Culture Matters: Building the Wise Firm

Two skinny vanilla lattes. Both sugar-free.

One hot chocolate.

One flavor of the day.

One Café Mocha.

One medium roast.

One London Fog—sugar-free and skinny.

An iced coffee, room for milk.

And one dark roast with an extra shot.

That’s my team’s coffee order. 

At 15 years old, I couldn’t help it. Sitting behind the wheel, equipped with a learner’s permit, my dad for an instructor, and no prior driving experience, I kept my eyes glued to the road immediately in front of my car. How else could I ensure the road was clear and I was staying in my lane? “Focus your eyes farther in front of the car,” my dad told me. “Glance in your mirrors more often.” It was scary at first, but as soon as I learned to focus farther out, my driving improved. This is external focus—the vision that provides perspective to improve results.

There is an important growth, engagement and learning opportunity that the best teams will make a priority: the after action review (AAR). In addition to regular check-ins and course corrections throughout a project or client engagement, the AAR is a discipline that will help us all to #beEVENbetter. Here’s the great news, it doesn’t have to be a long, taxing process. Here are four questions, with a few best practices, that our team uses to make sure we are learning and growing continuously while engaging every member of the team.