do you ever think back over what worked, and what didn't?
Dealing with Difficult People
three. How to have reflective practice as a manager
If your company has an annual performance review cycle, you probably take some time in the lead-up to that to reflect back on the year. What you've accomplished, what you might have done better. It's only once a year, but it's a start. I was listening to a podcast this week that talked about performance reviews: how they have a very minor effect, but having one performanced-based conversation with your team members each year is better than zero. One excellent point raised by the podcast was that managers tend to be paid to be in meetings and fill in paperwork, but NOT to meet with the people who are getting the work done. And that's a problem of the way their jobs are structured. More could be done to restructure these roles to make more time for helping people be better at their work
Imagine how much better
And that's not even what I want to talk about this week. We looked at the concept of performance reviews in "Managing People and Organisations", but this week's insight, from the first subject I ever studied, Executive Blueprint, is the underlying one that makes performance reviews possible.
In its simplest form, this process (called Deliberate Reflective Practice) involves taking some time after something happens.
Looking at what happened
Taking the time to consider the outcomes
Adjusting what you do as a manager in light of these outcomes.
This isn’t brain surgery but there’s something about the process of management, especially of people; that makes this more difficult. Working in constant overwhelm, always trying to complete your immediate responsibilities, as many of us do, leaves little time for reflection and so we end up repeating the behaviour we first blundered into rather than continuing to improve our results.
This leads us to the "Action learning cycle".
Reflection: why did an event occur, and what does this mean in light of my objectives?
Conceptualisation: think about how you can achieve your objectives (e.g. think about potential obstacles and how you can overcome them)
Implementation: influencing people (including yourself) to change - this is the doing stage (the hard part can be sticking to your plan when obstacles arise).
Immersion: experiencing the outcome of implementing your plans
Different people will skew the way they spend their time to emphasise different stages of the action learning cycle. the notes talk about a few pairings, which each have strengths and weaknesses.
Reflection and Conceptualisation (1 and 2):
too little: limited innovation - not understanding the context
just right: Good planning and solution generation
too much: inadequate follow-through
Conceptualisation and Implementation (2 and 3):
too little: not all theories being tested
just right: Good decision making, and practical application
too much: insufficient search to discover the real problem
Implementation and Immersion (3 and 4):
too little: little task completion / missed deadlines
just right: Achieving goals in a timely fashion
too much: high levels of accomplishment of the wrong things
Immersion and Reflection (4 and 1):
too little: lack self-insight
just right: Creativity, and awareness of alternatives.
too much: analysis-paralysis - too many options
I tried to capture this concept in a diagram: see what you think?
What have we learned? It's important to reflect on your performance as a manager. But this is more than just being the Monday-morning quarterback.
Consider all four stages of the action learning cycle. Build into your practice similar amounts of time thinking through the external environment that led to any challenges in the first place (reflection), thinking about how your objectives could have be achieved (conceptualisation), carrying out your plan (implementation), and then considering all the sources of information that you received while you were carrying out your plan (immersion). While this may slow you down in the short-term, you will see improvements in both what you're focusing energy on, and the effectiveness of the time spent.
What's one recurring task in your work (or home life) that would benefit from this process?
Hit reply and let me know what you are planning to work on!
Dave.
Work. Study. Dad.