Out of Office
Your Alternative Quarterly Review
Four days a year, away from the desk, to look at where the business has got to and decide what comes next.
It starts with a walk across a field, coffee in hand, towards a converted horsebox in the middle of a vineyard. The doors are open, the post-its are out, and the South Downs are sitting there in the background.
It's an unusual place for a quarterly review, and that's the whole point.
Quarterly reviews get a bad reputation
Boring, corporate, and if we're honest, fairly anxiety-inducing. And when you're deep in running a business, a whole quarter can go by and feel smaller than it actually was.
Step out of the office, out of the day to day, out of the how, and there's room to look back properly and think about what's possible next.
From a day at the Den
“I'm very glad you held the line on doing my admin before we turned up. Taking me through the journey today has really helped. Looking at what we want to do in the next three to six months really, really lit me up. I've got some fire in my belly.”
~ Rob Alcroft, Wayforward
How the day tends to go
Most days happen at the Unlost Den in Sussex, or somewhere just as peaceful. The morning looks back at what's worth celebrating, what tested you, and how the quarter really went (in numbers).
After lunch, laptops go away and we look forward. You leave with a few goals that genuinely energise you and a visual roadmap. If the conversation needs a walk halfway through, we can wander at leisure.
Once a quarter, across the whole year
Why every Quarter?
Each day picks up where the last one left off, so the year builds on itself. You get to see how one quarter's goals actually played out by the next.
What happens after each day?
You'll get a written reflection on what we noticed and where we landed, with a visual Roadmap. So nothing relies on memory alone.
Do I need to have anything ready?
Not a thing. You can start from wherever you are. We will build tools across the year to help capture and report on things.
Can I bring someone with me?
Of course. It can be just you, or bring a co-founder or your leadership team if the conversation needs more than one of you in it.
Why I do these
I was encouraged to make stepping back from the business a rhythm, to look at the numbers, team, and trajectory properly, bringing our advisors in to ask what we weren't seeing.
I tried it a few times and then continued because it became clear that we were usually too close to the weeds to see past what was going on.
Having people from outside the business in the room gave us context we didn't have, and a lot of the time it backed up what we'd been sensing all along. That made the big calls feel far less risky and we'd come out the other side energised, clear on what we were running at next, and on the same page about it.
Those days are when we made some big decisions: what to stop selling, which clients to focus on, and who we needed to hire next.
Either side of each review
No two quarters look the same, so no two days do either.
Before each one, I'll look through your numbers and whatever else you've got, and design the day around what really needs unpacking this time. If something useful is missing, I'll suggest what to pull together and bring along.
After each day, you'll get a written reflection on what we noticed and where we landed, with your Roadmap in a visual you can keep.