, you know, what I, what I do anytime that we're approaching anything, it's, it's always really a tremendous focus on making sure that we have the best people in the, in the places that we need for that particular success. But, you know, on the, on the flip side, I think that there is opportunity, obviously for us individually to spend some time focusing on making ourselves uncomfortable, right. Making ourselves uncomfortable to really kind of develop and push ourselves into new spaces.

8:48As an entrepreneur, you have to be extremely nimble and you have to be doing, you know, you have to be capable of a lot of different things, whether it's marketing, whether it's management, whether it's operations, those things require. They're, they're, they're, they're not all the same skillset. So they're going to require some time and some emphasis on, in developing those things. So I'm on board with studying the wins just like the losses, but I'm curious on how you do this and how you're intentional about it.

9:18Because it's something that when I look at sort of my DNA, I'm someone who hates to lose more than I do liking to win. Because I've got that drive in me that says, I'm not going to lose. I'm not going to give up. And I like this idea. I'm someone who's team good vibes. I'm positive all the time with my mindset. And I like the idea of, in a post report saying, all right, what are the things that we did great of that we can do more of?

9:45So how do you actually do this in an intentional way? I mean, the way I do it is pretty, is pretty easy. I mean, again, the goal and the objective is to create consistencies and to create, to go through these patterns of repetition so that we can get to a high level or a high operating level for the team. And so it's, it's as simple as having great dialogue.

10:10You know, this isn't, sometimes there's opportunities to create a more formal environment where, you know, it's, it's surrounding a meeting and we're talking about how, you know, perhaps whether it was a sales goal or whatever the, whatever the goal was, how that was particularly achieved and or missed. But it's also sometimes just taking individual members of the team aside and having discussion with them.

10:34You know, I always tell people, I said, you know, for better or for worse, you're always going to hear something from me. You're going to always hear something. And it's going to be, it's going to be real time. I believe in real time feedback. And so what that means is if I see somebody that has done something great, if I find the next available moment or opportunity to actually, you know, grab them, pull them aside and say, I saw what you did.

11:03And I think it was fantastic. There's an, there is a real opportunity to reinforce those things. And I think sometimes as leaders, we're very quiet when we see others doing things that they technically should be doing. Okay, great. Everybody's doing their job. I'm not going to say anything. Well, you should, you should be telling people that they're doing exactly what we, what we practiced, that they're doing a great job.

11:29And that to me is where you great, you create a real speed towards success because anybody can, anybody can complain and point out the things that people aren't doing correctly. Right. That is real typical the misalignment or the typical behavior from people that are, you know, calling themselves leaders. Leadership is about, is about getting results at the end of the day. And you're not going to individually get results.

11:57It's always going to be a team, a team effort, however you look at it. And so you really have to be able to reinforce. And it's, it's also playing on that emotional, that emotional kind of level that we've talked about in a preview in several of the previous podcasts in terms of how emotional intelligence comes into play. If your team doesn't trust you or they don't feel like you're actually committed and involved, and you're seeing not only the stuff that needs improvement, but also seeing the good, they're not going to, the, the bilateral trust in faith that needs to exist in a relationship of high achievers. You're not going to get there. I've got a very simple way that you can work on recognition. And this is something that I actually did. I believe it was two months ago. So every month I do a new habits of the month, something that I'm going to cultivate.

12:50That's going to add something positive to my life. So every day for a month I was working on recognition. So I wanted to make sure to have a heightened awareness to recognize others. And this wasn't just business. This is an everyday life that I go. So I can be at the grocery store, getting my hair cut, walking around West Loop, whatever. I'm out there with an intention of recognition. So once a day I would have a little check mark. Did I recognize someone for something?

13:20And here's what I learned through this. It's a beautiful thing because all of a sudden when you've got a heightened awareness for recognition, you roll into target and you notice the cashier has, I don't know, nice nails. I'm like, hey, you know what? You have really pretty nails right there. And what it's doing is giving those good vibes to somebody else. And very similar to this positive mindset that we're talking about of like, well, why do we want to reinforce positive things that someone's supposed to do? Because in this world in which we live in, there is so many emotions, so much negativity, so many distractions that we can be an opportunity to add positivity to someone's life, even if just on a micro basis. And this costs no money. It takes very little thought process other than some intention. So when I'm walking around, I've got my head up and I'm looking and I'm like, all right, I want to recognize someone for something they do. And guess what happens? That person smiles, they light up. Boom, I go on with my day. But you have no idea how much of an impact that could have on someone because you don't know if they're having a good or bad day. And when was the last time somebody gave them some good vibes or recognized them for something? And oh, by the way, they can pay it forward because if someone's going to compliment me on someone, guess what I'm going to do?

