Reflecting on reflecting

We don’t do it enough.?

This is the time of year when individuals and companies alike do a big reflection and review of the past 12 months. Some of this reflection and review are publicly shared, but sometimes it’s a very internal and private exercise.?

Either are fine.?

But consider reflection as a regular process throughout the year. Regular and repeated reflection allow learning from experiences to happen faster.?

You essentially supercharge your remembering self and experiencing self – or what Daniel Kahneman calls System 1 and System 2 Thinking.?

In brief, System 1 Thinking is the fast, “automatic, unconscious, and emotional response to situations and stimuli.” System 2 Thinking is the slower, more effortful mode we shift to when trying to solve more complicated problems.?

READ MORE FROM THE DECISION LAB?

When we stop and reflect on our day, the week, month, or year, we put ourselves into System 2 Thinking. Our brain takes all the automatic and emotional experiences and stacks them up for reference.?

The more we do this, the better we get at recalling what might be important for our lives and our work.?

There are two systems I’ve used in my work and life that apply these principles: Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and Daily Huddles.??

Daily Huddle. A friend and sometimes mentor introduced me to his version of a daily huddle for providing excellent patient experiences.?

Each morning or week you bring your front line patient team together in a standing meeting and quickly go through these four questions:?

1. Fumble Analysis. What did we do wrong yesterday/last week??
2. Forecasting. What things could go wrong today/this week? Scheduling issues? Threats to the experience? Challenging patient???
3. Warm and Fuzzy. Don’t end the huddle until you have one.??
4. ID or Review one articulated patient experience goal or OKR for the month/quarter/year. How are we doing against that goal??

WATCH MATT JENSEN TALK THROUGH THE DAILY HUDDLE?

Objectives and Key Results. Made famous by John Doerr and Google, OKRs are a system for articulating?what an organization (or individual) seeks to accomplish (objective) and how it intends to do that (key result).?

Typically, ORKs are structured around quarterly milestones. Individuals and teams agree on their OKRs at the start of a quarter, update progress weekly, then review and recalibrate at the end of a quarter. ?

An interesting psychological element of OKRs is how a team establishes their quarterly goals. You do not want your goal to be too easy, but you do not want it to be impossible.?

Most organizations that successfully implement OKRs experience better productivity because they psychologically stretch what’s possible just enough to make a meaningful long-term difference.?

READ MORE ABOUT OKR’S FROM WHAT MATTERS?

These practices or processes build in both short and long-term reflection in such a way that you are always moving the needle and always progressing forward. ?

Organizations and individuals that engage in systematic review of metrics and processes tend to be more successful. ?

We see this in healthcare too.?

Anecdotally, we see that the organizations that implement the Recovery Capital Index and commit to regular measurement with their patients see improved scores across the board.?

What we believe is happening and we intend to back with clear evidence is that as patients engage in the monthly review and inventory of their personal recovery capital, they build better System 1 and System 2 Thinking that has a demonstrable effect on the improvement of their lives.?

That’s the hypothesis. Stay tuned to see whether that hypothesis pans out. ?

It’s okay and it’s good for you to look in the rearview mirror. But do it systematically – not just once a year.?

In the coming weeks, you’ll see Commonly Well’s 2022 Year in Review. The year was meaningful on many levels, and some of you reading this right now made it meaningful. ?

Our commitment for 2023 is to share monthly and quarterly reflections. You’ll see how we look at the data that drives our business, what data is important to our customers, and whether we’re attaining our objectives.?

Thank you for reading and being part of our growing ecosystem of change. ?