Reflective Practice and Work-Based Learning

In undertaking the Professional Studies Program at the University of Southern Queensland, I have discovered the benefit of engaging in reflective practice, as applied in the workplace to enhance organisational learning as well as unlock the opportunity to engage in work-based learning. Context plays an important role in any learning, and with the rapidly changing technological and knowledge environments we work, knowledge and skill acquisition through learning-by-doing is becoming more prevalent and more efficient. Work-based learning allows individuals and organisations to exploit limited time and training budgets while increasing performance improvements.

Learning-by-doing encourages learning from experiences on your own actions, and reflective practice is a core element of this self-directed, lifelong learning. Embedded within the nursing and education fields, professional reflection involves four main steps: having an experience, reflecting on the experience, learning from the experience, and implementing change or experimentation based on your learning. This simple cycle, originally developed by David Kolb in 1984 can be continued in an iterative approach for continuous development as well as individual and organisational learning.

Reflection is an important human activity in which people recapture their experience, think about it, mull over and evaluate it. It is this working with experience that is important in learning.

David Boud, Rosemary Keogh and David Walker

Incorporating reflection into my professional practice has enabled me to have greater insights into my own biases, avoid past mistakes and maximise my own opportunities for learning as I challenge and critically assess my knowledge base. David Epstein once said, "We learn who we are in practice, not in theory", and I couldn't agree more. It is also generally agreed that reflective practice promotes better interpersonal outcomes through being more attuned and sensitive to the responses of others.

While there is no recipe or single-solution for becoming more reflective, I have personally incorporated reflective journaling, after action reviews and keeping field notes into my operating system, and subscribe to the understanding that having a reflective practice is more so about creating the right mindset, and should be seen as a process not a specific goal.

Boud, D, Keogh, R, Walker D, 1985 (p19), Reflection: Turning Experience into Learning.

McLeod, S. A. (2017, October 24). Kolb - learning styles and experiential learning cycle. Simply Psychology.

Hawk, R. (2019). Learning Leader Show: Episode #310: David Epstein – Why Generalists Will Rule The World. Podcast.

I Failed...

“I Failed.”

Two words that I thought were going to be tough to write, but something I wanted to acknowledge.

I failed. But I’m not a failure. And that’s why I wanted to write this post - because failing something doesn’t make me (or you) a failure, and there’s an important distinction there.

I began this year with grand plans and high expectations of what 2020 would have in store, but the world and life had other plans. Plans which initially caused minor “confusion and delay” (with the voice of The Fat Controller in my head), but later completely derailed any thought of being in control of what was happening.

I had a number of goals and plans for this year, challenging projects at work, finishing my doctoral thesis, and maintaining a regular post to this page. I failed to achieve many of these goals, but on reflection achieved a lot that wasn’t even on my radar at the start of the year.

As I sit here at the end of another year I’ve taken some time to take stock of where I am and what got me here, and I found my /word for the year - Zen Archer has played a steady role throughout.

As the 2020 began spiralling out of control, I found myself embodying the Zen Archer. At first, this was something I didn’t know was happening, but increasingly as I felt myself operating with a low bandwidth, or pivoting to rapid changes in the work environment, I found myself mindful of the need to lean into my /word, and the principles and practices that I set out for myself in January.

Did I execute these principles and practice perfectly (alteration intended)? No, but here’s some of my reflections with hindsight.

My Principles

As mentioned above, my attention and focus took an initial hit, as I felt overwhelmed with trying to be across every Press Conference, the constant news feed and politicisation of the issue from our local and global leaders.I struggled with having clarity of mind, and allowing myself to ‘be on’ from waking til climbing back into bed. Working from home saw me lose my Third Space between work and home (and fall behind on many of my favourite podcasts along the way). Resetting and re-calibrating my expectations in many of these spaces, assisted in regaining attention and focus on what was within my circles of control and influence. From an intentionality and purpose perspective, I felt this principle really resonated with me. Knowing I only had a finite number of arrows meant I could only achieve what really needed to be done at the time, and by hitting these with purpose, meant I could stress less about the minor targets that I didn’t have to achieve as well.

My Practices

In reality, it was my practices which helped me get through 2020. Dedicated chunks of Focused Time allowed me to spend intentional time on key deliverables each day and each week I felt I was in an constant state of OODA Loop - observing, orienting, deciding and acting on new information, changes in priorities and ensuring the right things were getting done given the change of situation I found myself in. My weekly After Action Reviews were valuable in getting on paper the gap between my week as imagined and the week that was, and what I needed to improve or change to get a better result the following week. All of this was underpinned by a sometimes healthy mindfulness practice, and I felt let down during when I lacked presence and clarity - something that I will continue to work on.

