Encouraging self-reflection

​Colleagues,
 
Yesterday we briefly discussed four of the five faces of the cube of development:

1. External training and workshops
2. Internal training and workshops
3. Mentoring and peer networks
4. Coaching and direction from leadership

 
The fifth face is self-reflection and individual initiative. While this is the most powerful form of development, it is also the least consistent.

Self-reflection involves thinking about past practice, learning from what worked and what didn’t, and applying it to future practice.
 
Individual initiative focuses on seeking learning to address specific weaknesses or gaps, or to pursue new knowledge and skills.
 
While most people are highly motivated to get better at what they do, they often fail to take initiative for their own development. Why? We live in a world where eating lunch at your computer is more important than eating with colleagues, where instant responses are more valued more than thoughtful ones, and where the urgent trumps the important. Is it any surprise then that people would place their own development at the bottom of their to-do list? After all, self-reflection is a quadrant 2 activity. 

Ideally, each person in an organization has access to all five of these strategies on a frequent basis. Tomorrow, we’ll explore how to integrate these strategies into an organization, but you have homework first! Reflect on these questions:

1. Rate your own access or use of the five strategies (never, sometimes, often).
2. Rate the access of others in your organization.
3. Brainstorm some ways you might increase people’s access to the different development strategies.

 
Do good and be well,
 
Frederick