It's Halftime: How to Conduct an Effective Mid-Year Review

My mid year review is one of the most valuable things I do as a leader. It's a chance to reflect on the first half, get clear on what's been working, and figure out what adjustments are necessary to close the year strong. 

In a review of 138 studies and nearly 20,000 people, researchers found that the more often we check in on our progress toward a goal, the more likely we are to reach it (American Psychological Association). 

Looking honestly at where we are, it turns out, is part of how we get where we're going.

What Is a Mid Year Review?

A mid-year review is a deliberate pause halfway through the year to interrogate your growth story, reset your beliefs, and re-commit to the results you want to achieve, using six months of real data instead of January-level guesses.

Some people hear "mid year review" and think of a mid year performance review, the formal step built into most companies' performance management calendars. That's not this. A performance evaluation is something that happens to managers and employees on a fixed review cycle, usually with a form and a rating attached, landing somewhere between one annual review and the next.

3 Benefits of a Mid Year Review

I've found that successful mid-year reviews come down to three things.

• You have time to make changes. Halftime is when you can still course correct if you're not tracking to make your annual plan. When you're heads-down running the business, it's easy to lose track of where you actually stand. By now you've got half a year of real data behind you and half a year still in front of you to act on it.
• Reflection turns experience into performance. Two people can live through the exact same six months. The one who actually stops to process it, what worked, what didn't, why, walks away sharper. Experience alone doesn't teach you much. Experience plus reflection does.
• Writing it down and building in accountability makes it stick. Goals that stay in someone's head stay soft, easy to quietly let slide when the quarter gets hard. Goals that get written down, said out loud to someone else, and checked on later hold their shape. That's exactly what a mid year review is for. On paper, out loud, with someone watching.

How to Do a Mid Year Review

I've come to trust the value of a very intentional halftime ritual.

Here's what my review process looks like in action.

Check the Scoreboard

I start with the KPIs, the key metrics of the business, tracked on a dashboard we update weekly, along with the projects we've had running all year. It's an objective look at how we're tracking against our forecast, watching performance trends over time instead of a single week's snapshot. Are those big projects and change initiatives we committed to in January still true, or have we learned something along the way?

What's important now, and what needs to be adjusted? I want to know the work we're doing still aligns with our company goals, not just where we assumed things would land back in January. I review all of it with my team, not just on my own.

And I read the board the same way whether we're behind or ahead. Right now we're exceeding expectations, way ahead of plan. We could go on vacation and still make our year. But that kind of momentum isn't a time to relax.

As a leader I still have to ask how I stretch the team and accelerate the opportunity in front of us. Just because things are going great doesn't mean it's time to take a victory lap.

Audit the Outcome

The dashboard shows the what. The audit shows the why. So we have a conversation about what's driving those key results, and what's inhibiting them. What are the accelerators, and what are the areas for improvement we keep running into on the way to what we want to achieve?

That question runs across every KPI and every project. It's how I identify areas that actually need attention instead of just the ones that are easy to see.

And I'm searching for input around me, not just my own read. How did other people experience the first six months while I was leading us down the field? That's where the real adjustment comes from.

Gather Insights and Reflections

I bring the team in for this part, both because I want their read and because employee growth matters to me as much as the numbers do.

I make a distinction here that matters. An insight is something we learned or are thinking about. A reflection is the felt experience, how the six months actually went for us. I want both.

And I always go last. I want the team to feel safe to communicate freely, because it isn't just my experience of the first half. It's their experience, and it's our collective experience.

So we go around on a call, and the answers are short, maybe 30 seconds each. What do you think, what's top of mind, how do you feel? Only then do I share mine.

Make the Adjustments

At the start of the year, I sit down and set goals, both personal and professional, and build them into a complete one-year plan. It's my forecast and my vision, and it isn't only for the business. It's a plan for a life lived well.

So I go back to what I set out to accomplish six months ago and ask two things. How am I tracking against it? And is that commitment still true today, or did circumstances change enough that I need to adjust?

From there I check in on the bigger objectives and ask whether they're still important and true, or whether something needs to shift. Every one of those adjustments answers to your personal leadership vision.

Build in Accountability

There are a few layers of accountability around my plan. My colleague Josh drafts his own version of a best-year-ever plan, and we sit down and walk through both of them together. He talks me through his, I talk him through mine, and we check them against the documents we each wrote six or seven months ago.

Then there's my team, who I feel genuinely accountable to because the vision was co-created with them. And there's my coach, who I sat down with for my own mid-year review last week.

This matters more than most leaders admit, because the higher you climb, the fewer people understand what you're carrying. The single biggest year-over-year drop in engagement right now is at the leadership level. The people responsible for lifting everyone else are the ones washing out, and structure is how you fight that.

Feedback is a gift, especially the specific kind. The right feedback keeps me rooted in my own vision and helps me course correct fast, but it lands best when the accountability starts with me, because you can't hold anyone else to a standard you won't hold yourself to.

Take an Immersion Day

Once or twice a year I step out of the business entirely for what I call an immersion day, a full day of immersive learning. Open-ended questions, self-study, a chance to look at the whole picture, usually guided by my coach.

It sounds like a luxury when the calendar is full. It isn't. So often in life and business you're in the motion of doing, doing, doing, without ever actually looking at what you're doing and where it's leading you.

The immersion day is the space to do that: be honest with yourself and get clear on why you want the things you're chasing. And you don't need a crisis to make it worth the time. My last immersion had no big conflict and no problem I couldn't solve, and something still came through that expanded my awareness. It always does.

Rest and Reset

You can't sprint a marathon. This is a long stretch, and part of the reset is making sure you've got the energy to run the second half.

My coach helped me build a joy list, and it's on my wall. Fresh flowers, time on the lake, deep work with an open calendar, a trip to Napa with my mom. As he put it, joy doesn't have to be a week off in Maui.

It can be small things you build into the everyday. That's the part of halftime I'd tell people not to skip. Don't wait for the finish line to pursue joy today.

Don’t Miss Your Chance for a Mid-Year Review

The second half isn't the same as the first half. We don't have 26 weeks. We have July and August, which are slow, and a Q4 where the last three weeks are effectively closed. Realistically we're working with 16 to 18 productive weeks against a first half that had 24.

That's exactly why the adjustments matter, and why they matter now. There's less time to make them count than it feels like there is.

So this week, I invite you to join me in taking a little time for your own mid year review and getting intentional about the next six months. No matter how your first half went, you've still got a second half to play. I'm wishing you plenty of success, and some joy, in the back half of the year.

Book the Adapt & Thrive keynote and learn how to turn halftime adjustments into a repeatable practice for your whole team.