It is said that change is the only constant. Yet do you ever feel like people are more stuck than ever before? Or that, despite the rhetoric, organisations are frightened by change and work hard to maintain the status quo?
After working with people and organisations for many years, I have found that as life and work have sped up, filled with busy-work, back to back meetings and 24/7 connectivity, the biggest challenge to making change happen is the lack of time for reflection.
A recent HBR article states that “Reflection gives the brain an opportunity to pause amidst the chaos, untangle and sort through observations and experiences, consider multiple possible interpretations, and create meaning. This meaning becomes learning, which can then inform future mindsets and actions.” When was the last time you paused to reflect?
This really hit home to me during October when I completed the altMBA by Seth Godin. The altMBA is an intensive, one-month sprint about making change happen. It’s not about learning from the sage on the stage, instead it is about learning from yourself and the crowd. Despite the busyness of the program, the critical step in each project is to reflect on what we learned about ourselves, our work, and what’s possible.
It made me realise that in our work and life, we often take on projects, race to complete them and then promptly move on to the next. And yet our real opportunity to embed the change is through the reflection stage. So, how do we increase the opportunity for reflection both in our personal and organisational processes. Based on my experience with altMBA, I believe there are 3 things we can do to help us embed reflection into everything we do:
Identify the area(s) you are seeking to change.
This is a really important step although it doesn’t need to be big changes that you identify. In fact, it is often best to begin with smaller or simpler areas of change as you build this process of reflection.
For example, at a personal development level, you may want to improve your written communication.
Ask one, two, or even three people to provide you with generous feedback.
Who could I ask?, I hear you say. It could be your work colleagues, your boss, your boss’s boss, people you studied with or did a course with, or people in your professional community. The possibilities are endless. However, choose this person thoughtfully. It is the character of person that is important in this step. Someone who understands what you are trying to achieve. Someone you trust. Someone who understands that providing generous feedback – the type that is designed to uncover what was hidden to you, to help you think about things you didn’t consider before, to ask questions that help you go deeper, learn more and make the change you seek to make.
In the above example, if you give them samples of current (or even past) written communications, they can provide feedback. You could build in an ongoing process whereby they provide you with feedback on your first draft of a report/client communication/social media post.
Make time for reflection.
Take that deeper dive, consider the feedback you have received, identify what went well and where you felt resistance. Think about what you will do differently next time and where you need further information/skills/development. Your reflection can be in any format you wish - writing, by video or to another person. The important thing is just to do it. It is this step that will take the learning from step 2 and allow you to see something you didn’t before, or make a small change that makes a big difference. Step by step, reflection embeds change.
We all have something that we would like to level up on. After spending a month on the altMBA and building reflection into my daily work, I’m seeing how embedding little changes make a big difference. So, what area of change are you going to pick first?
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
George Bernard Shaw
Let’s reflect on that for a moment …