14:42I'm probably going to pay that forward and say, hey, by the way, I like this about you. Yeah, I mean, it's again, I think, you know, I don't know if there's ever been a study done on how, you know, how people can learn at greater speeds when there is constant feedback coming to them, even in the good. Again, our expectations in the way that we, I think, have been designed, people need to do their job.

15:08And, you know, we don't really commend people when they actually do a great job. We don't do it enough. I'm not going to say that we don't do it because I have been around individuals and, you know, certainly myself. And I have seen it. I've seen it done. Great coaches, that's what they do. But, you know, I think that there's a lack of it. And I think that there's a real opportunity from a leadership standpoint and a development standpoint to continue to push on those things that people, that they have been performing well and also the things that they should be improving on. All right. So we've talked about how we can do this for others. But I'm curious about how you study the wins for yourself. Yeah. I mean, you know, that's a real challenge. I think we all are obviously our own biggest critics, right?

16:03And so I think I learned at a very young age to never really spend too much time applauding myself and my wins because, you know, I attribute this, you know, to my father. I didn't really understand it at a young age. But, you know, he really created humbleness in, you know, a level of humbleness in how you proceed through life.

16:32And so, you know, sometimes I often look at the wins and I maybe don't spend enough time actually analyzing them and assessing them for myself in a way that I probably should. So that, I mean, I think that that's a great question. I think it is sometimes easier to look outward rather than to look inward. And, but you're right. I mean, it's a great question. I think everybody will handle it differently. But I think that there's a real opportunity there.

17:02I think that there's a real opportunity to actually look at the things that you've done. And whether it's, you know, your personal quest to get in better shape, whether it's your performance at work, I do think that we should take a moment and give ourselves a pat on the back for being disciplined and getting up at six in the morning to do, you know, a 10 mile run or that we've created a level of focus in our diet or whatever it is that we're trying to achieve. There's always the opportunity to do that. And unfortunately, we tend to play mind games and head games with ourselves. And we tend to really emphasize the things that we aren't or that in our mind, we're thinking that we're not doing well, right? I mean, that's a whole nother episode in terms of the mind games that we play with ourselves. But, you know, we tend to be, we tend to beat ourselves up more than anybody could ever possibly do.

17:59And so, yeah, there's a moment there that I think that we can get better by looking at the individual things that we personally have accomplished. And I think we should, we should do that. And here is how I work on this and so can you. And it's nice and simple. For me, I do journaling every day. It's something called morning pages. If you've ever read the book, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, she really talks about morning pages as a way of getting the thoughts that are in your head and getting them out of your head by writing them down on paper. So as a creative, I'm like, all right, the way that I start my day, meditation, gratitude, affirmations, and journaling. So when looking at, hey, how can we be intentional about recognizing our wins without not looking forward? Because that's really what a lot of us do is we get a win and boom, we're onto the next thing. It's a great trait to have.

