Reflection

As I have been working with organizations over the last several months, I have been exploring new ways to have teams reflect. What should the teams reflect on? This is an interesting question and I have narrowed it down to two essential areas; past performance and learning from activities.

With respect to past performance, I am always amazed at the gap between where team's really are, and where they think they are. Usually the team's are polarized between the Doom Sayers, who believe everything is horrible, and the Polly Anna's who believe everything is spectacular. The answer is typically in the middle. However, we want to ground the reflections in fact and not opinion. Polarized comments are often based on opinion, without data to support positions. Getting an objective baseline of both performance (results) and culture are necessary to properly reflect.

Teams often rush into to new budget cycles and new projects without ever reflecting on history. As the saying goes, "Those who fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it."

The second area of reflection is on process. At then end of each day, and now at the end of each exercise, I have been giving the team time to reflect on what they learned. In improvement, the process generates the results. If we follow the standard work of the process, we should generate the outcomes we desire. I now have what I call blind faith in the tools and the process.

What I worry about is how well the knowledge transfer is occurring. The team must learn the tools and the outcomes from the tools in order to to understand the system of improvement. These reflective steps create the teaching moments. When the team members understand the what and the why of the improvement process, the environment for culture change has been created.

At the end of the day, improvement is about changing culture so that given a set of inputs (circumstances), the team will respond with the appropriate behaviors. This collection of behaviors is what defines your corporate culture.

Take advantage of the opportunities to reflect on past performance, as well as on the process of improving and you too will foster a culture of improvement.

Lean Blessings,

Ron

Ron Bercaw
www.breakthroughhorizons.com