Most “year-in-review” sessions produce three things: a crowded whiteboard, a few vague resolutions, and zero behavior change by February. If you want 2026 to look different, treat December like a leadership lab: codify what worked, name what didn’t, and convert both into systems your teams can run without heroics. Gallup’s latest global snapshot is a warning flare: engagement stalled in 2024 and manager engagement fell, dragging team performance with it, so the way you close the year matters.
This is where Lead With Purpose comes in.
Make the Review Safe and Useful
High-performing teams share one foundation: psychological safety. No safety, no truth; no truth, no improvement. Google’s Project Aristotle found psychological safety to be the top driver of team effectiveness. Your review must be designed to surface candor without punishment. Use turn-taking, visible facilitation rules, and “facts before opinions.”
You can also borrow from the Army’s After-Action Review (AAR) (adapted widely in business): What was supposed to happen? What actually happened? Why were there differences? What will we sustain and improve? Harvard Business Review’s guidance is clear: avoid pro-forma AARs by debunking myths (it’s not blame, not a post-mortem, and not leader-led monologue) and by documenting concrete adjustments.
The One Page Purpose Plan™ Year-End Flow
Tie the whole review to your One Page Purpose Plan™ so the conversation anchors to purpose, metrics, and priorities, not personalities.
- Wins We’ll Keep (Continue). Start with what to continue so you protect proven behaviors, not just chase new toys. A simple Start/Stop/Continue frame keeps the room focused and actionable.
- Friction We’ll Remove (Stop). Kill work that doesn’t serve the plan: meetings, reports, or KPIs that don’t move the mission.
- Experiments We’ll Run (Start). Convert insights into small, time-boxed experiments owned by named leaders. The “start/stop/continue” cadence is widely used in effective retrospectives because it maps reflection to action quickly.
Pro tip: reflection isn’t “soft.” Controlled studies show structured reflection measurably boosts performance, especially early in the learning curve. Treat it like a productivity tool, not therapy.
A 90-Minute Year-End Review Agenda You Can Run This Week
- 10 min – Frame the purpose (mission, measures from the One Page Purpose Plan™, and facilitation rules for psychological safety).
- 25 min – Continue: name the 3–5 behaviors, processes, or plays to protect; pair each with an owner.
- 25 min – Stop: identify the top 3 value-destroyers (meetings, reports, bottlenecks). Commit to a kill date and success criteria.
- 20 min – Start (as experiments): design two “Jam Dives” (rapid improvement sprints) you’ll run in January; define hypothesis, metric, and DRI. Evidence shows learning sticks when reflection converts to specific next actions.
- 10 min – Recognition round: public, values-anchored shout-outs; schedule monthly cycles for 2026. Timely recognition beats annual awards.
Bottom Line: Reflection is a performance system.
Close the year by making it safe to tell the truth, rigorous enough to learn from it, and operational enough to do something with it. With Lead With Purpose, and tools like the One Page Purpose Plan™, AARs, Jam Dives, and Bravo Zulu, you can turn “what went well/what went wrong” into a culture that compounds.
Cited Sources
- Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2024 (engagement trends, manager impact). (Healthy Work Company)
- Business Insider summary of Gallup 2024/2025 manager engagement findings (context and figures). (Business Insider)
- Google re:Work, Project Aristotle (psychological safety & team effectiveness). (Rework)
- PsychSafety overview of Project Aristotle (background). (Psych Safety)
- Harvard Business Review, “A Better Approach to After-Action Reviews.” (Harvard Business Review)
- Wharton, “After-Action Reviews: A Simple Yet Powerful Tool.” (Wharton Executive Education)
- Gino, Di Stefano, Pisano, Staats: Learning by Thinking: The Role of Reflection in Individual Learning (research on reflection improving performance). (Harvard Business School)
- Start/Stop/Continue retrospective—recent practitioner guides. (BetterUp)
- Investopedia, “How Delayed Recognition is Eroding Workplace Loyalty” (2025; synthesizes Achievers, Workhuman/Gallup). (Investopedia)
- Literature review on recognition’s link to engagement/retention. (BPAS Journals)
- Gary Klein, Performing a Project Premortem (HBR). (Harvard Business Review)