There is a tendency in our industry to celebrate motion more than meaning. We praise what is next, what is new, what is disruptive, what is coming around the corner. Oh, and what is comfortable, and stable, and reliable. In AV, that makes sense because we work in a field built on technological innovation… And not getting nasty emails. New platforms emerge, new standards evolve, new expectations take shape, and if we are not paying attention, we can get left behind quickly… Or, we fly under the radar, just pushing forward. But in that forward momentum, there is something we do not talk about enough, and that is retrospection…. Looking back, in order to keep moving forward.
Retrospection is not nostalgia nor pitying yourself on past failures. It is not sitting around romanticizing the old days or resisting change in fear of the present (or future). It is the discipline of looking back with purpose. It is the willingness to examine where we have been, what we have done, what worked, what failed, what we missed, and what those lessons are trying to teach us before we rush into the next new big thing. In the business of AV, retrospection is not weakness. It is strategy.
Almost everyday on LinkedIn you’ll see something about success being looking forward and not looking back. In fact, I’m guilty of posting those exact pick-me-ups. And, that is true, you should not let your past keep you from striving for your future. But, it is your past that makes the future happen. We all learn from our mistakes. They create the character of who we are today.
Some of the most costly mistakes I have seen in our industry, and experienced myself, did not happen because people lacked ambition. They happened because people lacked reflection. Teams moved too fast without learning from the last deployment. Communication breakdowns were repeated project after project. We believed technology changes would fix people problems. We invested systems that looked great on paper but recreated the same headaches they were supposedly trying to leave behind. None of that is a failure of effort. It is a failure of retrospection.
The truth is, every project leaves behind actionable data, whether we formally capture it or not. Every thing we do tells a story. Every “I knew this was going to happen” or “I shoulda known better,” contains insight. The question is whether we are humble enough and disciplined enough to stop and learn from it.
In higher ed, retrospection is absolutely essential because our environments are so complex, and because the consequences of poor decisions linger for years. We’re not just installing equipment, we’re shaping teaching, learning, accessibility, operational sustainability, and support models across enterprises. We impact lives through our everyday work. When a project rollout goes well, that success needs to be studied and documented. When it does not, that also needs to be studied and documented. It’s not to assign blame, but to build institutional intelligence. The consequence of not… every new project starts from scratch, and organizations end up paying repeatedly for lessons they should have learned once.
More than that… Your mental and physical health suffer because the weight falls down on you.
Businesses love to talk about growth, but healthy growth requires pattern recognition. Retrospection helps leaders identify whether they are actually improving or simply getting busier. There is a big difference. More projects do not necessarily mean better business. Higher revenue does not automatically mean healthier margins. A packed calendar does not always mean strategic momentum. Retrospection forces us to ask harder questions. Which clients or projects are truly the right fit? Which offerings are profitable and/or actually effective? Which partnerships are energizing innovation, and which are quietly draining resources? Which internal processes are scaling, and which are being held together by heroic effort and wishful thinking?
That last point matters a lot. Too many organizations are built on heroics. They survive because talented people work late, cover gaps, solve problems on the fly, and keep things moving through sheer force of will. Those people are often celebrated, and they should be. But retrospection asks a harder question: why did heroics have to be necessary in the first place? If your success depends on burnout, then your success is not sustainable. Looking back honestly can expose that. It can reveal where culture, process, staffing, training, and expectations are out of alignment.
Retrospection also makes innovation better. That may sound counterintuitive in an industry obsessed with “what’s next,” but it is true. The organizations that innovate most effectively are usually not the ones chasing everything. They are the ones that understand their own history well enough to innovate with intention. They know the pain points that have remained constant. They know where users actually struggle. They know which promises vendors have made before and which ones delivered. They know their own blind spots. That kind of self-awareness sharpens decision-making. It reduces noise. It helps leaders distinguish between what is exciting and what is actually useful.
There is also a human side to this that matters. Retrospection is how professionals grow. If you never look back, you never fully understand your own development. You do not see how your leadership has changed, how your instincts have matured, how your mistakes shaped your judgment, or how the setbacks that once felt like failures were often building blocks for something better. In AV, many of us move so quickly from one show, one semester, one rollout, one deadline, one crisis to the next that we rarely pause long enough to appreciate what the journey has taught us. That is a loss, both professionally and personally.
I would argue that some of the strongest leaders are not just the ones with vision for the future. They are the ones with the courage to examine the past honestly. And they leverage that past to be able to see the gaps missing. They see the strategic advantage that those who never take the time to reflect miss, even though the opportunities are right in front of them. They do not rewrite history to flatter themselves. They do not hide from what went wrong. They do not assume that experience alone equals wisdom. Instead, they turn experience into wisdom through reflection. That is what retrospection really is.
So what does that look like in practice? It means conducting real postmortems after projects, not rushed debriefs designed to check a box. It means documenting lessons learned and then actually applying them. It means inviting feedback from the people closest to the work, not just the people highest on the org chart. It means tracking outcomes over time, not just completion dates. It means asking not only whether something was delivered, but whether it truly solved the problem it was supposed to solve. It means creating cultures where reflection is valued as much as action.
So what does that look like personally and professionally? It means facing your failures and knowing that you overcame them. You can overcome them. It means being able to look at what didn’t work and say “screw it,” I’m not that person anymore, and I refuse to be. It means knowing your next step forward is not going back to that moment. And, it’s not forgetting it, but being better because of it.
In a field as dynamic as ours, it is easy to believe that the future belongs only to the fastest movers. I mean, most would put me in that category, but honestly I don’t think that’s true. I think the future belongs to the ones who know how to move forward without losing the lessons behind them. Retrospection is not about dwelling on the past. It is about making sure the past was not wasted. If innovation tells us where we are going, retrospection reminds us why that direction mattered in the first place.
Over the next six week on both the Higher Ed AV Podcast and Business of AV column, I will be visiting some of the darker moments of my past, yet showing how those moments because pivotal in today’s success. I’m looking forward to us going on this journey. And, I encourage you to join in the conversation along the way. What resonates with you?
