The Art of Self-Reflection

Someone recently asked me my views on failure - more precisely, whether I had experienced it, as well as what I had taken away from it.?

This really got me thinking about HOW we decide to respond to failure and, most importantly, how we can use it to our advantage in future decision making.?

What matters, in my view, is that challenges + reflection = GROWTH.

I believe that a strong reflection practice is key, i.e. not only dissecting FAILURE (which everyone does if something goes wrong) but also SUCCESS (most people can’t articulate why things succeed). The best companies, and leaders, don’t conflate skill and luck. This drives a healthy “growth mindset”, which is essential. My view is that reflection practice is one of the most underrated leadership skills - but absolutely essential. It’s not the failure that helps leaders, but the level of maturity they have in dissecting failure and success.?

Reflection itself is a critical skill that needs to be learned, like any other. By remaining more objective, and using pattern recognition to gain understanding of our likely behaviours, reactions and decisions in certain situations, we come to better manage ourselves - and achieve greater results.?

For many of us, success and failure is far more granular, and every large success includes a bunch of smaller failures along the way. Having the resilience, and the ability to reflect and learn, is what turns these smaller failures into a bigger success.

Great companies, I think, should also actively encourage people to focus on reflection, rather than a pure focus on results. This way, you create conditions to WIN (performance) versus results (hitting targets, without thinking deeply). In general, there is too much focus on results, whereas what predicts success is the conditions you create, AKA the Culture - and making the winning behaviours as repeatable as possible.?

In terms of my own ability to transform failure into success, the key has always been - you guessed it - reflection practice. One book that has really brought this concept to life, for me, is Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”. I’ve learned that it’s all about the space between the event and how you react to it, within your capabilities. For instance, do you blame someone, or do you lead with curiosity? The more you, as a leader, control that reaction, leveraging your learnings through reflection, the more you’ll succeed.?

As a final thought - and one which has stood me in good stead over the past 9 years - leaders drive success via a solid growth mindset, high-level reflection practice, enormous humility, and high collaboration skill. However, the path is by no means a straight line and there is always room to develop and grow.

Gousto is currently entering its performance review process, in which we encourage everyone to be reflective in order to thrive. Let me know your thoughts on this topic, as well as your personal experiences, in the comments section below!