The importance of reflection...

Accelerate your learning capabilities...

Dec 03, 2019

The question

Do you always work at top levels of perfection, all your actions totally effective, focussed and directed? Are you perfect in every way?

No? Me neither.

OK, so now we’re agreed on that - do you pro-actively and continually try to do anything about this in a structured manner? That’s what this short discussion is about - how we can all build in continuous improvement of our performance in a very easy and effective way.

The problem…

Most of us lead busy lives, juggling multiple priorities - family, work, sports, hobbies, social lives, and trying to stay on top of everything can be difficult. And when we finish one thing, there are so many other calls on our time, most of them urgent, important or both. Never enough time, busy, busy, busy… And social media on top of it all!

You may have heard the quotation from Albert Einstein that famously defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. (Actually, Einstein never said this - it was a fictional character named Jane Fulton in a 1983 novel Sudden Death by Rita Mae Brown. - reflect on that!)

So by NOT reflecting on our experiences, unless we are working at the most optimum efficiency (which we’ve already established we are not), we are repeating and perpetuating poor performance, or at least sub-optimal performance - surely a form of insanity - whether defined by Einstein or Jane Fulton.

How often do you consciously step back for even a few minutes after some particularly frenetic project or period, and engage in some focussed, structured reflection on that period of time, on what you have learned, experienced and felt?

Reflection is a very powerful way to enhance your learnings from an experience - here’s a way to utilise this in your own life…

How to do it…

Choose an experience, project or piece of work which you’ve recently completed. It can be large or small, success or failure - doesn’t matter.

Take a small chunk of time - maybe half an hour, and remove yourself from your normal working environment (this is important). Go somewhere quiet, where you can be undisturbed. Turn off your phone (yes you heard me - there’s an off button on it somewhere -probably that dusty, never used bit on the side.)

Now, spend a few minutes thinking back over the experience you’ve just completed. Take your mind back to when it started - might be the first day of the project or course, or it might be even before that when you first heard about it, or when it was first mentioned to you. Now review the experience - like scrolling through a video on fast forward, starting at the beginning, and moving mentally through all the stages from the beginning to the end. Bring to mind what happened at each stage, who was involved, the ups, downs, twists and turns, crashes, successes and eventual outcome - good or not so good. You might want to note points down as you mentally review, but whatever works for you.

Now you’ve revisited the experience, you’ve brought it back into your current thoughts, and you’re ready for the next steps.

Answer the following questions - jot these down and also your answers:

What was hard for me?
What worked well?
What didn’t work well?
How will I change what or how I do things in the future?

This can be done individually or in a team mode. I’ve found that if I’m doing this with a team then it’s very useful to have everyone do it individually first, and then have a round table where open, non-judgemental rules are clearly set to promote a sharing of everyone’s answers in the spirit of mutual sharing and improvement. It’s often amazing to see how different people took completely different things from what was apparently the same experience - of course, we never share the same experience because we all come to any situation with our own unique background, biases, skills and expectations.

So where’s the value?

This was submitted by one of my students at UCD Smurfit last semester as the final paragraph of an essay each person on the programme is asked to complete to reflect on their experience from the module:

Why reflective practice?
It may appear that this section would be better suited to the start of this document, rather than at the end. However, it is here because it was only after completing this exercise that I fully understand the value of reflective writing. If someone were to ask me in several months, what I learned throughout the [module], I would be able to give them a clear understanding, thanks to this assignment. Starting at Smurfit, I was sure things would be so fast paced that there would be no place for contemplative writing. Yet, this seems exactly the reason it exists. While there is much to be gained from the action packed days, there is decidedly more in stopping to pause and take stock of what we have learned.

Pause.

…

“… there is decidedly more [to be gained] in stopping to pause and take stock of what we have learned.” My student “got” the assignment - how taking even a little space and time to reflect, to review, assimilate and process experience can have significant benefit.

How often?

Reflection is used daily in AGILE environments at the daily standup, where each team member shares where they are, what they plan to do today and any specific challenges or blockers they face.

Project teams can use reflection as they prepare for or transition through stage reviews, as well as at the end of projects.

Individuals can use this technique at any time - the key is to use it!

After you go…

Thanks for reading to the end, but will this cause you to change how you approach your projects in the future? If you do begin to build in some time to reflect and review, the benefits will flow. There’ll never be enough time, but on the other hand, is there enough time for you NOT to do this?

Let me know what you think…

A Balanced Life

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