This blog represents the kind of thought process that makes our consultants so great at what they do!
Read it here:
When I was younger, I used to be excited about finishing a task, marking it off my list and moving to the next task. I usually didn’t stop and look back to evaluate how things went. But now, as an adult, when I reach the end of an assignment, relationship, job, career or something major in my life, I tend to stop and ask myself: what went well, what went wrong, what helped, what did I gain from it, and so on.
Looking back and evaluating our moves and decisions shouldn’t be something we are doing at our deathbed or when giving life advice to our grandchildren; it’s something that can be done way before. I used to start assessing past actions only if the outcome didn’t meet my expectation. But, I am learning that to optimize the results of current decisions, it’s best if I give relatively equal attention to both the success & failures of my experiences. The exercise of evaluating my fortunate decisions has allowed me to have a good understanding of my success factors. The exercise also helps me refine the process and patterns that have already worked for me. Having a well laid out processes makes it easier for me to give coherent and detailed guidance to others. As my coworker always says; “Document everything!! So, I don’t have to reinvent the wheel, when I take over.” Furthermore, we all know planning is necessary, and that we are setting ourselves up for failure if we fail to plan. However, we also shouldn’t minimize the impact that properly observed experiences have on our plans.
For most of us, it is not easy to face our failures. Who wouldn’t want to be perceived as Mr./Ms Perfect?! But if things have gone south, my advice is: to shake off any feeling of regret- don’t get stuck on “shoulda, coulda, woulda”- forgive yourself, learn from the past and move on.
Last but not least, building relationships with people who have provided me with feedback, support, and resources has a helped me a lot. Sometimes, we are so unconsciously biased by our actions that it may not be easy to evaluate ourselves properly. However, by building a relationship with people that we trust, we can receive genuine feedback from different points of view. These people can also provide us support and resources that would have been difficult for us to find by ourselves.
Heledana Woldegiorgis has a double Master’s degree in Business Administration and Management Information Systems and is a proven Energy Consultant with MidDel Consulting. MidDel Consulting is a System Integrator and Professional Services firm specializing in services supporting the business systems for Front, Back and Mid-Office. MidDel has been in business for over 16 years, and our consultants, on average, bring over 25 years of senior level energy industry knowledge to our projects. We have deep relationships with our clients, often working with them for more than a decade. For more information, email us at info@middelgrp.com or call #952-500-9275.
