That’s a great way to context a question. When we look forward, sometimes we’re blind and can’t see what’s right in front of us or where the opportunities are. If instead, we step into the future and anticipate the problems along the way, and ask, “What do we wish we would have done?” suddenly, we get a much clearer vision about what could be done.

This is going to need to be a year of courage. Only those executives who step in, lean in, take risks, and assume that things will be tough will prevail and get busy about the right things to radically improve the performance of their team.  Those who pull ahead know that obsessing over their team’s learning and development will pull ahead. Only those teams who grow their people are going to be able to start 2022 and say, “Mm-hmm (affirmative), we really pulled ahead. We are emerging stronger. And yeah, some tough things happened, but we got tougher and smarter.”

So, my question for you is  when 2022 starts, how will you answer the question,  “What do I wish we would have made happen in 2021?” What do you need to do now to make that happen?