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The value of reflecting
13 June 2024
Beacons, twirly skirts and feedback.
Last week turned out to be full of reflection for me, about historic global events, about long-forgotten personal memories and about recent work conversations too. It’s far from easy to make time for reflection in our headlong sprint to get through the day or week and accomplish our ‘to do’ lists. But what does it cost us to be always rushing ahead? What are we missing by not pausing to look back?
Last Thursday marked the 80 year anniversary of the D-Day landings on Normandy beaches. I happened to listen to a veteran speaking on the radio as I drove back from the school drop-off, and was so moved emotionally by his reflections that I had to park up to wipe my eyes and give his words my full attention. It was poignant to know that the 25 or so remaining veterans – most in their nineties - are unlikely to be present at the 90th anniversary. This was one of our remaining chances to hear their testimonies first-hand before their memories passed definitively into history. I’m so glad I got to hear his words, they shifted for ever my understanding and appreciation of those world-order-changing events. I wished my 12 year old daughter could have listened too. I took her with me to the lighting of the beacon in our village that evening to remember the courage and sacrifice of so many that bought us our freedom today.
Last week also saw me dusting off a file that my father had quietly filled throughout the first 3 decades of my life (he died suddenly aged 59, when I was 28). Inside are certificate, letters and other assorted papers all preserving tiny forgotten details for me to remember, laugh and cry over. From my Grade 1 ballet exam aged 6 which I scraped through, marked down because of ‘excessive skirt twirling’, to a badly scrawled declaration of love from the 7 year old boy down the road, to letters in verse penned by my father to me while I was away for long spells at boarding school. And pretty much every school report I’d ever received. I was taken aback to see how often ‘Helen could contribute more actively in class’, ‘Helen is too quiet’ and ‘Helen doesn’t speak up enough’ reverberated in teachers’ pithy feedback. I found myself wondering what the definition of a high-performing student was in those days; I clearly fell short by their standards yet to everyone’s surprise (and most of all, my own) I emerged with straight As at A-level. I took two big reflections from this absorbing and often emotional meander through my life file: firstly, that potential can easily fly under the radar when you look through a narrow lens and secondly (with a full heart here), that my father’s pride in and love for me shone through every treasured scrap of paper.
On the work front, last week I was looking through some of the post-workshop feedback from teams who have recently participated in my Time-Intelligent Team sessions. These are 2 hour, in-person (or hybrid) workshops that help teams to identify changes within their control that can help them work smarter not harder and have a more engaging, motivating experience of work. In other words, to get more done and to get more out of work. I was fascinated to see the following comments come up frequently: ‘it enabled us to step back and evaluate how we can really get the best out of ourselves as a team’, ‘it was so useful to hear [the team’s] perspectives on obstacles and efficiencies’, ‘we all thoroughly enjoyed the session’. ‘ These words underline for me how much people value the chance to reflect, post-deadline or on a regular basis, on how they’re working together, what they’re doing well and where the frustrations lie. People crave these opportunities to slow down and reap the learning, they don’t want to rush straight onto the next project or deadline. They also appreciate the opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate their achievements; reflecting in this way together can build powerful team bonds and a strong, motivating sense of ‘we’re in this together’.
If your team is reeling from one deadline after another, or you want to help them be well-positioned for a stretching period ahead, or you’re wondering why there’s a high level of task or interpersonal friction undermining performance or retention, then take a look at the workshop details and pick a time here for us to chat. If you’d love some help but got no budget right now, click here to download my free guide to creating a Team Time Contract.
Racing ahead without making time for reflection means we miss out on the powerful insights that can help us shape a better tomorrow. And the act of reflecting itself can be transformative, enriching our experience and our relationships with others. So let's pause, reflect, celebrate, learn and
then move forwards.
