“Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.” – Margaret J. Wheatley
Building in time to pause and reflect is an essential part of evaluating results of any change effort. While a large change effort may require creating multiple feedback loops to assess its impact and establishing key metrics to assess return on investment, simpler efforts or projects can benefit from just some time set aside for reflection. Evaluating results can sometimes be as easy as asking yourself and your team:
- What went well?
- What didn’t go so well?
- What can be improved?
I’ve found that these three questions keep me focused on how well we are accomplishing our goals and any improvements that should be made to sustain a change effort. It also ensures that we don’t just continue blindly on our way, but that we achieve something useful.
What have you done recently to pause and reflect?
Anita Rios
Higher EDge 