What Are This Year’s Results Actually Telling You?
Understanding how you achieved a result helps you judge what the business can sustain.
As you review this year’s results, it’s natural to start with whether the business met its goals. Understanding what produced those results takes a closer look.
A team may have improved turnaround times because a process became more efficient, or because employees regularly stayed late. Customer retention may be strong because service is consistently good, or because a manager steps in whenever something goes wrong.
The results can look similar while telling you very different things about the business.
Before setting next year’s expectations, consider what it took to achieve this year’s results. What improved in how the work gets done? Where did people compensate for something that still isn’t working? What circumstances helped or hurt performance that are unlikely to happen again next year?
Give people credit for their effort, and examine what it reveals. If meeting a goal required months of extra hours or constant intervention, carrying that expectation into next year deserves discussion.
Understanding how you achieved a result helps you judge what the business can sustain, what needs attention, and what you can build on.
