One of my colleagues very politely asked me recently if I would resume the practice of writing regular updates for the Ignite blog. I readily agreed but when after a few days nothing was forthcoming politeness became interspersed with a steely persistence. I wanted to push back and claim that I just didn’t have time to think about what I wanted to say, when the irony struck me that one of my most regular and heartfelt frustrations is having so much to say and insufficient outlets to be heard.
So I stopped and thought about it – and reached the conclusion that what I needed to write about today is stopping and thinking about it.
I am sure I am not unique in seeing the damage that too little reflection and deliberation does, all around us. We looked recently at a major programme being run in a large, blue-chip organisation, that has spiralled out of control. Everyone involved is busy and very stressed. They have lots to do but are going backwards all the time. There are lots of reasons – but a key one is that from the outset, nobody created the time or space for reflection and challenge.
I’ve found the most valuable thing I can offer in many consulting relationships is to turn off the content and give people time to talk about whatever is most preoccupying them in their business roles. As an example, I ran a Leadership Development programme for a group of managers in a Mental Health Trust last year and whilst they all appeared to find the material we worked through valuable, I cannot begin to describe the benefit they got when we started building content-free time into our day-long sessions together. A random group of eight to ten people, from a wide range of roles and departments, who would never normally have had a reason to meet or talk together, became a team who left the programme determined to preserve and develop what they had created. New perspectives, new challenges, new ideas – none of which would ever have come about without the serendipity of having been cast together on that programme.
It is a challenge for any organisation – how do we embed the ability to create space for thinking, exploring, challenging and being challenged? Does the culture of our organisations encourage it, do our working practices allow it?
