{"id":25,"date":"2015-08-31T14:17:02","date_gmt":"2015-08-31T14:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/underthehood\/?p=25"},"modified":"2018-06-20T13:56:26","modified_gmt":"2018-06-20T12:56:26","slug":"taking-time-to-reflect-at-iriss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/underthehood\/2015\/08\/31\/taking-time-to-reflect-at-iriss\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking time to reflect at IRISS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>A guest post from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iriss.org.uk\/our-team\/rhiann-mclean\">Rhiann McLean<\/a> &#8211; a project manager in IRISS&#8217; Innovation and Improvement team. \u00a0Rhiann recently led the team on an outdoor &#8211; walking &#8211; reflection. \u00a0Read all about their conversation here!\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>At the start of the new business year, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iriss.org.uk\/about\/innovation\">Innovation and Improvement team at IRISS <\/a>benefitted from an away day together. \u00a0On this day, we reflected on the year gone by, planned new work and rapidly created a prototype for a current project.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We wanted to take opportunities to take time away together. \u00a0Taking this time has come from a recognition that sometimes it\u2019s easy to fall into a routine of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">doing<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> &#8211; meeting deadlines, writing outputs and planning events, all of which restrict the time for reflection. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>We are using these sessions to think about:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">how we work together<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">our successes and failures (and what we\u2019re learning from them)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the things that inspire us<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For me, planning the first session was a) daunting and b) obvious.<\/p>\n<p>As an organisation, we\u2019ve been in a period of change. \u00a0We\u2019ve got a new Director, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iriss.org.uk\/resources\/partnerships-future-iriss-strategy-2015-2018\">a new strategy<\/a> and a host of new Board members! \u00a0And since a lot of what we do is supporting people to navigate change, I thought that we should use our quarterly session to explore how we were coping with change ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>Before this session, we had spent time in our team meeting practising our active listening skills. This involved taking turns listening to each other before silently writing a \u00a0follow up question for our colleague to reflect on later. \u00a0We explored how we listen and communicate, and the value of having time to speak without interruption. \u00a0In fact, it felt really challenging to speak for two minutes without interruption or feedback.<\/p>\n<p><b>So what did we get up to?<\/b><\/p>\n<p>For our group reflection we went for a walk in the park. \u00a0I asked a series of provocative questions around change, culture and how we support each other. \u00a0The key to this exercise was to give ourselves the opportunity to speak freely in response to these prompts and to continue to practise active listening.<\/p>\n<p><b>Why walking?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s summer in Scotland and it wasn\u2019t raining!<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.apa.org\/pubs\/journals\/releases\/xlm-a0036577.pdf\">It\u00a0might\u00a0make us more creative<\/a>!<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Short bursts of time spent outside (and moving your body) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/podcast\/episode\/happiness-is-a-walk-in-the-park-10-05-05\/\">can make you happier\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We took the time to walk around some of the landmarks of Glasgow green (photos) and talked through questions. Some of the questions were adapted from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theschooloflife.com\/shop\/100questions\/\">100 Questions game from the School of Life<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Warning: These question bombs are not for the faint of heart. I took the decision based on how our team works together and conversations had in advance of the session.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/underthehood\/files\/2015\/08\/rains-today.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-30 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/underthehood\/files\/2015\/08\/rains-today-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"rains today\" width=\"228\" height=\"304\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/underthehood\/files\/2015\/08\/rains-today-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/underthehood\/files\/2015\/08\/rains-today.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 228px) 100vw, 228px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We split into two groups and answered the questions with our team members before leaving another follow up\/related question for the other group to find on their walk and reflect on.<\/p>\n<p>Little buckets [like this one] were left in the park for people to leave their follow up questions in.<\/p>\n<p>Sidenote: one of the buckets went missing &#8211; and we hope it loves its new home.<\/p>\n<p>Each group was asked:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is your gut reaction to big changes in your life or work?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What work were you doing the last time you lost\u00a0time altogether?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Would other people consider you a good listener?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Which of your talents is the world in danger of overlooking?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What have been some of your most successful working relationships and why?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Wee note: we put some verbal confidentiality agreements in place within our groups about what we wanted to share at lunch as well as what we wanted to share on our walk outside. This helped us stay with the questions and be open with our responses without fear or blame.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After we had discussed the questions and answered the follow ups from our colleagues, we had a meal together to discuss:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">how we wanted to support each other and communicate<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the work that excited us &#8211; and how to do more of it<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">how we wanted to continue to reflect together<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For me, the real learning from this session was about the importance of taking time away &#8211; preferably in the outdoors to talk about the work we do. Part of me wondered if this was the first time that we as a team had really acknowledged the changes we were experiencing and how they were affecting us.<\/p>\n<p>The day also gave us the opportunity to recognise that working alone on projects can be isolating &#8211; we need more time to learn from each other.\u00a0\u00a0 As a result, we\u2019ve made the decision to host a quarterly team reflection session.<\/p>\n<p>We want to continue to reflect and support each other, so this is only the beginning&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A guest post from Rhiann McLean &#8211; a project manager in IRISS&#8217; Innovation and Improvement team. \u00a0Rhiann recently led the team on an outdoor &#8211; walking &#8211; reflection. \u00a0Read all about their conversation here!\u00a0 At the start of the new business year, the Innovation and Improvement team at IRISS benefitted from an away day together. &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/underthehood\/2015\/08\/31\/taking-time-to-reflect-at-iriss\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Taking time to reflect at IRISS&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":""},"categories":[17257],"tags":[99,100,6193,11268],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/underthehood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/underthehood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/underthehood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/underthehood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/underthehood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/underthehood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/underthehood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/underthehood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/underthehood\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}