Making the Case for Reflection

Moving from understanding to meaning to action

The Brief Case 📚→💼→📈→📊

“You waste years by not being able to waste hours.”

- Amos Tversky quoted by Michael Lewis

Most busy executives think of reflection as a nice to have — even an aspiration — rather than a need to have. From a practical perspective, arguments for reflection can seem counterintuitive:

• stopping is the best thing for starting

• pausing the action is the best thing for pressing play on the action

• taking a breath is the best thing for moving at a breathtaking speed.

Reflection often doesn’t make an appearance on our to-do list because it feels amorphous or disconnected. It certainly can be those things. Reframed, though, reflection is a key part of the action, not so much an emptying of the mind but rather a critical planning stage — a repointing of the rocket — the mind — at work.

Or perhaps think of it this way: reflection is the sleep of our work process. Much like sleep, reflection is sometimes maligned, shortened, or skipped (bad ideas, one and all). And much like sleep, reflection helps us to organize and encode information, to reset our moods and approaches, and even to work through situations that are emotionally challenging. It is a boon for learning and a bastion of good business practice.

📚 The Learning Case for Reflection

The learning case for reflection is reflected in learning itself: you cannot have one without the other.