reflection Archives - Better Process Solutions

Gratitude and leadership

I often remember my grandparents because they were my inspiration and role models. Through their actions and their stories, I learned about gratitude. Even when money was often in short supply, food on the table was never a problem. Therefore, saying thanks for whatever we had to eat that day was a meaningful part of our mealtime. When I complained or said I did not like it, my grandma’s answer was always the same. She will say that we must be grateful for what we receive and what we have.

Gratitude is being thankful for something you received or have. This positive emotion occurs after acknowledging the subject’s value, what it means to you, and appreciating the people that make it happen. One way to show respect to your team is by validating their accomplishments and showing gratitude.

Show gratitude to be a good leader

Your team is critical to accomplishing the business goals. This statement is true regardless of how much you know or how effective you are.

The boss does not need to know everything. Humble leaders know that and do not care to ask for help when facing a problem. Moreover, they are good at acknowledging the support and appreciating those who provide it. Acting upon gratitude by saying it aloud is a way to show respect. Also, it is a way to admit that you could not have done on your own, which only a humble leader will do.

Reflection and gratitude

One thing that does not come easy for a leader or anybody else is to stop and think. It is far more common to keep going making decisions and moving forward. Sometimes, this happens even when we are not sure if we are going in the right direction. However, as with most things, you can build the habit of practicing gratitude.

Good leaders keep a space on their leader standard work for reflection. A continuous improvement culture is about learning, experimenting, and reflection on the results to keep learning and improving. Gratitude and reflection go hand in hand. While we reflect on the outcome of our actions, we realize the contribution of each team member and how it affects the result. In continuous improvement, we win, or we learn. For that reason, every contribution matters. For instance, every team action led to accomplishing the goal or learning how to do it better next time.

But you need to act upon it

If we pause and reflect each day, that moment will impact our success in the long run. As leaders, we cannot take our employees for granted. Being thankful for their contributions, for supporting the business, and for being team members. Appreciate their commitment to improving processes and creating value for the company customers. More importantly, express your gratitude, let them know that you recognize the value of their actions, and appreciate them. As Gertrude Stein said, silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.

Leadership & Team Development

Using reflection to learn

You can use reflection to learn from your mistakes.

Do you remember the last time you felt defeated? How did you feel after making a mistake? Perhaps you felt angry, upset, or fearful. How did you react? What did you do after that mistake? The way you respond during the heat of the moment is significant. However, what you do after, is what is even more critical. In continuous improvement, we use reflection to learn from our mistakes.

Get in the habit of analyzing your mistakes.

I read an article from Justin Bariso regarding an online course he took from Garry Kasparov. Kasparov is a chess strategist who uses reflection to learn from his mistakes. Bariso indicated in this article that there is one lesson from Kasparov that stands out. The lesson is that to improve at anything, you must get in the habit of analyzing your mistakes.

He recommends that the next time you commit a blunder, you should take some time to analyze it. The analysis should start with asking yourself the following questions.

Why did I react the way I did?
What may I have misunderstood or have gotten wrong, especially in the heat of the moment?
What would I change if I could do it again?
What could I say to myself next time that would help me think more clearly?

Why using reflection to learn from your mistakes?

Making mistakes is part of our lives. For that reason, we better learn how to deal with them. When you are a leader, it is paramount to learn from those mistakes. Moreover, to learn from the way we reacted to those mistakes.

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to understand and manage your own emotions and those around you. EI skills are a characteristic of good leaders and kaizen facilitators. The reason is that people with a healthy amount of EI recognize their feelings and learn how to react to them. Also, they understand how those feelings can affect other people.

In a continuous improvement culture, you achieve your goal, or you learn. There is no losing, and a reflection is a learning tool. Kasparov’s provided a guide to learn from your emotions. The answer to those questions will help you understand why you reacted that way and how you could do it differently next time. This reflection will help to learn more about yourself and how you deal with your emotions. Your top job is to guide and support your team. Knowing your mental state will support your efforts to motivate and keep your team engage in the continuous improvement process.

