Reflective practice

Connect to ourself and how we master craft at work

WHY reflective practice?

Businesses that learn how to adapt to the ever-changing market landscape and technological advancements will win. Reflective Practice is a means through which adults learn through experience and apply those learnings to their work. It also helps individuals to process emotions as they relate to work to reduce the emotional burden that work can have on people, and reduce the negative impact of that experience on the work itself.

When teams feel safe enough to articulate their feelings as they relate to work, not only can leaders do something with that data beyond one on one management support, but your teams learn to manage themselves, leaving leaders more time to lead. Reflective Practice helps your teams contain and hold emotions to work more effectively and provides a platform for leaders to demonstrate appropriate self-authorising behaviours to improve the effectiveness of the group.

How to reflective practice?

Start by building a ritual around reflective practice. Once a week, or while you’re having your daily cuppa, talk to your team about work in the frame of:

What happened?

How did it feel?

What does that mean?

When you get really practiced at reflective practice, you won’t need a meeting or a scheduled session. You’ll have team members talking about what happened, how it felt and what it might mean as and when they need. They’ll learn from their experiences, and work with their emotions rather than have the feels get in the way, distract or disengage them.

A poem about REFLECTIVE PRACTICE

This is the reflection poem. THE WHOLE OF IT. Not just the tiny bit that G made Stef record on social media…

You’re real good at that thing that you do

I know it I feel it it's vital and true 

and ‘cos you are awesome you still want to grow 

your craft’s like a friend and you still want to know - 

it and show it the care that it needs 

‘a garden untended is sure to grow weeds’ 

but you’re really busy and on top of all that 

where is the class that fits the format - 

that you need for you, at this stage in your learning? 

in seeking the teaching you must be discerning 

you search here and there, you search high and low 

is it under that rock? is it's buried in snow? 

oh where is the teacher to add to your skill? 

and if you're a leader you search with more will

‘cos you know that your people need to grow too 

oh what is a wonderful leader to do?! 

but what is that there on top of that Hill? 

it's Sparkles it's shiny and gives you a thrill 

you know it's your teacher, you know it you do! 

you run up That Hill, and what confronts you? 

a mirror, you shiver and get all goose pimply, 

you look at yourself and you realize quite simply 

you are the best teacher that you'll ever know, 

you know the places that you need to go! 

what you need is for your growth is the time and the space 

to unpack experience and put it in place 

but in the eyes of the mirror you realize a thing 

if you did this with others you would all win! 

so you gather your teams on top of that Hill 

the mirrors not there because with all of your skill

you realize that in thinking with the brains of others 

we get the perspective that lets us discover 

insights we find about craft and our practice 

and by listening to them, far from distract us, 

it boosts and sits loose new understanding 

and raises the tides of all boats that we stand in 

this process has a name in research academical 

thinkers use their juicy brains to study learning theoreticals 

Reflective practice is what this thing it is called 

and with this learning process leaders should be enthralled.

so on that hill as you sit with your team in a group 

you ask them to consider three things in a loop 

what happened? how did it feel? and what does that mean? 

and as you talk it all out new Insights you glean 

your brain does this thing - it's called integration! 

by linking events to feelings you do distillation 

of what that all means for further craft action 

these Insights make Mastery and satisfaction 

but it's not one shot! oh no no it's not 

your smart your stylish you know quite a lot 

so you make it to regular ritual you practise

Cos deep in your heart you know that the fact is, 

achieving craft Mastery is the work of a lifetime 

it takes focus and joy and the ability to mine 

the gold from experience, the good and the bad 

because learnings a lifestyle, not a trend or a fad. 

if you want to learn more about practice reflective 

reach out to us and let's get connective 

we love helping great teens to learn from themselves, 

this research we know should not sit upon shelves 

but for all you leaders wanting to do something now 

just ask those three questions and let it allow 

the wisdom inside or in others or groups 

to make sense of worklife's beeps bops and boops