After Action Review, or Hot Wash
“We tried to be tasteful and collaborative and diligent and mindful of craft and the rest in all the things we did, all the time. Everything counts. No detail is too small.” — Ken Kocienda, Creative Selection
If your job was to create a new website for a client, you’d scrutinize, review, and perfect each and every small detail of each page. If you were the commander of a SEAL squadron, you’d make damn sure that you had an absolutely flawless plan, backup plan, and backup to the backup plan. If you were in quality assurance for the Boeing 737 MAX, you wouldn’t be satisfied unless you were 100% positive that EVERYTHING was working according to spec, to avoid yet another failed takeoff.
Why should we look at our job any differently? I get it, we’re not curing cancer or anything. But certainly we can look to make sure that every detail of everything we do lives up to the standard that we expect. It’s OUR job to make sure we deliver an amazing experience, every time — no one else’s.
“Concentrate every minute like a Roman… on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions.” — Marcus Aurelius
As a person with ADD, this speaks to me. And it’s is something I know I can do better.
A colleague and I were talking recently about how we almost always feel great after the client meetings we run. We’ve been doing it for a while, so we can talk a good game.
So, why, we wondered, do we get ghosted from time to time? Why do some seemingly great meetings fail to lead to an order? I’m sure a lot of it is wrong place, wrong time. A lot of it is people feeling bad about leaving their incumbent provider. All normal scenarios that we can’t do much about.
But what we can control is how we prepare for each meeting, client facing and internal, and how we execute on them.
- Pre-approach. Did we do our research on their business, product offering, etc?
- Are we setting proper/realistic expectations?
- Did we take sufficient notes? I always admire people that take excellent notes. People who act as the meeting’s secretary, with the end in mind, knowing that it’s their job to act on much of the meetings takeaways. Without notes and without action within 24/48 hours, the likelihood that a to-do is handled effectively is greatly reduced.
- Send a recap to everyone involved in the meeting, with notes and next steps. Do what you said you would do.
The military and intelligence community does what’s called a HotWash (FEMA’s Hot Wash form is linked). It’s an After Action Review but the term came from the process of soldiers dousing their weapons in extremely hot water as a means of removing grit and residue after firing. The Hot Wash, whether formal or informal, is a debrief that focuses on lessons learned, what worked and what didn’t, to provide important feedback for future planning.
“Conduct post-operational debrief after execution — analyze lessons learned and implement them in future planning.”
—Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, Ex-Navy SEALs, on the leader’s checklist for planning.
I think we could do a better job of doing a Hot Wash at the end of each quarter. We can do one after a client call. We can, at the very least, take a few minutes to review our notes after a meeting.
I urge everyone to scrutinize the work you do. Is it at the level that should be?
