Sit Down for a CEO Day: The Year-End Business Review Questions You Need Right Now

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We have all been there before. Tomorrow is the day we start working on the business. Today, we have one more fire to put out. I have lived it often. I have seen it even more often in business owners around me. As November draws near, there is no time like now to actually sit down and take stock. I know, there are a lot of posts out there talking about goals already. But if you have not even gotten your head around where you are now, how can you talk about goals for next year?

Where am I, really? Have a reality check.

Productive action stems from honest reflection. To do that, you need to take to pen and paper and answer a few questions:

• What were my goals at the start of the year (or quarter)? Even if you are not the type of person to write them down in detail, do you know what you set off to do when 2025 started? Was it about survival, growth, AI, going global, innovating, operations, or team?
• Which ones did I actually make progress on? Let’s be specific. In each of your goals, be sure to add small areas of wins, milestones achieved. Small steps count too.
• Which ones didn’t move at all? Why not? You are bound to have areas where you did not make progress. Maybe you wanted to review a few reports, analyse a new customer segment. Whatever the topic was that got left behind, can you pinpoint why? Other than just, I did not have time.
• What changed in the business that I didn’t anticipate? You can’t just say AI. It is boring to say AI as an answer to justify changes. Certainly, you can include AI in what changed, but that is likely to have been anticipated at this point. So, give it a thought, did your industry or your competitors or the regulation change in a way you did not expect?
• What changed in me that impacted how I showed up? Yes, I know, I am asking some tough questions. But I will start. This year, in the charity, I relaxed. I thought I had the team back to where it should be, so I took my eye off the goal. And that means I was less focused on fundraising than I should have and I delayed some key deliverables to November that really should have been done in May. That has really brought my energy levels down as I spend unnecessary time feeling like I was “late” again.

Are you ready for the next step?

What is still true? Be open to changing your mind.

You may think that now that you have assessed what got done and what did not get done, it is all a matter of getting on with working on the gaps. But it is not really. What if things changed enough that some goals don’t have the same relevance anymore? And what if there is no point in getting started with others at this point in the year? If you want to make progress, you need to be willing to admit mistakes and think again.

• Which goals still matter deeply to the business? Whether you made progress on them or not, you now have enough information to determine if some goals are still worth fighting for.
• Which goals no longer make sense given what I now know? If you answered the prior questions with honest reflection, and analysed why you did not make progress in some goals, the answer might as well be – because they do not matter anymore.
• What goals need to evolve because the context has changed? No matter how relevant a goal may be, perhaps competitors have entered, or raw material pricing has changed significantly. You need to adjust to the context around you.
• What goals were more dream-like rather than evidence-based? Sometimes, we like to set ourselves some ambitious goals. Big visions for our growing businesses. They don’t belong in your yearly goals list. (We can talk about vision-casting another time)

Just like not all products meet the market, not all goals need to survive.

What can still be achieved? Be realistic with yourself and your team.

Depending on when you read this article, this may be one section to skip. But if you have a few weeks left in the year, it is worth choosing wisely how you are going to spend your time. Especially because at the end of the year, we tend to go for quick wins and not so smart investments. Now that you know the goals that you wished you had made some more progress on, it is time to press on.

• How much bandwidth do I really have? Are there activities you can postpone? Or just skip altogether? If you are going to want to make an end-of-year push, then you will need to make some difficult choices. A “good-enough” philosophy will need to kick in!
• What could I realistically achieve with the team I have? In the same way as you need to analyse your bandwidth, you also need to look at what your team has in their hands and whether any space can be created there as well.
• What must you delegate for things to move? If you found space in your team, this is the time to practice that famous delegation. You can delegate some of your current activities, so you can focus on some of the goals left behind, or you can delegate addressing those goals, depending on what your setup is. If I had to guess, I would go with the former.

Don’t overdue it on your to-do list until year-end – remember the holiday season is coming, both for you and your team.

What is working? Understand what is working above expectations.

It is not the time of the year to be all doom and gloom. If you have not achieved all your goals, that is ok. Hopefully, the first assessment gave you a view of where you have made progress and where you haven’t. Don’t attribute your success to luck. Evaluate your critical success factors:

• What contributed to your progress? Any activities, habits, or decisions that you can identify? Did you establish a new team communication strategy that improved your culture? Did you create a new funnel strategy that is bringing you more clients?
• What was easier than expected? You may want to consider some easy wins, the product of luck or serendipity. However, it is good to evaluate why some of your goals or activities made better progress than others. And why did some areas perform so much better? Did you have expertise in the sector? Did you make the right hire? Did a specific campaign hit a nerve?

If you know what is working, you know you can double down on some of the strategies, be it now, or for the new year.

What is not working? Get clarity on what is making business difficult.

Ok, so maybe a bit of doom and gloom is needed. But not too much. The idea here is not to beat yourself up, but rather to understand the details of what is not working and improve your operations.

• What was unexpectedly difficult? On the other side of the easy wins are the difficult moving pieces. Why is that? Can you pinpoint what factors made progress slower? New competitors, regulatory change, lack of focus?
• What drained my energy the most? As much as we do not like to admit it loudly (or to our team), there are things that are just difficult for us to do, and a complete drain on our energy. The result is, we end up procrastinating on them. On my end, it is HR. I love people and talent; I really struggle to keep my focus when I need to deal with payroll and contracts. There, I have said it.
• What processes keep on breaking? You have repeatedly tried to fix it, but the errors keep coming back, and the customer complaints are consistent. What is it that is just not working in your workflow?
• Which people issues haven’t I addressed? Let’s face it, dealing with people issues is hard. I will postpone a difficult conversation any day. In fact, I can think of one I am postponing as I write this. The best way to end the year is with a clear head. And if you can ensure you have addressed clear areas of concern, you make way for a clearer pathway next year

Figuring out what is blocking you is the best way to get your goals back on track.

What will matter the most in the next 30 (or 90) days? Time for action.

Reflection will only get you far enough. If you have taken the time to be practical and identify what is important and what works or needs fixing, then you can move to the crucial next step. What will you do next?

• What would move the business forward the most? What are the small steps that you can ensure you take now to get your business to look different in 30 days (or 90, if you prefer not to rush)? A new investment? Prepare that new product you have been postponing? Contact the next client in your list? Finally, look at that partnership that can multiply your impact?
• What metric would tell you that you are on track? This is not just about feeling good; this is about getting real and seeing results. Therefore, what exactly will be the impact that will do you proud in 30 days time?
• If you could only achieve one thing next month (or quarter), what would it be? I know you are thinking of all the things you can’t let go of. But if you get to choose one thing only, what is it?
• What is the simplest way to get there? List out your actions and take some time to figure out who will do them and how they will get done (ideally differently from the rest of the year, as clearly some things got left behind!)

Don’t go for hefty goals just yet. The objective here is to take you until year-end or just across the next stretch. We can talk about big goals another time!

There is not much time left until the end of the year. This year, for once, I am not letting the rush consume me. But that does not mean I am taking my foot off the pedal. Instead, I have chosen a small number of things where I have made less progress than I wanted until now, where I will choose to concentrate some time and energy, knowing they can move the dial.

If you find this helpful, here is a worksheet you can download to help you plan. And if you ever wanted to explore an end-of-year session with me, I would be happy to be your evaluation partner.