http://sagelead.com/blog/leadership-strategies/the-sage-leader-reflects-connects-invests Susan Shaner on Lfe & Leadership Thu, 17 Jun 2010 19:17:17 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 http://sagelead.com/blog/leadership-strategies/the-sage-leader-reflects-connects-invests/comment-page-1#comment-24 jack beach Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:33:53 +0000 http://sagelead.com/blog/?p=1017#comment-24 Couldn't agree with you more Susan. We learn a lot from experience but we learn a lot more by reflecting on those experiences. Things happen to us continually and we may or may not learn from them—and even if we do learn something we may not be aware of it and be able to articulate it. By being able to articulate your experience you can not only share lessons learned with others but you can accelerate your own development. Otherwise our learning is haphazard and incremental at best. It’s sort of like being a rat in a Skinner Box. At first the rat inadvertently hits the lever and gets a pellet. But that has to go on by accident for awhile before the rat does it with any consistently. And, I suspect the rat never does know what it is doing. We humans can conceptualize. So, if we hit the bar and a pellet comes out we have to the ability to make hypotheses about what links the events. We can say to ourselves, ‘Hmmm…I hit the bar and got a pellet. I wonder if it will happen again? Let me see.’ We can then try it again, and if it works we get the quick ‘aha’ insight rather than a more protracted learning sequence. The truth is, however, when it comes to leadership most people are like the rat in the Skinner Box. So, even if we are successful, we think it’s because we are “natural” leaders rather than the more likely explanation that we unwittingly acquired behaviors that worked. Reflection helps make these processes more known and therefore we can make our behavior more intentional. Couldn’t agree with you more Susan. We learn a lot from experience but we learn a lot more by reflecting on those experiences. Things happen to us continually and we may or may not learn from them—and even if we do learn something we may not be aware of it and be able to articulate it. By being able to articulate your experience you can not only share lessons learned with others but you can accelerate your own development. Otherwise our learning is haphazard and incremental at best. It’s sort of like being a rat in a Skinner Box. At first the rat inadvertently hits the lever and gets a pellet. But that has to go on by accident for awhile before the rat does it with any consistently. And, I suspect the rat never does know what it is doing. We humans can conceptualize. So, if we hit the bar and a pellet comes out we have to the ability to make hypotheses about what links the events. We can say to ourselves, ‘Hmmm…I hit the bar and got a pellet. I wonder if it will happen again? Let me see.’ We can then try it again, and if it works we get the quick ‘aha’ insight rather than a more protracted learning sequence. The truth is, however, when it comes to leadership most people are like the rat in the Skinner Box. So, even if we are successful, we think it’s because we are “natural” leaders rather than the more likely explanation that we unwittingly acquired behaviors that worked. Reflection helps make these processes more known and therefore we can make our behavior more intentional.

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