In Q4, I often see leadership teams make the same mistake: it’s our last scramble to hit annual targets. All hands on deck. Push harder. Make the numbers work before year-end. By December, we are exhausted, and then January arrives, and nobody’s ready. We haven’t reflected on the previous year, so we scramble again and repeat this vicious cycle with no clear ending, hoping next quarter will be better, but it never does.
Q4 is a season for strategic positioning, not frantic scrambling. Companies that will thrive in 2026 are those that utilize Q4 to align their teams, refine their operational rhythm, and extract insights from their data. This is the playbook for success.
People: Draft Your 2026 Vision Now
The Shift: Stop Obsessing Over 2025 Gaps. Start building your team’s mindset for success in 2026.
By November, your team should be thinking forward, not backward. What does success look like in six months? What capabilities do we need to build? What culture do we need to reinforce?
What to do:
Paint the 2026 Picture: By November, gather your leadership team to determine what ‘winning’ looks like by June 2026. Instead of just dreaming big, let’s nail down what we actually want to see happen: think specific revenue goals, how many new customers we’ll acquire, how much smoother our operations will run, and how much we’ll expand our team. Everyone should clearly understand how they fit into making these goals a reality.
Share this vision with the broader team before December. Give people something to work toward, not just something to recover from.
Identify Performance Investment Needs: Q4 reveals who struggled this year and why. Don’t just note it, decide what you’ll invest to fix it. Does your sales team require more effective training? Does your product team need clearer customer feedback loops? Does your ops team need process documentation?
Make these investment decisions in Q4 so you can implement in Q1. Waiting until February means you’ve already lost momentum.
Set the Mindset Shift: Have explicit conversations with your team about learning from 2025 to perform in 2026. What worked that we should do more of? What failed that we should stop? What’s changing in our market that requires us to adapt?
These are not performance reviews; instead, they are forward-looking strategy conversations designed to mentally prepare individuals for future endeavors.
Try this week: Schedule a session with your leadership team before Nov 28th to draft your vision for June 2026. What are the outcomes that would make the first half of 2026 successful? Share this with your broader team before the end of the year, perhaps during your year-end review or holiday party.
Process: Build Your Planning Rhythm for the First Six Months
The shift: Stop planning one quarter at a time. Start thinking in six-month blocks.
Most startups plan Q1 in late December or early January. By the time they execute, it’s February. By the time they assess what’s working, it’s April. They’re always one step behind. Companies that move fast plan two quarters ahead. They use Q4 to map the first six months of 2026, identifying dependencies, milestones, and decision points.
What to do:
Map Success for January to June 2026: What needs to be true by June for your year to be successful? Work backward. If you need a major product release in May, engineering starts in January. If you’re targeting a market event in Q2, prep begins in Q4.
This six-month view reveals dependencies that one-quarter planning misses.
Establish Your Q1 Rhythm: Decide now how you’ll run Q1. Will you hold weekly leadership meetings? Monthly all-hands? Quarterly OKR reviews? Don’t figure this out in January—lock it in December so January starts with momentum, not setup.
Learn from Process Failures: Review 2025 honestly. Where did decisions get stuck? What approvals slowed you down? What meetings wasted time? What processes created friction?
Pick the top three process problems and fix them before year-end. This creates immediate Q1 velocity.
Try this week: With your leadership team, map the critical milestones for January to June 2026. What has to happen in Q1 to enable Q2? What decisions need to be made in November and December to ensure a smooth start in January? Create a simple timeline and share it.
Data: What Your Numbers Tell You About 2026
The Shift: Celebrate and Reflect on Your 2025 Results. Then use those insights to plan for 2026.
Your 2025 data contains the patterns that predict success in 2026. Which customers had the highest lifetime value? Which product features drove retention? Which marketing channels actually converted? Which hires ramped fastest?
These patterns inform where to invest in 2026.
What to do:
Run Your Win/Loss Analysis: Review your biggest wins and losses from 2025. For wins: what made them work? Can you replicate it? For losses: what went wrong? Can you avoid it?
This isn’t about assigning blame—it’s about pattern recognition. If you lost three deals because of pricing, that’s a 2026 pricing conversation. If you consistently win customers from one channel, that’s where to invest.
Analyze Market Trends: What’s changing in your market that could affect 2026? New competitors? Shifting customer needs? Economic pressures? Regulatory changes? Election season?
Use Q4 to understand these trends and adjust your 2026 strategy accordingly. Don’t wait until trends become challenges.
Review Your Leading Indicators: What metrics in 2025 predicted success three months later? Pipeline coverage that led to revenue? Onboarding completion that led to retention? Product adoption that led to expansion?
Build your 2026 dashboard around these leading indicators so you know in February whether June will be successful.
Try this week: Pull your top 10 customer wins and top 5 losses from 2025. For each, identify the pattern: what drove the win or caused the loss? Document these patterns and share with your team. Use them to inform the 2026 strategy.
Tonio’s Corner: When to Shift Your Team to 2026 Thinking
The question I get most often: When exactly should we stop focusing on 2025 and start preparing for 2026?
Answer: mid-October for leadership, early November for the broader team.
If you wait until January to think about 2026, you’ve already lost January to planning instead of executing. Your competitors who planned in Q4 are executing while you’re still debating strategy.
The mistake isn’t planning—it’s timing. Q4 planning done right means Q1 execution starts on January 2nd, not February 1st.
Try this week: Block 20% of your Q4 calendar for 2026 planning. Treat it as sacred time—more valuable than most Q4 meetings. If you’re a founder, this is strategic work that only you can do. Don’t delegate it or defer it.
The Compounding Effect
Teams that use Q4 for setup enter 2026 with a clear vision, aligned people, and momentum. They know what success looks like, they’ve fixed process bottlenecks, and they’re tracking the correct data.
Teams that use Q4 for scramble enter 2026 exhausted and unclear. They spend January figuring out what they should have decided in November. By March, they’re a quarter behind.
The gap compounds. Companies that prioritize a structured setup gain momentum, while those that focus on scrambling lose it.
Use Q4 to build foundations, not chase miracles.
What will you set up this week?
