The language of looking back honestly
Eight openings. Match each to the move it makes.
Somebody doing it properly
Three decisions, and two changes of mind about each
Three decisions, and I have changed my mind about all three at least twice.
The first is the obvious one. I turned down a job in 2014 that would have doubled my salary. At the time it made sense because the commute was two hours and I had a small child. What I could not have known was that the company would be bought eighteen months later and that everybody I would have been working with would be gone by the Christmas. So the decision looks brilliant. It was not brilliant. It was lucky, and I try to keep those two words apart, because if I let a good outcome tell me my reasoning was good I will make the same reasoning again with worse luck.
The second is the one nobody ever asks about. I stayed in a role for four years that I should have left after two — and I mean that as a verdict on myself rather than as a figure of speech. I knew by the second year. There is no process to blame here and nobody failed to tell me anything, so the frames do not apply and I am not going to reach for one.
The third is the one I got wrong in a way I still use. A colleague took a piece of work I had built, and I said nothing for six months, and then said all of it at once in a meeting, which helped nobody including me. What would have made a difference is a ten-minute conversation in the March. Not a better temperament, not more confidence: one conversation, with a date on it.
Three questions.
1. Why does the speaker separate brilliant from lucky?
2. Why does the second decision get a verdict rather than a frame?
3. What does the third decision name instead of a quality of character?
The four moves
1 · What it looked like at the time. At the time it made sense because… Reconstruct the reasoning you actually had, including the parts that now look silly.
2 · What you could not have known. What I could not have known was… This is deduction language and it separates ignorance from error, which is the single most useful distinction available in a retrospective.
3 · The one you grade — and whether the grade is earned. Run the test out loud: was there a process, a document, an unasked question? If yes, name it. If no, say the verdict in full.
4 · What would have made a difference. A thing with a date on it. Never a quality of character, because nobody can act on one.
Six lines of one retrospective, out of order. Put them into the order that reasons.
- I should have asked for half up front, and I mean that as a verdict rather than a turn of phrase.
- I took the contract in the February because the alternative was three months with no work at all.
- What would have made a difference is one sentence in the contract, and every contract I have signed since has it.
- What I could not have known was that the client had already lost the account it was funded from.
- Nobody hid anything from me; I simply did not want to seem difficult in the first week.
- So the money never arrived, and I spent the summer chasing an invoice instead of working.
Two minutes of assembly
One word per gap. Eight lines you will need in the next twenty-six minutes.
At the time it sense, because the alternative was worse.
What I could not known was that the funding had already gone.
They have told me — the email is dated three weeks earlier.
It have been deliberate; nobody had anything to gain from it.
I have asked, and I did not, and there is no process to blame.
What would have made a is one sentence in the contract.
It was lucky than clever, and I try to keep the two apart.
Next , could we agree the dates before anybody starts?
Three questions.
1. What goes in the second move?
2. You reach a decision where the test comes back negative. What do you say?
3. What must the fourth move name?
A working life, in three decisions
How the twenty-six minutes run. Five alone to prepare, fifteen in threes to tell and be counted, six to re-say one of them. The listeners are not being polite; they are counting.
Stage 1 · Alone · 5 minutes · Prepare
Three decisions from your working or studying life. One that turned out well, one you would change, and one that involved somebody else.
Three lines each, and the test run on all three before you speak.
- For each: what it looked like at the time, and why it made sense then.
- For each: one thing you could not have known.
- For each: run the test. Process, document or unasked question — yes or no? Write the answer down.
- For the one that turned out well, answer one question in writing: lucky, or clever? Be exact.
Stage 2 · Threes · 15 minutes · Tell it
Five minutes each. One speaker, two listeners, and both listeners have a pen.
Speaker talks. Listener A counts grades. Listener B audits the evidence.
- Speaker (4 min): the three decisions, in the four moves. Do not tidy as you go.
- Listener A: tally every modal perfect in two columns — grades on yourself, grades on somebody else. Note who the other people are.
- Listener B: mark every must have and can’t have, and afterwards ask one question about each: what had you eliminated?
- One minute of feedback: A reads the two totals. B asks about the weakest deduction. Neither of them comments on the decisions themselves.
Stage 3 · Threes · 6 minutes · Say one again
Two minutes each: one decision, re-told, with the grades sorted out.
Every unearned grade replaced by a frame — and the one earned grade kept and said in full.
- Choose the decision that produced the most grades on other people.
- For each of those, run the test aloud and then say the replacement sentence. Name the missing thing precisely.
- Keep one grade if one survives the test, and say it without hedging. If none survives, say that too.
- Finish with the fourth move: a thing with a date on it. Your listeners decide whether it could actually be scheduled.
What the two columns showed
Two questions.
1. Which column was longer?
2. When Listener B asked what you had eliminated, what happened?
Lucky, or clever
Two questions. Twenty seconds.
1. Why does a good outcome need separating from good reasoning?
2. What must the last move of a retrospective name?
Next. The errors this area produces — the ones a reader can see, and the one a reader can only feel.