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204 Power Up Your Mind

5 simple things you can do at work to reflect more

1 Ensure that all team meetings start with a brief feedback session to
learn from what has gone before.
2 Create feedback and reflection templates to accompany every
aspect of your work and make them available in paper and elec-
tronic format.
3 Have separate sections of all noticeboards for reflective comments.
4 Have a dedicated section of your intranet devoted to reflection and
evaluation.
5Make 360 degree feedback (feedback from all those who work with
and for you as part of a performance process) commonplace, with
everyone invited to be part of an appraisal scheme, not just your
superior.

Of course, the more you model behavior that encourages reflection,
the more likely those around you will be to see its value.

OVERCOMING THE BARRIERS TO REFLECTING

The main enemy of reflection is, of course, the relentless pressure of
time. I just have not got time to stop and reflect, we say to ourselves
in offices across the world. But there is also a deeply rooted cultural
tendency in many of us to assume that experts know best and that
our opinion cannot possibly be of value. This habit of mind is
acquired by some at school, when the realization dawns that in
many examinations there are right and wrong answers regardless of
the validity of the question!
Another aspect of this is the fear of failure. Colin Marshall
here honestly describes a failure from which he has learned:

Somebody once said that mistakes are not worth making if you cannot
learn from them. Contorted logic it may be, but it is also common sense.
Good recovery from mistakes says as much about an individual’s or a com-
pany’s competence or character as getting it right first time, in many ways