Mastering our craft through reflective practice

**This post is written by Susan Johnston, Free Agent at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat **

• **The problem: **When things go wrong at work, we often fail to learn from our experiences.
• **Why it matters: **Reflecting on experiences - good and bad - helps us to gather insight, learn from experiences and develop skills.
• **The solution: **Taking the time to systematically reflect and unpack experiences - as individuals and as groups - and create a habit of doing so.

Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience — David A. Kolb

It was a humid summer day. Fifty or so of us had come together to participate in a strategic planning retreat in an echoing, concrete room. While by that time I had chaired many meetings, moderated roundtables, and hosted a radio show for years, it was my first time working with such an intricate process design. The facilitation plan was intricate, linking a range of techniques that I found challenging to explain, much less to guide table leads. My panic escalated along with the noise. As a planning team, we hadn’t scheduled a dry run. We stumbled. The participants disagreed with the design. Things ended, well, as predicted. The evaluations were painful to read.

Several years later, I’m really glad I made a set of notes after that session. They still serve as one of my cheat sheets when I’m planning for a bigger meeting. I wasn’t always this systematic. I probably also learned a lot from collaborative work in the preceding years. I didn’t write it down, though, and some of the memories are starting to fade. In this post, I’ll talk about the value of establishing a reflective practice, and finding ways to be systematic about learning from our facilitation experiences. So many things can get in the way, so I’ll also share some ideas to hopefully make the process easier.

Building competency through self-reflection

Fortunately, Cheryl Picard, my professor in a mid-career conflict resolution diploma programme, instilled in us the value of a systematic reflective practice as foundational to working with individuals and groups undergoing change. What do we mean here? Michael Lang and Alison Taylor talk about this as foundational to developing artistry in professional practice:

_“[t]he ability to learn from each experience: to refine, adjust and enhance one’s skills; and to respond thoughtfully to the unique and surprising events in professional practice can be achieved through the consistent, thoughtful and intentional application of the methods and principles of reflective practice.” - _The Making of a Mediator: Developing Artistry in Practice

While Lang and Taylor wrote about reflective practice in the context of conflict resolution, the principles apply well to any kind of work with people. The International Association of Facilitators’ Core Facilitator Competencies outline a set of activities which they link to practising self-assessment and self-awareness. These include cultivating an understanding of personal values and the impact on facilitation work, the importance of leading with these values and maintaining congruence with one’s actions, and reflecting on behaviour and results. It all sounds perfectly sensible.

A system for learning from experiences

_“No matter what your ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment.” _― Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology Of Success

Why is this useful? By tracking our plans, actions, and outcomes, over time we can build a library of experiences. Over time, we can look back and see whether and how our thinking has shifted. We build an evidence base to help remember what we’ve done, what assumptions we may have had, and how we worked with them.

You’re probably already doing a lot. Chatting informally with colleagues, people in your household, or other peers is a great start. Individual reflection practices can include freewriting, journalling using more specific prompts (more on that shortly), or letters to your future self. More formal reflection processes might include appreciative interviews, structured listening exercises, or fishbowls. What’s important is making the time and effort to do the reflection.

Getting started: remember to reflect, and to practice

Now what? Taking the time to reflect means moving beyond description, and talking about what you learned, questions that came up for you, or ideas to consider next time. Be as specific as you can. Consider this example:

Version A: I facilitated a strategic planning session last week. Parts of it didn’t go well.

Version B: I was asked to facilitate a strategic planning session last week. The first part went smoothly. At the beginning of the second part, some of the participants were sceptical that the activity we had planned would address the topics they were interested in, and the table leads expressed concern about being able to confidently address their questions. My co-facilitator simply nodded her head, called for a short break, and met with the planning team. The organisers had different views about proceeding as planned versus modifying the activity. While the design was great, it wasn’t resonating with the group, and we realised we had to simplify the exercise and did so. While nothing about it felt good at that moment, I learned a lot about how she simply named the problem, stopped the process, sent participants on break, and worked it out with the organisers. It helped me see new ways to approach situations where things weren’t going well.

Sometimes, the most helpful reflections are the most basic ones. I learned, the hard way, about the value of keeping spare headphones handy when I’m guiding a virtual meeting and the battery on my wireless set goes. About keeping a sharpie and sticky note beside my computer, because quick tactile sketches still serve their purposes.

By taking the time to reflect, systematically, on our experiences, we can gather the insights from work and establish a collection that we can refer to.

Practice makes progress. By building a habit of taking ten minutes or an hour or however long makes sense to you to reflect on your intentions and your technique, you’ll build your insights with each experience you have.

My favourite quick-start prompts

Here are some questions or activities to spark your thinking. Consider trying one after your next meeting or facilitated activity. They work well as prompts for individual reflection, or as frameworks to unpack something as a group.

1. What? So what? Now what? Ask yourself these three questions and take a few minutes to observe. What did you notice? Why is it important to you or others? What would you like to do next? You can do this activity alone, or with others.
2. Stop. Start. Continue. Or, said with more words: when planning your next steps, what would you like to stop doing? What would you like to try next time? What worked well and would you like to continue?
3. Powerful questions. What assumptions did you have going into your session? What reaffirmed them? What challenged them? What questions are you leaving with? If you changed the question word (for example from “what” or “how” to “why”), what new question comes to mind and how does it help you reflect on what happened?
4. Circle. Square. Triangle. As you reflect on your session, what ideas are still unfinished, and ‘circling’ around in your mind? What do you feel has been resolved, and that you have ‘squared away?’ What are three things (points of a triangle) you are taking away from the gathering?
5. 15% solution. If we assume there are always some things within your power to change right away, what are they? Said another way, consider one or two small actions you can take in the next few days to help you move forward.
6. Check in with your future self. Consider some of the above questions, and block time in your calendar a week or month from now to reflect on them. Or write yourself a letter and tuck it away. Possible topics include: How do I feel about what I did today? How would I like my future self to feel?
7. Appreciative interviews. Find someone with whom you shared the experience or someone who will listen as you reflect on your experiences. Consider giving them specific things to listen for, such as strengths, turning points, challenges, etc.

Practice makes progress

By taking the time to reflect, systematically, on our experiences, we can gather the insights from work and establish a collection that we can refer to. We build an evidence base to help remember what we’ve done, what assumptions we may have had, and how we worked with them.

👋 You can create a post like this one! Share your thoughts with a community of public servants. Learn more

(Image Credit: Unsplash)