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The Importance of Reflection

#changeforthebetter #changemanagement #communication #culturematters #engagement #highperformingteams #innovation #leadershiptips #leadingchange #newleaders Nov 19, 2024
Ivan looking out over Mattamy gym

I’m at the end of my soccer coaching project, and it’s time to wrap it up. By all accounts, we had a solid year: highest winning percentage in 16 years, in the hunt until the very end for a playoff spot, beat nationally ranked opponents; and most importantly, built a winning culture. However, the season isn’t done when the final whistle blows. As a coach, it is critical that I take the time for exit interviews with the players and coaching/support staff to gather feedback from the season in order to ensure there is continuous learning.

One of the most important things I want leaders to recognize when they’ve completed any project, is the importance of the debrief after. Whether the project was successful beyond your wildest dreams or fell flat on its face, never forget the post-mortem. I think it’s fairly common for folks to dive into a review when the outcome isn’t exactly as intended, but high performing leaders also take time to reflect on the projects that had exceptional outcomes.

 

Reviewing your team’s hits, misses and home run decisions to identify what was really mission critical to the success of the project has tremendous value.

 

There have been many times when I’ve been caught by surprise during these reviews. I thought I knew what had been the most important driver of the movement of a project only to hear from my team that what I discarded as a spur of the moment, casual decision made at the last second was actually the key to unlocking a log-jam.

 

Years ago, a colleague from HR gave me my first tool for conducting reviews: the STOP, START, CONTINUE exercise. 

 

STOP

 

What issues did we have that took us away from our focus and our goal? What things did we do, where we put a lot of effort and work into it, but created conflict and more problems to solve? What things are we investing effort into that are not getting us the results for our time and resources? Your team has only so much bandwidth, and anything a leader can do to eliminate noise, distractions and false starts that don’t contribute to the end goal will have a tremendous impact on employee morale and well-being. 

 

START

 

What were the missed opportunities? ‘You know what, we should have done this,’ or, ‘We just ran out of time for this,’ or, ‘We should have sold sweatshirts and made revenue.’ If we missed our revenue goal or fell short in an area, it’s important to identify where the misses were, so that we can start to implement those new pieces next time around. Even in our biggest wins, there remain opportunities to do it even better next time.

 

CONTINUE

 

When I was a new Athletic Director, we bid and won the chance to host a Final Four tournament. It was a complex project. There were highs and lows and sometimes a little friction in between all the team members. When it was all said and done, we gathered all the leaders together to celebrate the outcome and then talk about the highs. What did we hit out of the park? We wanted to identify and document that, so that the next time we host, we will do it the same way again.

From this exercise, we can develop plans and action steps to help us move forward and make sure that we have learned the lessons from our first go-round. A high performing organization is always learning.

I also like to use anonymous feedback opportunities to gather information at the end of a season, the end of a workshop, or when coaching folks. As much as my preference is for face-to-face interaction, some folks are just not comfortable in that situation. I find that sometimes I get what folks think I want to hear instead of what I need to hear. Any good leader wants critical feedback and goes after it in ways that allow people to feel comfortable and safe in sharing it.

 

Gather to share!

 

Finally, I think it’s important that we don’t just GATHER feedback, and put it away in our binder or in our computer for just a few key folks to think about for next year. It’s important to SHARE the feedback with all of the folks who took the time to invest in delivering it to you, as well as, speak to or deliver the action plans you are taking to reinforce the positives and address the challenges and opportunities.

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