Are you losing the growth value of reflection?
Website design By BotEap.comAt PIA’s Continuous Improvement Conference in Dallas last week, I got an unexpected benefit, an insight into the value of reflection as you strive to improve. I had previously worked on a project for the Association for Manufacturing Excellence and gained an understanding of the importance of reflective listening. But now, I have broadened my vision and applied the value of reflection in learning.
Website design By BotEap.comIf you don’t take the time to reflect on what went well and what didn’t go well, you won’t learn from your experience and you won’t retain anything from your experience. This point was made clear in a lecture exercise called Kata in the classroom. In the session, we did the activity several times. After establishing a baseline for our task competency, we experimented with making one change to improve our process. Over multiple experiments, we found that each team was most successful when it took time to reflect on what worked and what didn’t. Based on our reflections, we planned the following experiment. Reflecting on what we learned helped us improve. We all agreed that reflection should be part of any training or plan to improve ourselves or our company.
Website design By BotEap.comBenefits of reflection
Website design By BotEap.comLet’s take a look at some of the benefits of reflection. First, you will gain self-awareness. As many famous coaches tell us, failure is part of learning. Success coach Darren Hardy says failure means growing from failure. Your failures are your stepping stones to success. I always remember what Edison said about failing 10,000 times before he successfully invented the light bulb: “I haven’t failed. I’ve only found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Website design By BotEap.comgenerate ideas
Website design By BotEap.comFailure leads to great ideas. Taking time for reflection allows you to weed out ideas that don’t work and come up with new ideas that might work. Reflection is a part of creativity. It also increases perception and allows the brain to create new pathways so that more learning can take place. We found in our exercise that reflection allowed us to build on the ideas of others. Thus, relationships were strengthened and we learned to work together. Reflective thinking also helped us extract ideas and put things in context, making it easier to remember the main points.
Website design By BotEap.comRetain learning and make better decisions
Website design By BotEap.comReflection allows you to retain what you have learned. It helps you encode and organize knowledge in your brain’s repository. Meaningful reflection must become part of every learning experience. John Dewey, considered the modern father of experiential learning, said, “We don’t learn from experience, we learn by reflecting on experience.” In his book How We Think, Dewey discusses the basis and consequences of beliefs. He found that shortcuts without reflection cause people to form opinions based on insufficient knowledge and understanding. The result is errors in judgment and mistakes. Reflection allows you to give active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or opinion. Thus, reflection will allow you to make better decisions and avoid making mistakes or repeating mistakes.
Website design By BotEap.comApply reflection to daily life
Website design By BotEap.comAs we worked in our teams, we found that we could apply reflection to our daily activities, as well as our efforts to improve at work. We could use it to resolve conflicts, reduce frustration, express opinions, and manage stress. The team also thought it would be helpful in setting goals and priorities in our work and personal lives. You can reflect on your values, your mission, your respect for others, and how you apply skills and tools like the ones we learned at the conference.
Website design By BotEap.comConsider adding reflection to your toolbox and you will experience organic and sustainable growth.