To put myself through college, I worked a variety of blue-collar jobs. Those jobs provided some much-needed funding for my learning habit, an interesting set of manual skills, and the opportunity to learn a lot about life and leadership.
I learned one of those life and leadership lessons from a grizzled old construction worker named Ozzie, who was the leader of our construction crew. One day, I was busy building precast concrete products and had a question for Ozzie. When I couldn’t find him near where we were working, I took a walk around the building and found him sitting, apparently idle, in the seat of the forklift with his chin resting on his closed fist.
Annoyed that Ozzie was just sitting there as we were busting our tails, I called out, “Ozzie, what are you doing?”
“I’m thinking,” he replied.
My immediate reaction was, “Yeah right, you’re just being lazy and avoiding the hard work the rest of us are doing.” Over the years, though, I’ve come to be a strong believer that thinking — deliberately, intensely, and with focus — can be one of the most productive things we do.
We can ground our thinking in the future (planning), the present (observation), or the past (reflection). I want to focus a little on reflection because, as Margaret Wheatley notes, “Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful” (Wheatley, 2002).
Deliberate reflection is a powerful thinking habit for consultants and their clients. Consultants can facilitate their clients’ reflection by providing a systematic process for reflection, setting aside time for reflection, and using questions that help clients get beyond the surface level of reflection.
- A systematic process for reflection makes efficient use of time and promotes learning. A simple process (What, So What, Now What) focuses on what happened, what was learned, and how that learning will be applied. Consultants can share examples of different reflection processes, helping clients select the one that works best for them.
- Including reflection as a regular part of meetings (e.g., during closing activities) or at designated points (e.g., quarterly, at completion of major milestones) ensures that it becomes a habit and is valued. Reflection opportunities also can be non-regular—they present themselves during meetings when consultants recognize that clients would benefit from reflecting on a surprising event, a frustrating situation, or a challenging dilemma.
- If reflection stops at the surface level with a simple description of what happened, little will be learned. Getting to deeper levels of reflection involves asking questions that examine the role of beliefs, assumptions, and values in what happened. It also includes considering how others (e.g., researchers, colleagues) might view what happened and what was done in the situation and the deeper meaning of what happened in terms of the historical, societal, or organizational context.
By encouraging reflection, consultants are doing more than giving wise advice. Research has shown that reflecting on accumulated experience has a greater return in performance gains than accumulating more experience (Di Stefano et al., 2023; Jachimowicz et al., 2016). In short, reflection is a worthy pursuit that helps consultants and clients deepen their learning, make sense of their work and its impact, and improve their practice.
To learn more about supporting clients’ reflection, see our “Adapting Reflection Prompts to Client Types” tool.
Special thanks to Marzano Research System Improvement Consultant Ceri Dean for contributing to this blog and tool.
Sources
Di Stefano, G. , Gino, F., Pisano, G., & Statts, B. (2023, February 6). Learning by thinking: How reflection can spur progress along the learning curve [Harvard Business School NOM Unit Working Paper No. 14-093; Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise Research Paper No. 2414478]. SSRN. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2414478
Jachimowicz, J. M., Lee, J. J., Staats, B. R., Menges, J. I., & Gino, F. (January, 2016). Commuting with a plan: How goal-directed prospection can offset the strain of commuting [Harvard Business School NOM Unit Working Paper No. 16-077]. DASH. https://dash.harvard.edu/entities/publication/73120378-f65f-6bd4-e053-0100007fdf3b
Wheatley, M. (2002, April). It’s an interconnected world. Shambala Sun. https://margaretwheatley.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Its-An-Interconnected-World.pdf
