“It’s nice to look back at my journey and identify specific people and experiences that helped me become who I am now”.
“Perhaps for the first time in thirty years, I stopped long enough to understand how my strengths as a leader impact those I lead – positively and negatively”.
“I began to see a significant disconnect between what motivated me and what motivated other members of my team”.
“I obviously need to refocus how I manage my relationships. I have tended to take my interpersonal skills for granted, but realise I need to be more intentional in building stronger connections with those I work with”.
When we move immediately to the next thing on our list of priorities after concluding a meeting or project, it is often at the expense of examining whether or not things could have been done better; if the process could have been improved by including different people; or how it might have been possible to achieve a broader set of objectives longer-term. We mistakenly believe that a time of reflection equates to an unnecessary roadblock or pause. Forrester argues that when organizations fail to incentivize reflection, they are setting themselves up to achieve the same result they didn’t want in the first instance (Forrester, 2011). It is why Watkins encourages leaders to adopt a simple framework to help them accelerate their learning and adapt what they do next to what the situation requires (Watkins, 2003).References
Forrester, Daniel Patrick. (2011). Consider: Harnessing the Power of Reflective Thinking in Your Organization. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Watkins, Michael. (2003). The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Press.