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<v Speaker 1>Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of

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<v Speaker 1>performance through strong human relations, team building, and golajiving. This

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<v Speaker 1>is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul

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<v Speaker 1>fella Aledo. Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute

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<v Speaker 1>Leadership Podcast. It's episode six sixty five. Today we're talking

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<v Speaker 1>about after action reviews, post incident debriefs, hot watches, call

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<v Speaker 1>them whatever you want. Most of them are a waste

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<v Speaker 1>of time. They turn into finger pointing, vague observations, or

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<v Speaker 1>a checklist exercise so someone can say we reviewed it,

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<v Speaker 1>and then what happens. Nothing changes, same mistakes, same gaps,

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<v Speaker 1>same outcomes. So today I want to walk you through

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<v Speaker 1>how to conduct crisis after action reviews that actually matter,

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<v Speaker 1>the kind that improve performance, protect your people, and build

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<v Speaker 1>credibility as a leader. Because if your review process doesn't

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<v Speaker 1>lead to change, it's not leadership, it's paperwork. So let's

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<v Speaker 1>start with the first mistake leaders make. They wait too long.

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<v Speaker 1>If you're conducting an after action review two weeks after

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<v Speaker 1>the incident, you're already behind memory fades, details get distorted,

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<v Speaker 1>people start rewriting the story in their head to make

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<v Speaker 1>themselves look better. So you need two reviews. A quick

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<v Speaker 1>one right after the event while it's still fresh, and

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<v Speaker 1>a deeper one later when emotions settle and you can

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<v Speaker 1>think clearly. The first one captures reality, the second one

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<v Speaker 1>builds strategy. If you skip the first, you lose truth.

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<v Speaker 1>If you skip the second, you lose growth. Now let's

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<v Speaker 1>talk about the biggest problem in most after action reviews. Fear.

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<v Speaker 1>If your team is afraid to speak honestly, your review

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<v Speaker 1>is worthless. People will protect themselves, they will downplay mistakes,

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<v Speaker 1>They will say what sounds good instead of what actually happened,

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<v Speaker 1>and that kills your ability to learn. So here's your

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<v Speaker 1>job as the leader. You set the tone immediately you

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<v Speaker 1>open the review with something like this, this is not

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<v Speaker 1>about blame. This is about getting better. We're going to

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<v Speaker 1>talk about what happened, not who we can pin it on.

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<v Speaker 1>And then you prove it with your behavior. If someone

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<v Speaker 1>admits a mistake and you jump on them, you just

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<v Speaker 1>shut down the entire room. Game over. No more honesty.

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<v Speaker 1>If someone owns a mistake, you thank them. You protect

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<v Speaker 1>that moment because that is where growth lives. Now let's

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<v Speaker 1>get tactical. A real after action review answers four questions.

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<v Speaker 1>What did we expect to happen, What actually happened? Why

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<v Speaker 1>was there a gap? What are we going to do

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<v Speaker 1>differently next time? That's it. No corporate buzzwords, no over

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<v Speaker 1>complicated framework. Those four questions will expose everything you need

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<v Speaker 1>to know. But here's where most leaders drop the ball.

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<v Speaker 1>They stop at discussion. Talking is easy, change is hard.

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<v Speaker 1>If your review ends with good conversation, everyone you failed.

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<v Speaker 1>Every after action review must end with action items specific, assigned, measurable,

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<v Speaker 1>not we need better communication. That's garbage. Instead, shift officers

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<v Speaker 1>will implement a verb hand off checklist starting tomorrow at

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<v Speaker 1>zero seven hundred. Now we have something real. Now we

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<v Speaker 1>can hold people accountable, and that brings us to the

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<v Speaker 1>next critical piece, ownership. Every action item needs a name

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<v Speaker 1>next to it. If it belongs to everyone, it belongs

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<v Speaker 1>to no one. You assign it, you follow up on it,

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<v Speaker 1>and you track it because if you don't, your team

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<v Speaker 1>will learn something dangerous. They will learn that nothing actually