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How to encourage this in a way that works for your business. There is a real and urgent need to address the creeping norm of employees working all hours, being contactable and available all the time. But Labour’s recent abandoning of a legal ‘right to disconnect’ in favour of a voluntary code of practice is probably the right move, in my humble opinion. Here are 5 reasons why, 5 ways to make switching off a win/win for you and your organisation, and 5 positive actions to put into practice now. Why legislation is too blunt a tool: Heavy-handed legislation will probably antagonise businesses, not secure their support. There's more to do first to spotlight organisations that are managing the boundaries well between working & non-working time well and proving the business benefits. It’s too early to say confidently how well similar legislation has worked abroad. Australia only adopted this last month; the longer-standing fine-based approach in France and Portugal isn't proven as an effective deterrent. Human-centred organisations are probably already paying attention to this, being creative about work boundaries and using their approach to enhance their employer brand. They'll be the ones who proactively adopt the code of practice and make it genuinely part of ‘the way we work here’ - and they'll win at attracting and retaining talented people longer-term as a result. ‘But clients will go elsewhere’. This is the defence I often hear in rejection of proposals like the right to disconnect. No, client won't IF you engage them in the change and show them that it means they get to access your sharpest minds working at their best,. When organisations see their early-adopter competitors living the code and still winning & keeping desirable clients - and nabbing theirs - they’ll swiftly follow suit. Let’s be clear: some people will continue to say yes to high pay/exciting work in return for ‘you’ll work whenever when we need you ‘. But it’ll be a transactional relationship lasting for as long as it benefits the individual (or employer) and no longer. Easy come, easy go. If that’s your philosophy as an employer: own it and be transparent. Don’t sign the code and pay it lip service. If yours IS an organisation that wants to do better at encouraging employees to switch off, try: 1. Using Labour’s shift to open up conversations at work about pressures to communicate or be available after hours. 2. Adding ‘we support the right to disconnect’ in your recruitment material and having examples to share with candidates during interviews. 3. Supporting selected managers and their teams to trial different experiments around switching off. 4. Asking people ‘how can we help you do to your best work within your normal working hours?’. ‘What gets in the way of this?’. 5. Setting up an industry-wide collaboration to trial different ways of achieving the same outcome. Asynchronous and flexible working are here to stay and bring many benefits to individuals and their employers. But they can make it a challenge to co-ordinate and communicate within teams and across time zones. Here's what you can do personally to uphold the right to switch off and respect other people's non-working time: Add an email footer like: 'I'm sending this now because it suits me but I'm not expecting a response outside of normal working hours'. Work offline if you're working late evenings or weekends, so you're not visible on Teams/whatever channels you use, and schedule your emails to send the next day to avoid the ripple effect of people responding immediately. If people on your team have repeatedly worked late or sacrificed home lives to help reach a deadline, then give them some time back straight afterwards. It's simple and effective. If you're a manager, find out people's preferences around being contacted - or not - during out of hours or when on leave. Everyone's different, so make it your job to know. See annual leave as an opportunity for a colleague to step up and have some stretch experience by covering for you, with support beforehand. Then switch off properly and don't muddy the water by dipping in and out unasked. Listen to my podcast conversation with Ben Higgins, Global CHRO of Wholesale Banking at Societe Generale, about how he does this. These examples are about applying #timeintelligence. If you want to know more about my #timeintelligence sessions for leaders, teams and individuals, get in touch . And if you're making good progress in your organisation on switching off - or at least trialling a few changes - then I'd love to hear more. During normal working hours, of course.
Managing the school holiday juggle and announcing book 2!
When sticking stops. A barn owl perched observantly on a post in front of me, a heron gliding by like a feathered Concorde with its wings tucked in. Just two of the birds I’ve spotted today whilst working at UK’s only family-owned and managed National Nature Reserve, at Elmley in Kent. I’m not working in the sense of checking on wildlife and mending fences, I’m working in the sense of enjoying an indulgent writing retreat in glorious isolation, tucked away in a definitely-not-roughing-it wooden cabin complete with outdoor tub overlooking meadows and marshes (more pics here ). This retreat is both a long-anticipated birthday gift from my family and the official starting point for writing my second business book. It’s been brewing in my head for months and is now begging loudly to be given some proper love and attention. So here I am, off-grid in every sense with nowhere else to go and nothing else to do for 24 hours than plan and write. Write what? I hear you ask…
What does time off mean to you? How well do you 'not work'?
