Why "slowing down" for reflection actually accelerates progress
Oh my! Where did 2022 go? It’s December already and Christmas will soon be upon us. I wonder how you’re feeling about the year just past. While it may be tempting to breathe a huge sigh of relief that a challenging year is nearly over and you can take a break, it’s probably a good idea to pause and take stock of how the year has gone.
I suspect that, like many businesses, you set some goals for you and/or your team(s). The articles I wrote earlier in the year may even have helped you to do so in a highly engaging way.
Assuming that you did, how have things turned out? It’s rare that everything turns out exactly as planned. Perhaps you have exceeded your expectations, or perhaps things haven’t turned out quite as well as you had hoped.
Equally, you may already be thinking about the year to come. For many businesses, facing up to current challenges means that moving forward with your Operational Excellence plans will be more important than ever as pressure mounts to improve performance.
Whichever of the above applies to you, I am convinced that reflecting on how 2022 has gone will give you a great foundation for even greater success in 2023. In the sections that follow, I’ll outline a simple structure that I’ve used at a personal and organisational level to reflect on what has been achieved, what have your learned and how might that influence your plans for 2023.
The value of reflection
One of the key foundational ideas around Operational Excellence based on lean thinking is the Plan-Do-Check-Adjust/Act (PDCA) cycle. In this context, we might think of ‘Plan’ as our goal setting process and ‘Do’ as working on the goals throughout the year. ‘Check’ then relates to reflecting on how well those plans have gone and ‘Adjust’ is about incorporating the learning from that reflection into next year’s plans.
Hopefully, at a day-to-day level, you and your colleagues have been applying the PDCA approach throughout the year to work on your goals in any case to ensure that you stay on track.
What I’m referring to here is something else; a deeper look at your overall process for setting and executing goals so that you can do an even better job of it in the year ahead. To help with this I use Kolb’s Learning Cycle – a well known model for individual and organisational learning – which, for me, has a strong link with the PDCA cycle and offers some useful insight into how we might set about the process. Like PDCA, there are four stages that look somewhat similar. However, there are some specifics that might be a little different to how you normally apply PDCA.
Concrete Experience: Unlike PDCA, Kolb’s learning cycle starts with the equivalent of the ‘Do’ stage, taking an action or having an experience.
Reflective Observation: The second step is to reflect deeply on that experience to gain knowledge and understanding about what happened and why. A great way to do this is to imagine yourself as an objective observer of your actions. Not quite an ‘out of body’ experience, but something close!
Abstract Conceptualisation: This step has two parts. The first is drawing conclusions from the previous step to answer the question “what have we learned?” The second is to apply any relevant theory and principles or knowledge from elsewhere that may help us to improve.
Active experimentation: This final step is about planning to apply what you have learned from the cycle so far – in this case to make the setting, planning and execution of your 2023 goals even better than 2022. Of course, any experimentation should use the Plan-Do-Check-Adjust approach to ensure success.
The reflection process in detail
Using this cycle as a basis, here are some questions for you to ask yourself. Where you’ve been working on your goals with a team, this could be a great team activity to do as part of your year end.
Step 1: What happened?
What actually happened compared to what we planned? It is rare that anything goes exactly to plan, so exploring what actually happened is an essential starting point. There are several areas to look at in connection with the plans for goals that you set:
What came out better than we thought?
What was more challenging?
What was good about the way we acted on our goals?
What would have been better?
What happened as a result of our actions that we didn’t anticipate
(e.g. unintended consequences)?How do we feel about what happened?
What happened that we didn’t plan? A particular category to consider are those things that happened that weren’t in our planning and weren’t as a result of our actions. These may be internal or external factors that impacted our business. Some may be things that occurred with little immediate consequence, some may have required us to adjust our plans, or even set new goals. More on these in the next step. For now, simply record them.
Step 2: What have we learned from this?
Having noted what happened, we now consider what we have learned from our experiences. Again, there are several aspects to cover.
What have we learned about our process of goal setting?
the way it’s designed?
the way we applied it?
the way we acted on the goals?
What have we learned about ourselves
as leaders of the process of goal setting
as “goal executors” – both leaders and others in the various teams across the organisation as they acted on the goals
For both of the above, another dimension to look at is the level of consistency across the organisation. Are there any areas that seem to be applying the process better than others? If so, what are they doing that may be useful to others going forward?
Of the things that happened that were not as planned, it’s important to consider:
which were helpful and which were unhelpful?
which we could have expected to anticipate – i.e. which were within our control, which we could only have influenced and which were genuine “surprises” outside of our control or influence?
This helps us to identify what course of action we take to reduce their impact in future. In particular, in the event that we were surprised by something in this category, we really have to ask ourselves how that could have happened and what we might do to avoid being caught out in future.
Step 3: What additional insight / information do we have?
Once we have extracted all of the relevant learning from the work we have done on our goals this year, we start to think about how that will influence our planning for the year ahead.
However, before we do, it’s worth considering whether there is anything else that may help us to improve how we set and work on our goals.
