R.I.C.E. for career journeys – reflection is the foundation
RICE - reflection, innovation, collaboration, evaluation.
Kicking off with ‘reflection’ will set you up for clarity. Anyone who has worked with me is familiar with my ‘why’ & ‘what’ questions – ‘why are we doing xxx’ and ‘what are we trying to achieve by doing xxx’. It’s a reflective exercise that I believe can be extremely powerful. Understanding what we’re spending our energy and valuable time on, and why we’re motivated to do so. It’s the critical ‘set-up’ for effective change – be it for yourself, your team or your organisation.
Another favourite of mine is the ‘stop, start, continue’ mindset. Again, it’s a reflective practice that focuses on looking a bit deeper into our day to day, to take the time to establish if our current activities/actions are in fact optimal - ‘best fit’. Sometimes they will be which is great and when that’s the case we should ‘continue’. Sometimes we’ll find that they’re suboptimal or even unnecessary, and then our best response is to ‘stop’ and potentially ‘start’ with an alternative.
Allocating time to reflect is so often overlooked or at best given a fleeting consideration. When time is scarce the tendency is to dive into action mode, to start innovating; reflection is often incorrectly seen as a passive exercise rather than being action oriented. However, reflective exercises are very demanding and in fact can often be confronting, requiring commitment and honesty to learn from our past decisions – loads of active thinking. Whether we uncover lots to celebrate or lots we’d rather not be reminded about, our deep dive into understanding our past ‘why & what’ can really help inform the pathway forward and how we want to change – dial it up, dial it down or find a new channel completely. This is as true for leaders as it is for teams or organisations.
Reflection becomes the door opener for innovation. Doing things differently takes courage, the more informed we are about the past can help us not only face the future but own it. Having developed an awareness that will stay with us, we’ll embark on a new set of ‘why & what’ questions as we scope out the changes that lie ahead. This has certainly been my experience with career changes I’ve made, changes I’ve lead teams through for organisational restructures, business model transformations, program developments and more. Exploring unchartered possibilities, reframing our mindsets, testing new theories, seeking fresh perspectives and building on successes and developing on what we’ve learnt, are all the elements of responding to change, innovating for the future.
I stand by the premise that without collaboration innovation is suboptimal at best. That’s been my experience - personal and observed – it’s also what I really find motivating about the workplace. Having the opportunity to share ideas and different perspectives really does help us paint a much richer canvas. Equally having a sounding board, someone who will listen, ask curious questions, critique and challenge views with a supportive intent, creates agency for ourselves. While I’ve always embraced collaboration when leading teams – in fact I would say I thrive on it - I had a blind spot when it came to collaboration with respect to my own career. Until the latter stages of my journey, I unintentionally navigated career changes solo. When I reflect on that time now, I realise how much stress and angst I could have spared myself and in fact how much more courage I would have gained if I’d invited others onto my journey.
As with anything it’s important to understand what you’ve achieved, a health check or evaluation. This is different from a reflection, it’s about getting under the hood, looking into how you faired against the goals you had set yourself or for your team. Is it time to celebrate your wins or regroup and make some tweaks?
Where are you up to on your career journey: RICE - reflection, innovation, collaboration or evaluation?
I really believe we’re not meant to do it alone. I’m happy to talk things through with you at whatever phase you’re up to now – provide new perspectives you may be looking for, be the sounding board you’re after, or offer you some challenging ideas.