Using reflection to learn from your mistakes and emotions

The truth is that reflecting upon your emotions is also a tool to guide your growing process. It does not have to stop with our feelings after making a mistake. I found that in our quest to be better human beings, it helps to learn how we react to some situations.

For instance, we can learn to understand and deal with impatience, fear, anger, sadness, and others. Moreover, why do we feel joy and happiness from some activities? In conclusion, through reflection, we can evaluate and learn from our mistakes and feelings. Both things will help us to be better professionals and human beings.

Culture Transformation Journey

Self-Reflection and continuous improvement

One of the biggest differences between continuous improvement or lean and other business models or systems is that it recognizes the need for reflection. Toyota recognizes that even if a task is completed successfully, there is a need to reflect on the results. It is a structured way to look at the results with the purpose of learning from the experience.

Daily Self-reflection

It takes time to get used to the idea of reflecting on our actions as part of our daily work. That is why reflection is part of the leaders’ standard work. It is challenging to do it because nobody wants to think about what went wrong or failures. The objective of this exercise is not to criticize the person or team, is to learn from mistakes to avoid future repetition. Through reflection, you can create better plans for the future.

Continuous improvement is about learning, experimenting, and using the lessons learned to change and adapt. We will find a million reasons not to take the time to reflect, but self-reflection or team reflection is the vehicle that will drive us full circle in our learning journey. It is not until we take the time to ask what went well and what didn’t that we learn through our honest answers. While learning from what we did well is good, learning from our mistakes is better. The answer to what you would do differently next time is where you will learn the most.

Continuous Improvement through Reflection

Reflection is one of the elements of the Kaizen spirit. The act or adapt step of the PDCA cycle is a reflection of what we intended to do. Did we accomplish the goal? Why not? How can we fix the problem? By getting into the habit of answering these questions, you keep yourself grounded to lean thinking.

Reflection is an important part of a learning organization. Learning from mistakes is what helps us to prevent repeating them, and the process of recognizing that even if something is good, can be better is what keeps the continuous improvement process alive and kicking!

Business Performance

How do I prepare to reopen my business?

We are preparing to return to some kind of normalcy in our lives, including reopening our businesses. When we open the doors, the business situation will be very different from what it was before the pandemic crisis began. You had a vision for your business and a plan to drive you there, but now everything is different.

It is time to sit down and reflect on the future. The starting point will be to understand the challenges that are coming right to us. With the help of your team, answer the questions below and then update your business plan. Things like the sales forecasts, costs, and other assumptions will change.

Reopening implies changes, what needs to change in your operation?
Do you need to invest in protective equipment, such as acrylic panels or floor markings?
What new recurrent costs you will have to fulfill new safety requirements?
How the market will change?
Do your customers would need something different?
Does your value proposition need to change?

After adapting the business plan to the new environment, establish your new objectives and strategy. Rethink your business strategy carefully, how you guide your decision-making process from now on can be your competitive advantage.

Your business plan is your guide to the future you envision, but you also need short-term plans to prepare the operation for the new requirements. What processes have to change? Do you need to implement new processes to ensure your team and customers’ safety? Does the work area need changes to adapt to social distancing? How will you control traffic and flow?

Many tools will help you to analyze, design and test solutions, PDCA is one of them. To ensure everybody does the same thing standard work and visual management are important. Sometimes there is no time for a long analysis, but you can still practice continuous improvement. If you are not doing it already, build the habit to have daily meetings with your staff. We call them stand-up meetings, or daily huddles.

During them the team do a quick review of the operation the day before. The key here is to ask two important questions, what went well and what needs improvement. You want to discover the reason for the gap between desired and current state. A quick 5 Why discussion can lead to simple solutions that can be implemented during the shift.

From now on, the way to conduct business should be different. This is the time to prepare yourself and your business for the future. Given how fast everything changes with the development of the COVID-19 pandemic, the business of the future demands good leadership, employees and leaders engaged in common goals and flexibility. Continuous improvement and lean thinking promote that kind of behaviors.

Focus on the things you can control, take a deep breath and start creating your future. Be safe, stay well.