Hindsight Retros Podcast

About our Guests

Caro is a Senior Language Specialist and Certified Coach who travels the world in her spare time. (She also joined us in our very first episode to interview us about the retrospective process.)

Main Takeaways from this Episode

Be open to learning one another’s travel styles

People on this trip had different unstated assumptions about how things were going to go: how much are we going to talk on the hike, how are meals going to go, etc. We might not realize we had different assumptions or expectations, but once we notice differences, we should start talking right away before it impacts the trip or relationships.

Radical Candor

There were interpersonal tensions during this trip, which can feel hard to talk about while respecting other people’s feelings and maintaining relationships. But choosing not to talk about things that went badly is an overcorrection.

Radical Candor is a framework that lets us think of “challenging directly” and “caring personally” as independent dimensions in our behavior, and gives us tools to find a way of communicating that both challenges behavior that needs to be addressed while embodying caring for the person you’re confronting.

(We discussed this previously in our Inaugural Newsletter, but you can see us working through an applied case in the current episode.)

Value Systems Can Be Treated Like a Machine, or Like a Baby

If you treat your values like a machine, then you can recognize when they’re not working and tune them. If you treat them like a baby, challenges to them feel like a personal attack. This allows you to work on yourself as you're having an experience, vs. expecting those around you to bear the burden of change.

Agree to a Non-blameful Phrase to Avoid Discovered Problematic Situations

In this trip, after an instance of tempers becoming thin when people were hungry, they coined the phrase “getting in the red,” to refer to starting to get too hungry. This allowed non-blameful logistical discussion, like “I’m starting to get in the red,” or “let’s do this before we get in the red.”

If this expression doesn’t work for you, this commercial for Snickers bars from 2010 offers another option.

Best Practice Links

Radical Candor Wikipedia Page

Product Links

Book: Radical Candor, by Kim Scott

Apple Airtags

Kumano Kodō Trail references

The video that started it all!The Kumano Kodō Pilgrimage Trail with Giaan Rooney

Kumano Kodō – Tanabe City Kumano Tourism Bureau

How to Ride a Public Bus: Kumano Kodō How-to Series

What Is the Etiquette for Taking Shoes Off in Japan?

Onsen Hot Springs - On Tattoos and Etiquette | Blog | Travel Japan (Japan National Tourism Organization)

Before smartphones, international travelers relied on their wits, resourcefulness, and...charades! Join John and Dan Reese as they relive a travel adventure that took an unexpected turn.

About our Guests

Dan Reese works with nonprofits and government entities to reduce and end youth homelessness. He lives in Bellingham, WA. He is the brother of host John Reese, and they share a father.

Main Takeaways from this Episode

Redirect Panic Into Problem-solving Energy: Panic can result in amygdala hijack, which can result in us taking action that is out of proportion to the actual issue, potentially creating new problems. It is possible to interrupt this hijack with habits of breathing or other mindfulness techniques. Once you take that moment, you have more space to decide between possible actions.

Reach Out to Others for Help: Dan and John reached out to their father for help, and were able to reestablish communication despite neither knowing where the other was. John’s hotel staff were also very helpful. Dan speculates the German train station staff were an untapped resource who could have helped. The world is full of people who can help, if you ask.

Don’t Break Up The Party: It’s better to have everyone miss the train together, because you can use your brains together to solve the problem.

Form a Mental Model of Your Companions: A model of what your travel companions care about, how they think, what they’re worried about, and what they’re excited about, can be very useful: if you get separated, it can help you predict what they would do and thus help you reconnect; even if you stay together, it can help you be respectful of activities that might be more or less important to them, or more or less stressful. It could also be useful to pregame what you would do in various scenarios.

Memory is Unreliable: We tend to overestimate how reliably we remember the past, so it’s often valuable to reconstruct the past in conversation with another person, and be ready to be surprised and amused by the differences.

Product Links

Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman

Dune by Frank Herbert’s Litany Against Fear

Dungeons and Dragons

Contact

* Follow us at hindsightretros.substack.com

* Read more at hindsightretros.com

* Email us at [email protected]

* Follow us on Instagram @hindsightretros

* Follow Sue Lueder on LinkedIn

* Follow John Reese on LinkedIn

About our Guest:

Steph Hippo is a senior engineering manager at Honeycomb, career coach, and active volunteer helping girls find opportunities in STEM education and careers. Steph lives in Seattle, Washington with her family, and, of course, her dog Taz. You can find Steph on LinkedIn.

Main Takeaways from this Episode:

Community Support: Although communities like Facebook and NextDoor can be a source of drama, scams, and frivolity, in times of need there are human beings ready to mobilize and help a person in need.

Incident Command Protocols: If you find yourself in an emergency situation, taking some time up front to institute some standard practices and assign some roles and responsibilities to various participants can help prevent chaos and help resolve the emergency faster.

Accidents Happen: We all experience twists of fate that put our best laid plans to waste. It’s important to remember that a single accident should not damage important relationships in our lives. The experience of dealing with and overcoming a challenge while using a blameless approach can even bring us closer together and make our relationships even stronger.

Best Practice Links

Read the full retrospective here: Taz Escape Retro

Steph’s retro shared these resources for anyone who might have lost a dog:

https://www.3retrievers.com/calming-signals.html 

https://www.missinganimalresponse.com/dont-call-dog/

Product Links

Fi Smart Collar

Wonder Walker

The Outdoor Expert Mini Trail Camera 

Learn about blameless retrospective culture from John Reese and Sue Lueder.

About our Guest Interviewer

Caro is a Senior Language Specialist and Certified Coach who travels the world in her spare time.

Main Takeaways from this Episode

Blameless retrospectives (a technique from the work world) can be used to improve your personal life as well. They strengthen relationships and turn destructive situations into constructive ones. 

Retrospectives can be simple. There are four basic questions to ask in a retrospective:

What went well? 

What didn't go so well? 

Where did you get lucky? 

What will you change next time?

Exploring luck during a retrospective can yield deeper insights. Luck can help you to identify risks that you may not have otherwise considered, and it helps you to maximize the potential of a situation.

Retrospectives can be fun. Not only do retrospectives within teams create a positive feedback loop for the relationships, they can be fun even after serious incidents. Games and techniques can be used, and the conversations themselves when conducted with a positive outlook and high energy will leave the participants feeling optimistic and ready for the next challenge.