We’re not in the same boat - and we never were

This has been my experience over 2020, and I want to squash the old platitude: “We’re all in the same boat.”

Rather, I consider that we’ve all been in the same storm, but we’re all in different vessels, at different points and time in the storm. Some more privileged may be in luxury liners, others are in 14 footers, and others in leaky dinghies (maybe a few have been Rose and Jack clinging to a plank of wood)!

Some were able to quickly escape the storm (possibly on their luxury liners up the coast to Queensland), others drawn deeper and deeper into the eye of the storm, some tacking in and out of the fringes of the storm.

Your dealing with the storm that has been 2020, be it a fire storm of the earlier bushfire or the impacts of COVID-19 (or both), these crises don’t have to be the end of the story.

Project Semicolon

Project Semicolon is a movement dedicated to presenting hope and love to those who are struggling with depression, suicide, addiction, and self-injury.

Why a semicolon?

A semicolon is used when an author could've chosen to end their sentence, but chose not to. The author is you and the sentence is your life.

Whatever your experience over this year, I would encourage you to consider the semicolon ; as a conversation starter, and a message of hope that there is more to your story than what has occurred this year, and equally what will continue to unfold over the coming months.

You (we) are not alone, and there is support out there. To listen, encourage and connect with specialist providers.

If you or someone you know needs help, please reach out to Lifeline.

If you were hoping for some grammatical help on how best to use a semicolon (the most feared punctuation on earth), check out this infographic from The Oatmeal.

End of Year Reflecting and the Ritual of Becoming

With a couple of weeks leave from work over the Christmas and New Year period, I’m re-entering my annual end of year reflection and revisiting the Ritual of Becoming - diligently working through Dr Jason Fox's Character Handbook as I reflection on the 2020 year of the Zen Archer, and what will become the Word for 2021.

I sense some unfinished business for this Zen Archer, some stones that have been left unturned.

I am entering this process with no preconceived ideas or wedding myself to a word or phrase. This is the joy of revisiting the Ritual of Becoming with a beginners mindset.

I would encourage you to spend some time over a coffee (or three) to journal your own End of Year Reflection. I’ve created this simple template as a guide if this can be of assistance. This is just one of many templates or ways of approaching and an annual reflection. It it works for you, great! If you have a tool that works better for you, that’s awesome too.

If you’re keen to explore your own /word for the year, and work through the Ritual of Becoming, head on over to the Choose One Word ‘Ritual of Becoming’ program and sign up today. Share your Word with me and we can journey through 2021 together.

My Word for the Year…

As we get into the swing of 2020, I wanted to share with you my word for the year. It’s all part of the Choose One Word ‘Ritual of Becoming’* from Dr Jason Fox and The Cleverness.

BACKSTORY

I first embraced the ritual of Choosing One Word as an anchor / reference point for my year in 2016, with my Year of the Warrior, and then followed up with the Year of the Rogue Scholar in 2017. I didn’t choose a word for 2018 (not sure what happened there...), and then picked Pheonix for 2019 with little connection or alignment, so of course it lacked much value, however I held onto it throughout the year.

The last 12 months have been a season of change and busyness with a new baby added to my wonderful (and crazy) family. as well as a shift in my work context (joining Spotless Group’s Infrastructure & Construction team). What I do know is that 2020 will be another action-packed year with some key milestones taking place - one of which will be the completion of my Professional Studies Doctorate at USQ which I commenced in 2016.

The next 12 months will require a renewed focus.

So as the end of 2019 approached, I knew it was important to reconnect to the fuzzy beacon of a guiding word / theme for the year.

Thinking-in-draft, I commenced the Choose One Word programme* with the word of Focus in mind for 2020. Thankfully I was challenged to go deeper through the programme and not rush into choosing the word (else another Year of the Pheonix), preventing a repeat of last year’s disconnect with my theme word.

So what word have I chosen?

Head on over to my ‘/word’ page, which is a place to document my intent for the next chapter of the life of timall.red in 2020.

*Full disclosure: This is an affiliate link which gifts me $50 for spreading the word (about One Word). If you use it, and are willing, I’d be more than happy to shout us coffee, breakfast, or a sneaky cocktail to discuss our Word for 2020! Just shoot me an email.