The Mid-mortem: Don’t Let Artificial Deadlines Erode Quality
I was having a conversation with a CEO about how to drive accountability. He wanted to set a hard deadline for his direct report to make a critical hire. The friction point with this approach is obvious: when you force a hiring manager to manage to a specific date instead of a standard, they will almost always select the 'best available' candidate and settle just to hit the timeline. When the CEO asked how to drive urgency without forcing a compromised decision, my answer was simple: Change the milestone. Don't make the deadline about the hire; make it a mid-mortem. Instead of expecting an offer letter on that date, use it as a forced pause for the hiring manager to assess exactly why the right candidate hasn't been identified yet.
What’s Your Waypoint?
While this scenario highlights a recruiting challenge, it is merely one example. Executives must be clear on the exact problem or opportunity they are trying to address. Setting parameters can motivate the wrong behaviors and sub-optimize processes. This CEO clearly wanted to have his direct report make a high-quality hire and not settle, but without a deadline, his concern was that the process could drag on and hiring might be deprioritized. This is where milestones, waypoints, or check-ins become so important. Important projects usually take time to execute, but waiting until the end to check in often comes with disappointment.
The mid-mortem concept is not new, but it is very much underutilized. Companies lead post-mortems at the end of projects to reflect and absorb learnings. This often happens when projects don’t go well. I have always been a big proponent of dissecting successes and doing post-mortems on projects that go well to capture the best practices and institutionalize the things that worked well. The mid-mortem takes this to a new level by zooming out and reflecting mid-process. It offers an opportunity to shift the strategy, refocus, affirm things are on track, and to capture the learnings. Rather than clinging to a deadline that yields a suboptimal outcome, the mid-mortem enhances quality while still honoring the need for speed.
The Hiring Mid-mortem Playbook
The Circuit Breaker: When the date arrives without a successful hire, the direct report must present an assessment of the friction.
Diagnostic Questions for the Team:
The Pool: Are we fishing in the wrong pond? Do we need to look in adjacent industries?
The Pitch: Is our compensation package, title, or value proposition misaligned with current market reality?
The Filter: Are the requirements so rigid that we are filtering out highly capable but non-traditional talent?
The Outcome: The CEO and the direct report agree on a course correction adjusting the comp, rewriting the description, or changing the search firm rather than forcing a bad offer letter.
The Mid-mortem Works for Any Process or Project
A mid-mortem can provide broad strategic value. It can be applied to any functional area of a business: software development, an ERP implementation, a post-merger integration, a performance management process, an office move, a product launch, or just about any other critical project.
Several years ago, I was hired by Doosan to lead post-merger integration after the large Korean company acquired Bobcat from Ingersoll Rand. About six months into the integration, the combined leadership team gathered in Seoul, South Korea, for an update meeting. In hindsight, this meeting actually served as a mid-mortem. I began with a slide that read, "Houston, We Have a Problem!" The Westerners in the room chuckled, while the Koreans stared in confusion. I explained that the phrase—a famous quote from the Apollo 13 mission made famous by the Tom Hanks movie—perfectly illustrated our challenge: cultural assimilation. The fact that half the room understood the reference and the other half did not was a microcosm of what the company was experiencing. We were struggling with cross-cultural assimilation and clashing the North Dakota-based Bobcat ways with the Seoul-based Doosan way. This dynamic was even more confusing in other regions of the world. My proposed solution, born out of this pause, was an internal roadshow that I conducted with the CEO and the Head of Strategy. We visited eleven countries in a month, holding all-hands meetings at plants and corporate offices to explain the logic behind the acquisition, the desired future state, and critical cultural nuances. That mid-mortem meeting in Seoul was the exact process check needed to get the combined company back on track.
By implementing mid-mortems, a company’s culture shifts. This process and the expectation of a mid-mortem creates psychological safety. By standardizing mid-mortems, an organization builds a culture where leaders can raise their hands and say "this isn't working yet" without being penalized.
True accountability isn't about forcing an outcome by an arbitrary date. It is about maintaining the integrity of the standard, even when it requires a strategic pause.
Call to Action:
Look at your current calendar. Pick one looming, high-stress deadline and convert it into a mid-mortem this week.
