Episode 15: Post Mortems

Hi Friends, Welcome to Episode 15. Today I want to talk to you about Post Mortems. Now we are not actually going to talk about cutting dead things open and figuring out what might have killed them but we are going to use this as an analogy.

When you watch your favorite crime show or if you are a veterinarian, you might be pretty familiar with post mortems. They are done to get information! Information can be gleaned from outside and from the inside. Some diagnoses are easy and some diagnoses take extra tests and a second set of eyes to figure them out. But the important part is that we get the information. We can learn from the things that were working well. Where there was no problem and therefore not the cause of death and we learn where there was a problem and untimely where the most severe problem was or the ultimate cause of death.

Now I think there are many situations where we can use this concept of post mortems, maybe your day, your week, your month, your year, maybe just each project you work on. I think any time we come to a checkpoint or an endpoint we can do a post mortem on the part that is complete.

But how do you look back and gather information so you know what you need to do differently as you move forward?

I think the simplest way is to do this with just 3 questions.

Now it’s a bit important that we do these questions in order and spend time on each question. Skipping over any of them might just leave us missing really important information.

First question!

What worked? What went right? What is healthy? What is there nothing wrong with?

It's so important that you spend time with this question.

It will help you get in the mindset where you can look at the information as information. When we are looking at the actions of ourselves, we have a tendency to be very harsh and often judgemental so setting our mindset to be able to see the positive will help you to really look at it from a perspective of neutrality. Actually, seeing things as information and not judging ourselves as good or bad but just being able to objectively look at the things that have happened.

Think about a post mortem on an animal. The animal wasn’t good or bad if it had lung lesions- it simply had lung lesions caused by a particular pathogen.

Ok so what went right.

This might sound something like this:

I showed up every day and worked on the project.

I took time to stop and rest.

I took a lot of small actions toward completing the project. And then make a list of every one of these actions.

I sent the emails and reminders that I needed to send for the project. And make a list of these actions.

I spoke up in a meeting.

 I asked the questions that I needed to ask to get the information that I needed to make progress with the project.

If you’re looking back at a year with a money goal – you might write down the exact amount of money you did create.

If you are looking back at a month with a weight loss goal – you might record all the days that you ate the things you planned to eat, you may write down the things you learned about yourself – the foods that your body really likes or that make you feel good, the foods that you find tempting.

Really take some time with this question. Your brain will not like it especially if you are looking back at something that is a goal that you haven’t quite reached yet or looking at something that you would consider a failure. Your brain will want to jump on to the next question but I encourage you to not move on too fast.

Try to make this list as exhaustive as possible.

And when you think you have exhausted the list – try to come up with 5 more things and then move on to the next question.

Question 2: What didn’t work? Or what went wrong? What is unhealthy? What is there something wrong with?

This question is much easier for our negative biased brains. But I encourage you to write these things out as neutral facts if you can.

So really watch the adjectives that you use in this section.

Things like: “that was a disaster,” “shouldn’t have happened,” “destroyed everything,” “this is a big problem,” “we can’t have this happening” – those kinds of things won’t help your cause for looking at this as information.

So, this section might sound something like:

There were a few tasks that I didn’t complete – then I would right out what those were.

There were questions that I could have asked beforehand to better understand the project.

There were issues that I didn’t speak up about.

I missed attending some key meetings where I would have learned about the expectations for the project.

I took on 5 projects when I only had time to complete 2 of them so each project didn’t get the time that it needed.

I didn’t ask for help when I got overwhelmed with requests on Tuesday and so I didn’t do the projects as well as I would have liked too.

I got scared and so I just ignored the request

I was very stressed and so I overate to take my mind off the stress and give me some relief from feeling it.

I felt deprived by my diet so I ordered dessert that I hadn’t planned for so I could have something I would enjoy trying to feel better.

I spent the additional money so I could look like the others in the group.

Once again, don’t judge yourself for this or really watch for judgment here. We want to see the things that didn’t go right so that we can learn from them, not so we can beat the crap out of ourselves.

And finally question 3:

What am I going to do differently next time?

This is the learning from it, question. This is where we take the information that we gathered from the past experience and we come up with a plan for moving forward.

This will include – the things we will do again – the wins. This worked last time so I am going to keep doing that.

And most importantly it will include the things we would change.

This might sound something like this:

Next time when they schedule meetings that overlap and I know that it is important that I am at both meetings, I will request that one meeting be changed or I will ask one of my coworkers to attend for me so that I don’t miss out on any information.

Next time when I am in an important meeting, I will not be checking my email at the same time.

Next time, I will ask the question that I had the same way that I did and then I will follow up with an additional question or re-ask my question if the answer doesn’t make sense or if they do not answer the question.

Next time I will be willing to feel the stress and overwhelm and will just allow the feeling to be there for 5 mins. I do not need to use food to hide the feeling.

Our successes and failures do not mean we are any better or any worse than others around us. They are simply information we can learn from and grow upon. Take the time to gather the information that they have to offer and then make a game plan for how you will move forward from each one.

As we get in the habit of these types of reflections, we will gain new insight into ourselves and be able to reach new heights by simply building upon the experiences of the past.

It will be fun.

Have a wonderful week.