18:54But if we wanted to cultivate more of the studying of the wins, you know what I would do is when something good happens the next day in my journaling, what I'm likely to do is just to talk it out to myself. You know what? I'm really proud that I did blah, blah, blah. And have no filter, remove your editing brain and just let it flow because sometimes you just want to recognize yourself. And even if it's just in a 15 or 20 minute journaling session in the morning or at any time, it allows you to have that release and that recognition. So you're thinking about it, you're writing it and you're seeing it. Now all of a sudden, we've just had three touch points when previously we're just walking around with it in our head because you're right, playing mind games and head games, we're definitely going to do that episode because I just wrote that down. And the reason I do it is to get out of those head games because you want to have more thoughts or more room in your head for the thoughts of the things that you want to do, not these loops that just go over and over and over in our head. So that's why I created a practice to say, all right, I believe that when I can remove the things that are in my head, that chatter, good, bad, indifferent, anything in between, there's no judgment, it is going to serve me. And when you do it, boom, it works so well. And if you're someone who has never done journaling before, here's what I recommend. Start doing it just once. I found a lot of people struggle with saying, Rob, I can't sit still or I can't find time. Set aside 30 minutes and if you need to leave your house and go to a coffee shop or a park, change your environment. Get yourself in a situation where you can say, all right, I feel like I'm in a safe space right now where I can just unload my thoughts, whether you write them down by pen and paper or you write them down on your computer. But just start by doing it once and then see how you feel after that. And I found for me, I turned it into a daily practice. You don't have to, but it's a very freeing thing that I know myself and so many others, certainly on the creative side, use. I'm curious, Arturo, have you ever journaled before? God, I, you know, I did for sure. It was really heavily when I was traveling through, you know, I was fortunate enough to travel through Europe four summers in a row when I was in college. And I would journal every summer. It was more about the places, the people, and the adventures that we had, less about, I would say, less about a personal development. But it's always been something that's been on my list. And I'm one of those people that, you know, that has said I can't find time to do that. And there's always something that's kind of climbing up the ladder of importance rather than, you know, spending some time to do that. I, you know, I certainly find time throughout the day to have introspective, you know, thoughts to really kind of, to just assess the day, assess the coming days and to look at it like that. But I think the idea of journaling, I think is incredibly, I think it's a great idea and I think it's really important that people actually should do that. So I'm going to, I'm going to actually start. I love this. And if you want to dig a little bit deeper, Google morning pages or read Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way. And I'm actually going to give a few book recommendations around studying the wins just like the losses because I'm a student of the game of personal development, leadership, mindset, entrepreneurship, business, you name it. So here's three of them that I really enjoyed. One, The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh. If you are a football fan and a leader, this is one of the best books in the world. And then the next one, Coach Wooden's Pyramid of Success by John Wooden. This is just a classic of all classics. And this one, for any of you hip hop fans out there, this book was just so good. I flew through it. It's called Three Kings, Diddy, Dre, Jay-Z, and hip hop's million, multi-billion dollar rise. And it essentially, what it does is it chronicles the start of hip hop all the way through the empires that Dre, Jay-Z, and Diddy have built and the mindset and the leadership and the entrepreneurship that it has taken for them to build their businesses. So being a student of the game, not that I'm building a hip hop empire, but guess what? I am building an empire. So I want to know how they're doing it and I live, and I love hip hop. So the entire thing is just juicy all over the place. Do you have any book recommendations you want to throw out? Not in this instance. I don't. Because I think that, I do think this is somewhat of a newer concept. I think the books that you recommended are fantastic. No, I don't have a particular book that stands out. So let's get to your action item or takeaway from this episode. It's more of a, it's more of a takeaway and, you know, again, leadership is we have a responsibility to the future and that future is the talent and the team that we have around us. And don't, you know, you can't just focus and emphasize on what people are doing wrong. I think that if you even experiment and try to start highlighting and coaching and discussing the things that people are doing right every day, every day in our workplaces, and our environments as leaders, there's hundreds of things that are going on that are actually right. People should be reinforced and we should let them know, thank you're doing great, do that again, that's exactly what we've, that's exactly what we've practiced and you will see a very quick, you know, you will gain the efficiencies and the repetition that I think that people want. And you know what that's also going to do? It's going to build culture because when you give this positivity that's out there, that will create culture and certainly right now, culture is gigantic and maybe that's another topic for another day for us is the building of culture as leaders. For me, I've got two action items. One, for any of you who have never journaled before or you previously did and you got away from it, I recommend give journaling a try.

25:17Have no expectations whatsoever. Set a timer for 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes or don't even set a timer at all. Just sit there with the paper and let it go. And the second one is around recognition that I want you to recognize people more and the simple way for you to do it is today or this week, go ahead and make it a point to recognize one person. If you really want to be advantageous, go ahead and do this for a week. Once a day, recognize one person. You know how doing this? If you have a planner in the morning or something that starts your day, go ahead and write down recognize next to it. Boom, you're going to see that and that awareness and all of a sudden your radar is going to be on to recognize and guess what? Oftentimes, it is the people closest to us, family members, children, friends, co-workers that we don't recognize enough. It's the people closest to us that don't get these gifts and just imagine if we sort of blend what Arturo said as well as I did and we add more positivity to the people around us and we do so in a way where we recognize them and then God forbid we study those wins by journaling them. What in the world do you think you will look like as a leader? You will be so much more well-rounded but guess what? So will everybody around you. Arturo, really enjoyed this conversation.

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