Who hasn't heard the expression, "Hindsight is 20/20 vision"? It's as old as the hills. Sometimes expressions get so familiar that we lose sight of what they really say. What this one means, of course, is that whatever you look back on is in focus, because you can see what resulted from what went on. Looking back is different from looking ahead, of course, because you can't know the result of whatever you're doing until you can look back on it from the future, in which case you're back to the old 20/20 adage. Pretty insightful, huh?

Except that in some cases we don't look back enough. And sometimes when we do, that 20/20 vision may be in focus, but not in perspective. Things like bias, ignorance or arrogance can cloud the view. Sometimes hindsight is blurry.

Hindsight is something that businesspeople should use more, and use properly. Consider that if you've been in business for just a few years, you have an incredible amount of hindsight into every area of a retail business, including employee relations, customer service, product issues and marketing. It's a college degree. But there's another expression to be careful about: "Experience is the best teacher." That one's only true if you want to be taught, and if you're paying attention to the lessons.

You've had success and you've had failures, but did you learn from them? Regardless of the lessons that can be learned in hindsight, many managers continue to do the same things the same ways. If you want to break that pattern, it's important to find a way to relearn what hindsight and experience have already revealed.

Hindsight is something that businesspeople should use more, and use properly. Consider that if you've been in business for just a few years, you have an incredible amount of hindsight into every area of a retail business. -- Edward Riedel

If you're interested in taking this idea to the next level, if you want to try making hindsight work for you, a good approach is to look back at last year. The following exercise is really simple to do, but you can't do it between interruptions. It takes thought and consideration, so you have to leave the building. There are different approaches, but one of the best ways to look at what experience has tried to teach you, is to take an area of your business from last year and ask a series of questions. The answers will lead you places -- mostly to other questions, but finally to answers. Use a piece of paper and write down everything. Here is an example of learning from the lessons of hindsight, in the area of marketing.

Q: What three things did we do last year that paid off profitably in new business?

A: The learn-to-dive fliers at the local college paid off. So did the direct mail piece that we sent into neighborhoods with homes valued over $450,000. And the membership in the business club got us new customers, and the meetings were fun, too.

Q: Are we still doing those three things this year?

A: We still hang the fliers but no, we have never repeated that mailing (or expanded the program the way I intended to). Nor have I been to a business club breakfast in months. Funny how those things fall off the plate.

Q: Should we continue those efforts?

A: Yes, they worked and we can afford to do them.

Q: Who should do it then, and how do we get started back with those programs?

A: I'll have John contact the lists broker to meet with us about residential mailings, and also ask John to update the piece that we sent out last year. I'll call to find out when the next breakfast meeting is and start attending again.

At this point you've asked the questions, come to an answer and are ready to go; however, the answers might take you in a completely different direction:

Q: What three things did we do last year that paid off profitably in new business?

A: The learn-to-dive fliers at the local college paid off. So did the direct mail piece that we sent into neighborhoods with homes valued over $450,000. And the membership in the business club got us new customers, and the meetings were fun, too.

Q: Are we still doing those three things this year?

A: Yes, and they are still working well.

Q: Should we find ways to duplicate those efforts?

A: Why not? They are proven. The college is covered, but we can expand the mailing program. There are three other local neighborhoods that seem to have the same types of homes and demographics as the one we're getting business from. We can try the same mailing to one or two of those. And there's an investment group I've been asked to join.

Q: Who should do it then, and how do we get started to expand the efforts?

A: I'll have John contact the lists broker to meet with us about residential mailings, and ask John to update the piece that we sent out last year. I'll get hold of my friend tomorrow about joining the group.

Or that same first question might get his chain of questions and a completely different result:

Q: What three things did we do last year that paid off profitably in new business?

A: Gee, I can't come up with three things that worked.

Q: Sounds like a problem; shouldn't we be doing something to build customers?

A: Business certainly isn't where we want it to be. So yes, we should.

Q: How do we go about doing that?

A: I don't have any good ideas.

Q: That's not a good answer.

A: OK, lets bring the staff together to brainstorm, and the goal will be to agree on three things to try. We'll do that on Tuesday evening.

And just to keep this example going, here's another way that first question might go …

Q: What three things did we do last year that paid off profitably in new business?

A: We did a bunch of things, but we don't know what worked last year.

Q: Why don't we know? Don't we track inquiries?

A: We used to keep an inquiry pad at the counter by the phone, and asked everyone who walked or called into the store how they came to us. That was the responsibility of everyone. That was our response tracking mechanism and it gave us a pretty good handle on things. Haven't seen that in a while; guess we stopped doing it.

Q: If we're going to try to figure our marketing out, what is working and what isn't, should we go back to that system?

A: Yes, let's do that.

You get the idea. Another version of this might be to ask what three things didn't work. That could lead to questions about why they didn't work, could they have worked if we had done X, are we still doing those things that aren't working and if so, should we stop and try three different things?

I hope this doesn't sound simplistic, because it can accomplish quite a lot. First, it makes you question your business. Next, it calls on your history and experience. Finally, it leads to doing something. That's important because the biggest problem most businesses have is the ability to do nothing.

This can become a daunting session because there are lots of areas that you can address and look at last year to question. Personnel, inventory, your management style, vendor relations, products and services, pricing, your location, local diving, group travel, basic customer service, and how did you do with employee training? There's a good chance that if you try to tackle more than a few areas at once, it will become another management exercise without belief, one that will end without attempt.

Start out by questioning one or two areas. Pick simpler ones, like marketing. Ask yourself the first question. Keep asking the questions until you either decide that everything in those areas is OK, or come to solutions and put them into play. Then, once you see how much you can accomplish by putting hindsight to work, schedule your next session out of the building.