Start 2025 strong: Reflect, refocus, and recharge
For busy leaders and teams, taking a pause to step back from the day-to-day for reflection can feel like a luxury. But it’s often from this vantage point where you can see more clearly, and be better positioned to make plans and priorities for the year ahead.
We asked Cara Scott, one of Maliasili’s most experienced facilitators, to create a step-by-step guide that you and your team can use to reflect on the last year, and create a plan for success in 2025. Cara has included facilitation tips for each step to help make your discussions lively, inclusive, and fun.
Self-Reflection 🌱
Start by looking inward at your own personal and professional growth. Doing this can be hard, so we recommend you find a distraction-free environment that allows you to think clearly and without interruptions.
Be honest with yourself, acknowledging both your successes and areas where you may have fallen short. This exercise isn’t meant for others to see or critique. It’s meant just for you, and your own learning and growth.
Here are questions to guide your self-reflection:
✅ What are you most proud of achieving in 2024? What difference has your achievement made for others?
✅ What is the best feedback you received last year? Why was it important? Who gave it to you? (If you didn’t get much feedback, why do you think that is?)
✅ When did you make a difficult decision instead of an easier or more popular one? Looking back, would you make the same choice or a different one? Why?
✅ Was there a time when you noticed yourself acting out of fear, anger or worry last year? What was happening in those moments? What caused those feelings?
✅Was there a time when you acted with courage, kindness, or calmness last year? What helped you feel that way?
✅ What do you want to achieve this year? What are your key goals?
✅ What about work, organizational culture, or how the team is run do you want to pay closer attention to as a leader? What are you going to do about this?
✅ What gives you a sense of optimism and hope for 2025? What does this tell you about where you should focus your energy?
✅ What work relationships do you want to strengthen this year? How will you approach that?
✅ How do you want to grow or improve this year? Where do you want to stretch yourself? What do you want to get better at or learn?
Reflecting as a Team 💡
These questions can help your team reflect on your collective achievements and challenges from last year, and chart a clear path for success going forward. We recommend bringing your team together in comfortable space - whether it’s an informal meeting room, a virtual session, or (ideally) outside for a change of scenery. Encourage open and honest discussions and create a supportive environment where every voice can be heard. As a leader, remember to listen rather than just respond.
Questions to guide your reflection together:
✅ What were top achievements or successes of the team last year? What made them happen?
Facilitation tip: Hand out sticky notes and give each team member 5 minutes to take a short walk alone and reflect. Ask them to return with at least one success to share. Organize the notes into clustered themes so you can easily reflect on the results and see where there is a lot of consensus.
✅ When did we work best together as a team? What helped us do that?
Facilitation tip: Encourage team members to share specific examples. Use a flip chart to cluster similar answers, and look for common themes or patterns that highlight what drives effective collaboration.
✅ What didn’t go as planned? Where did we fall short? Why?
Facilitation tip: Emphasize the importance of creating a safe space where people feel comfortable sharing. Encourage the group to view failures as opportunities to learn rather than assign blame. Here is a time when the leader might speak up first to help model what this kind of vulnerability looks like.
✅ What moments are we proudest of?
Facilitation tip: Ask each team member to draw a simple picture representing something they’re proud of, adding a few words to explain it. Display all drawings together like a gallery, allowing the team to reflect and celebrate shared achievements collectively. (note: encourage creativity, discourage drawing perfection!)
✅ What stories do we most want to share with others?
Facilitation tip: Give everyone two minutes to think of a story, then ask them to pair up for a walk and share their story with one other person before choosing together the one they think is most powerful to present to the group. This makes it less intimidating and helps refine ideas.
✅ What are the most important things for us to focus on this year?
Facilitation tip: Use a prioritization exercise like dot-voting or categorizing ideas into “urgent,” “important,” and “future opportunities” to focus on what matters most.
✅ What can we learn from last year’s challenges? What will we do differently this year? How can we be more resilient?
Facilitation tip: Encourage your team to view challenges as learning opportunities rather than setbacks. Use a “Rose, Thorn, Bud” approach: ask each person to share one positive outcome (Rose), one difficulty or obstacle (Thorn), and one idea for growth or improvement (Bud). This helps balance the discussion and keeps it constructive.
✅ What if in 2025 we …….?
Facilitation tip: Frame this as a time for bold, creative thinking. Use “What if” questions to spark creativity, no matter how ambitious or unconventional the ideas. Give examples such as: ‘What if we swapped roles for three months? What if we focused exclusively on community education?’ Encourage curiosity and exploration over immediate feasibility.
✅ How can we support each other better as a team?
Facilitation tip: Encourage everyone to suggest one practical way they can support the team and one way they’d like to be supported themselves on two separate flipcharts. Use these inputs to create a shared “support pledge” for the year.
✅ What tools, skills or resources would help us be successful this year?
Facilitation tip: Use a “wishlist” approach - ask team members to dream big, then after reflecting on the results, ask people to vote by making a mark with their pens on the top two they think are realistic actions to make the most important ideas happen.
Reflection doesn’t just help you close the chapter in one year - it gives you and your team a clear and energized direction for the next. Make space for these conversations, and watch how they unlock new possibilities for you and your team in 2025!
Here is what some of our partners had to say:
“We were able to challenge ourselves and ask, does this activity truly bring us closer to our strategic objective? If an activity hasn’t succeeded, why continue or repeat it?” Julie Razafimanahaka, Madagasikara Voakajy
"Through our end-of-year reflection, we were able to celebrate achievements, verify alignment with strategic priorities, and identify areas needing improved delivery strategies. This process helped create a connected, high-spirited team, setting a positive tone for the coming year." Gladys Warigia, Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association
“It was very interesting and efficient to collaboratively define the key milestones for 2024, which provided a solid foundation for structuring those for 2025.” Domenico Randimbiharinirina, GERP Madagascar
We would love to hear how these reflections go for you. Reach out and let us know.