Resources

A DIY Guide to Your 2022 Team Wrap Up Conversation

As we reach the end of 2022 this is a great time to start thinking about a team conversation you can lead to harvest the gifts from 2022 and prepare the ground for 2023.

Over the coming six weeks, we encourage you to set aside time to facilitate a conversation with your team that is reflective in nature, and which gives each of your team members the chance to look back on 2022 and get set for 2023.

Step 1 – Set a Time Now!

The next six or seven weeks are some of the busiest in people’s social and work calendars in the push towards the end of the year. We encourage you to reach out early (this week) and set a time – say half a day – to get together and engage in a conversation that blends gratitude, optimism and ambition.

When you establish this ‘event’ via invitation it will be worthwhile letting everybody know why you want to facilitate this discussion and what it is you plan to cover. Below, we offer some ideas of the reflective questions you might include. It can help people to feel more comfortable about attending and preparing if they know what’s coming.

Step 2 – Design Your Event

Just a thought – gathering the team together either virtually or in person might ‘nicely’ dovetail with a formal Christmas team event. Consider that you might arrange your reflective session at the same time/on the same day as your team Christmas Party.

Depending on how festive you might feel, the design of your event may include choosing an offsite venue, a gifting ceremony, festive theming, and at the very least, a nice lunch.

As the leader, we are going to encourage you to facilitate this conversation yourself. Think about the mood you wish to create for the team, how you can engage the team with an opening conversation and how you can be explicit with your intent so that people understand why this conversation is important not only for you but for the team.

Consider designing your conversation using these guidelines:

Establish the objectives of your event, the agenda that you want to follow and the roles and responsibilities you wish each person to play. Engage your team in this conversation so that they are participating in the day from the start.

When you pose your first few questions, you might consider breaking the team into groups of 3-4 to get conversation going around the questions we offer below. At the beginning of an event it can feel overwhelming for team members to speak up in front of each other, so by moving into groups of 3-4 you create a different level of comfort, particularly for those people who are more introverted.

Move through the questions one at a time and capture people’s ideas on flipcharts. Try and reflect the ‘same words’ they use when you write them on flipcharts, so they know you’re listening. We also recommend leaving a margin on the left-hand side of the flipcharts. If you have a whole list of good ideas, use some sticky dots to identify which ones are most important to focus on. You can give each person three stickers and ask them to put their stickers on the left-hand side of the points that matter most to them.

Spend time acknowledging the inputs and efforts of all team members. We recommend starting with achievements and what has worked well during the last year since this boosts mood and morale.

Consider these questions as conversation catalysts:

What achievements are we most proud of?
What brave moves have we made and how have they panned out?
What are our lessons learned during 2022?
What brave moves would we like to make in 2023 and how can we assess the benefits and risks of each?
What are emerging as our key areas of focus in 2023?
How are we doing as a team, and what do we need to dial up and dial down – or stop, start and continue?
How are we measuring our success as a team?
How are we measuring our customers experience and how can we enhance that in 2023?
How connected do we feel to our work and how could we enhance that in 2023?
What moves do we each need to make to take better care of our health and wellbeing in 2023?
What’s important for each of us as we transition to a break?

You will most likely have your own questions that you’d like to add, but be mindful that each question is likely to take up at least half an hour to get some meaningful outputs. You might also notice that we’ve included some personal questions as well as team questions, since the wellbeing of your team should be a critical area of focus for every business.

Step 3 – Take Time For Your Own Reflection

Often, an event like this can reveal new insights for you as the leader. Insights about your leadership style, insights about the needs and aspirations of the team, insights about opportunities for the future and insights that will enhance team dynamics.

We encourage you to take time to reflect on the outcomes from the day. One way of doing this is to document what you captured on the flipcharts and to spend some time making sense of what you have extracted. Equally important is the communication you share after the event that helps your team understand that you have listened to what they have shared and are committed to a plan of action that demonstrates continuous improvement.

We’d love to hear how this reflective session is received by your team!

Paula & Tony

Tony and Paula are the Founders of Liberated Leaders and Lead Practitioners in Resource Advisory, a boutique advisory practice based in Sydney, Australia. They specialise in enabling leaders with skills practices to powerfully navigate change and disruption, via applied learning experiences in Australia, New Zealand, Asia-Pac, and the US. Click here to find out more about Tony and Paula