I waved a Minion off to school yesterday for World Book Day. At least my 12 year old daughter now sorts out her own WBD outfit thank goodness, and there’s now another 364 days before WBD rolls around again. But we’re not done for this week because it's International Women’s Day today! In recognition of this global celebration of women’s contribution to work and society, every day this week I’ve been sharing a statistic on Linked In that describes how women are impacted by our 'time culture' at work. If ‘time culture’ is a new expression to you a) you obviously haven’t read my award-winning business book The Future of Time yet and b) it means our attitudes, behaviours and expectations around the way we spend our time at work. What gets valued and rewarded, what doesn’t. What we spend much of our time on, what we don’t spend so much time on (but ought to). Because surprise, surprise, women are disadvantaged by our ‘time culture’ in several ways. Here are my top five.
Making change stick. Recently, I’ve been tuning in regularly to the 'Just One Thing' podcast by Dr. Michael Mosley. In each 15-minute episode, Michael delves into a single, manageable change that can enhance our health and extend our lifespan. Thanks to him, I’m keeping up my green tea ritual (that was a quick win), incorporating daily planks into my exercise routine (right after my morning run - oof) and reheating leftover carbs. I’m a bit of a podcast butterfly and I’m wondering why this podcast has stuck firmly now as a favourite. Besides Dr. Mosley's warm and reassuring tone, I think it boils down to 3 things. Firstly, focusing on just one thing feels refreshingly attainable. Let's face it, we're bombarded with complex self-improvement strategies daily. Who wants a whole industry of new ‘to do’s to implement, remember and track? Secondly, the changes are entirely within my control. I don't need anyone's permission to start planking in my bedroom, even if it does provide my husband with daily amusement. I can make these changes tomorrow, better still, today. Thirdly, the advice is specific and the outcomes are clear. I know precisely what to do and whether it’s working. Whether it's keeping my blood pressure in check or reducing blood sugar spikes, the benefits are measurable. Now, shifting gears to my work life, I find parallels between Dr. Moseley's approach and my Time-Intelligent Teams workshops. These workshops aim to enhance teams' productivity and enjoyment at work – to help people to invest their time more effectively. We focus on one collective and one individual change that are within the team's control. Through reflection, brainstorming, and laughter, teams identify actionable steps to work smarter, not harder. The feedback from these workshops has been resoundingly positive with managers reporting improved communication, higher levels of commitment to the change and more cohesive teamwork. Of course the power of ‘just one thing’ is that once you’ve mastered that one change and it has proven it’s value, it simply becomes part of how you do things. Which leaves you free to cast around for the next ‘just one thing’ that could also have a transformative effect. And another after that. That’s why, to my amazement, wall squats have joined my daily exercise routine and I’m evangelising about the benefits of cooked tomatoes. I just need to find Michael’s episode on why sticky toffee pudding will reverse the ageing process…..