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<v Speaker 1>changes after a crisis, and once that belief sets in,

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<v Speaker 1>you lose momentum. Now let's talk about something leaders don't

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<v Speaker 1>like to hear. You go first. If you are leading

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<v Speaker 1>the review, you need to identify something you could have

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<v Speaker 1>done better. Even if you performed well, even if the

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<v Speaker 1>incident went smoothly, you still go first. Why Because it

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<v Speaker 1>signals to your team that no one is above In

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<v Speaker 1>PROOFD movement, it removes the pressure, It creates psychological safety

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<v Speaker 1>without using that term, and it sets the standard. Leaders

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<v Speaker 1>who refuse to critique themselves create teams that hide mistakes.

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<v Speaker 1>Leaders who own their gaps create teams that fix them.

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<v Speaker 1>Now here's another mistake. Trying to fix everything. You don't

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<v Speaker 1>need twenty action items. You just need a few that matter.

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<v Speaker 1>Pick the ones that would have changed the outcome, the

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<v Speaker 1>one that reduce risk, the one that makes the biggest impact.

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<v Speaker 1>If everything is a priority, nothing is focus wins here.

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<v Speaker 1>Now let's talk about documentation. This is where a lot

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<v Speaker 1>of leaders either overdo it or ignore it completely. You

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<v Speaker 1>don't need a thirty page report that no one reads,

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<v Speaker 1>but you do need a clear record of what was

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<v Speaker 1>learned in what will change? Keep it simple, bullet points,

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<v Speaker 1>action items, responsible parties, timeline, and then here's the part

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<v Speaker 1>that separates average leaders from great ones. You revisit it

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<v Speaker 1>a week later, a month later, you asked, did we

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<v Speaker 1>actually do what we said we were going to do?

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<v Speaker 1>Because Accountability doesn't happen in the meeting. It happens after

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<v Speaker 1>the meeting, and this is where your credibility is built

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<v Speaker 1>or destroyed. If your team sees change being implemented, they

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<v Speaker 1>buy in. If they see nothing happen, they disengage. And

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<v Speaker 1>once they disengage, your next crisis becomes harder to manage

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<v Speaker 1>because now you're leading people who don't believe the system works.

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<v Speaker 1>Let me give you one more angle here. After action

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<v Speaker 1>reviews are not only about fixing problems. They are also

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<v Speaker 1>about capturing what went right, what worked, what decisions helped,

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<v Speaker 1>What actions should we repeat? Because success leaves clues, and

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<v Speaker 1>if you don't identify them, you leave performance on the table.

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<v Speaker 1>Great leaders build playbooks from both failure and success, not

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<v Speaker 1>one or the other, both. So now let's bring this home.

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<v Speaker 1>Every crisis is expensive in time, energy, money, and sometimes reputation.

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<v Speaker 1>The only way to get a return on that cost

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<v Speaker 1>is to learn from it. That's what an after action

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<v Speaker 1>review is. It's your opportunity to turn chaos into clarity,

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<v Speaker 1>to turn mistakes into systems, to turn one bad day

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<v Speaker 1>into long term improvement. If you skip it, you waste

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<v Speaker 1>the crisis. If you rush it, you miss the lesson.

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<v Speaker 1>If you do it right, you get stronger every single time.

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<v Speaker 1>And that's what leadership is about, not avoiding problems, getting

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<v Speaker 1>better because of them. So the next time your team

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<v Speaker 1>comes out of a tough situation, don't rush back to normal. Pause,

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<v Speaker 1>gather your people, ask the right questions, assign real actions,

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<v Speaker 1>and then follow through. Because the leaders who win long

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<v Speaker 1>term are not the ones who never face problems. They

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<v Speaker 1>are the ones who learn faster than everyone else. This

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<v Speaker 1>has been the seven minute Leadership Podcast and I thank

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<v Speaker 1>you for listening. For more, Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts,

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<v Speaker 1>visit paulfellowalito dot com