"You know Cecilia, I am destroyed from TikTok... I don't know how to focus nor reflect because I have never done it. I don't know how to stay focused that long" a team-member told me.

Those words motivated me to demonstrate their inaccuracy. If you've managed to complete five years of engineering studies at university, you should be capable of self-reflection and personal growth. That’s what I believe. Consequently, as I lead a team of engineers, I must introduce innovative formats for team development that are underpinned by a solid purpose and well-founded facts for so called "soft" topics. Yes, I could easily bring the idea upon the table, but to proceed and to take action the background and facts are important. (Please note: This also applies for me, having my background within statistics...)

During my investigations and research on the topic of reflection I wanted to introduce for my team I found this article from Harvard Business Review: "Don't underestimate the power of self-reflection" (you need to create an account to be able to read it). The short version of this article is: 

"Research shows the habit of reflection can separate extraordinary professionals from mediocre ones. But how do you sort which experiences are most significant for your development? To answer this questions, the authors asked 442 executives to reflect on which experiences most advanced their professional development and had the most impact on making them better leaders.

Three distinct themes arose through their analysis: surprise, frustration, and failure. Reflections that involved one or more or of these sentiments proved to be the most valuable in helping the leaders grow. Surprise, frustration, and failure. Cognitive, emotional, and behavioral. These parts of you are constantly in motion and if you don’t give them time to rest and reflect upon what you learned from them, you will surely fatigue."

After reading this article, my own reflection was: I recognize that those I work with do not see themselves as mediocre in their efforts. Furthermore, the executives mentioned in the article are after all... just people. Ultimately, leadership is about guiding oneself as well as others, right? Therefore, if 442 individuals have reached this conclusion, how can we apply it to our DevOps team to foster our growth as individuals: both for the benefit of ourselves and the team?

I shared this article with my team and together we decided to read it and conduct a "Share & Reflect" session afterward. Once that was completed, I asked my team if it would make sense to incorporate a self-reflection on surprises, frustrations and failures into our 1-1s as a starting point. When I, as the team leader, feel that everyone is ready for group reflection, we'll integrate it into our sprint retrospectives. The goal is to understand how raising our awareness of these perspectives can enhance our teamwork and overall outcomes.

The team reached a decision: every member voted "yes" marking the beginning of my impactful toolbox, which I have named Reflection as a tool.

Are you curious about what makes it so impactful?