How are those 2024 goals looking? If you’re the type of person who loves setting New Year resolutions and making aspirational plans for the coming 12 months, but then feels downcast a few weeks or months later when all those intentions look over-ambitious or have fallen by the wayside, then this blog post will cheer you up, I guarantee. Because I’ve discovered a better way to start the year: by recognising that we’re already living our future today. Let me unpack that. People today say they are time poor and the stats shed light on why: work intensity has increased steadily over the past 20 years, leisure time has fallen - plus we don’t tend to use it wisely - and we spend more of our time parenting our children than previous generations, or caring for elderly dependents. When we’re time poor, we tend to feel under pressure to get things done, stay on top of things and keep all those plates spinning as efficiently as possible. We’re always thinking about what’s coming up next and the future that we’re working towards. (My vision of the future? Older me is effortlessly churning out bestseller books from an idyllic coastal eco-cottage, in between bouts of sea-swimming and long clifftop yomps. What’s yours?). The problem is, that future is always slightly out of grasp. So we keep on striving to get there. Hand-in-hand with tomorrow-chasing is beating ourselves up about the big things what we haven’t achieved yet or on a smaller scale, tasks we haven’t ticked off our daily or weekly to-do lists. I had a great 2023 – busy, healthy, enjoyable – but reading back over my mid-year plan was a frustrating litany of ‘not done’, ‘not done’, ‘not done’, from my updating my website to launching my new Time-Intelligence online diagnostic for teams and organisations. Hal Hershfield, Professor at UCLA's Anderson School of Management and author of Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today came on my podcast The Business of Being Brilliant in September. He advises ‘ not to always live life for tomorrow’ and to ‘ have some self compassion and self forgiveness. It's really easy to beat ourselves up because we're falling short of the things that we said we wanted to do. And that's not really fair to our present selves’. What we don’t typically pay so much attention to – or even notice at all – are all the things we’re already doing today that are to be celebrated or that quite simply, we find enjoyable or rewarding. As Hal says ‘ I think we do a disservice to our future selves by telling ourselves that we're working for them, but in reality we're missing the present and then what sort of life does that add up to?’ I notice the same unhelpful tendency in organisations, where we’re equally future-obsessed. As soon as one project is over, the next one begins. We sprint from one deadline to the next without pausing for breath or taking time to reflect, appreciate, learn or reconsider. It’s a common refrain I hear people say in my Time-Intelligent Teams workshops . It’s a chronic case of organisational impatience, and it’s not a recipe for long-term, sustainable high performance. So what’s the antidote? It’s to ask ourselves ‘are we there already?’ This question is reminiscent of the dreaded ‘are we there yet?’ that every child asks, usually 10 minutes after leaving home (yep, you did it too) and that makes every driver want to scream. But ‘are we there already?’ is different. It invites us to reflect on what we’re doing today and the outcomes we’re bringing about. It helps us to see afresh the seams of richness layered through our work or home lives that we’ve been neglecting to notice and whose absence we’d sorely regret. By asking ‘are we there already?’ or ‘am I there already?’, we can look differently at what we spend our time on today and appreciate those things we do that are working well for us right here, right now. In other words, the ways in which we’re already living our future today. In my #timeintelligence workshops, I help teams identify all the positive aspects of the way they work that is enabling them to deliver on their goals, often under intense time pressure and resource constraints. In parallel with celebrating these strengths and successes, we look for changes within their control that can help them overcome the challenges or frustration and make best use of their time at work. So instead of setting some traditional resolutions, why not try setting some ‘living my future today’ resolutions? By listing a few things that you already do and would like to continue doing/do more often because they bring you joy, respite, connection, growth, inspiration, fulfilment, contentment or some other benefit. Here are some of my ‘living my future today’ resolutions: 1. Doing a short writing sprint every day to make sense of some half-formed musings, explore the seed of an idea or untangle a mental confusion. The world makes a bit more sense after each sprint. 2. Playing the piano every day that I’m at home, because I find it a magical antidote to a racing mind and it brings back treasured memories of jamming on the piano with my father. 3. Keeping up my daily running streak (today was day #1,151) because I love it and I want to stay mobile and independent until I’m headed for the next world. 4. Sticking with my ‘Review, Celebrate, Plan’ habit where at the end of each week, I review how the week has gone, celebrate things I feel proud of and plan for the week ahead. Cup of tea and large slice of cake in hand. 5. Saying yes to coffees and phone calls with friends even when work and life feel too busy and I’m tempted to say ‘not this week’. I never regret making the time. Why not ask the same question to colleagues in your team? Your close friends or family? It might spark a new kind of conversation. And you might well discover that your future has already arrived.