For example, if we have identified specific issues around a particular area of operation, looking for resources on good practice will identify useful theory, principles or examples that may help us.
If you have identified issues with your goal planning process itself, one such resource is the series of articles I wrote earlier this year on how to engage your whole organisation in the process of setting and aligning goals to the needs of your teams and the business as a whole. You can find these on our website here: https://www.veracityoxford.com/blog .
I’m currently developing these into a more comprehensive guide to goal setting and action. This will be available later in December. If you’d like a copy, please drop me an email or complete the contact form on our website.
Step 4: What action do we need to take?
Once we have all of the above information, it’s time to consider what action we need to take, in particular what will we do differently in the light of what we have learned from the reflections above.
There are two aspects to consider:
The goals we set: our reflection may have shown us areas where we need to pay more attention to particular goals, for example:
Were we too ambitious, or not ambitious enough?
Do we need more or less detail in our plans to ensure that they are clear yet adaptable to evolving circumstances?
Do we need to apply any new information or expertise?
The way we go about the goal setting process: alternatively, we may need to improve the way we go about goal setting, whether that be around engagement of others, aligning goals between teams or the goal setting activity itself.
Before diving in to the goal setting process, it’s important to be clear on all of these aspects so that you set yourself up for an even better year in 2023.
Goal Setting for 2023
Your reflections will provide you with a great foundation for setting or refining your goals for the year ahead. To build on that foundation, a well-structured process for setting and aligning goals throughout the organisation, in a way that is consistent and reflects the needs of the teams and individuals in the organisation as well as organisational goals, can be a valuable approach.
As mentioned above, at the start of this year, I published a series of articles that described such a robust goal setting process. This approach both builds engagement and commitment to the goals and also ensures that goals are set at all levels that align both across teams and up and down the various levels in the organisation.
The previous articles and our upcoming guide describe these in full. As a reminder, or to get you started, here’s a brief summary.
1. Set and share a clear vision for the future
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders.
Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea!”
ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY, WRITER, POET, AND PIONEERING AVIATOR
All too often goal setting becomes little more than a series of tasks for those who need to take action and, let’s face it, who really gets excited by a ToDo list? Setting and sharing a clear vision for the organisation engages others in the “why” of goal setting and establishes clear purpose, which can be much more motivating.
Whether or not you’ve done this before, it’s a great time to remind everyone of the vision, as this clarity of purpose is easily lost in the busyness of day-to-day work. It may also be good to ask if the vision needs refinement or adjustment in the light of your learning.
2. Set Goals at every level that support the vision
Done well, every individual and team within the organisation should be clear how their daily work and improvement goals align to the overall vision. Similarly, organisational goals should recognise the need and aspirations of those individuals and teams.
Deploying a “Top Down and Bottom Up” approach to setting goals – using the “catchball” process, for example - builds understanding and alignment in a more powerful way than many traditional methods.
3. Develop plans to achieve the goals
“The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes
as a complete surprise rather than being preceded by
a period of worry and depression.”SIR JOHN HARVEY-JONES, BUSINESS LEADER AND TV PERSONALITY
Building where appropriate on the learning from the previous year, create a plan for each goal. In my experience, plans are best created by, or at least involving, those who will be carrying them out. This not only builds engagement but also ensures that the plan recognises many of the practical issues that will be involved to achieve the goal.
Sub-steps here are:
Be clear where you are starting from – study the current condition
Define how things will be different once the goal is achieved
Determine what conditions are required for that to be achieved and the steps required to get there
Consider who else needs to be involved and how you will interact with them
Anticipate potential obstacles and be ready to deal with them
Develop your plan using a Plan-Do-Check-Adjust approach – building in regular reviews to keep you on track as you work towards the goal
Getting the right balance between being detailed enough for clear action and being flexible and adaptable to emerging circumstances takes some work, but is well worth the effort.
How can I help?
As mentioned above, we have a series of articles describing the goal setting process already available on our website. These will shortly be available in the form of a comprehensive guide/workbook. If you’d like a copy, please drop me an email or complete the contact form on our website.
I’m also running an interactive reflection and planning webinar on Friday 16th December from 12-1 BST. In the session, I’ll talk through the reflection steps above in more detail and answer any questions you may have. This will be held online and you can book your place here.
Following that, on Tuesday 17th January 2023 I’ll be hosting an all-day, in-person goal planning workshop for those who can travel to a location near Oxford. In the workshop, we’ll talk though the goal planning process step by step with practical “how to” tips and lots of opportunity for questions and discussion.
Equally, I’d be very happy to book an informal chat to answer any questions you may have. Simply drop me an email or complete the contact form on our website and I’ll be in touch.
Previous articles
On developing and sharing vision: https://www.veracityoxford.com/blog/if-you-dont-know-where-youre-going-youll-end-up-somewhere-else
On setting goals: https://www.veracityoxford.com/blog/vision-into-action-part-1-goal-setting
On creating plans: https://www.veracityoxford.com/blog/vision-into-action-part2-planning
On executing your plans: https://www.veracityoxford.com/blog/vision-into-action-part-3-execution