How Busy Leaders Can Turn Everyday Moments into Learning Opportunities
Roses, Thorns and Buds
One of the most challenging tasks for individuals who thrive working at a fast pace is to slow down and pause.
Coaching sessions offer a moment of respite for strategising, reflection, and deep learning. However, establishing a daily habit of hitting the pause button, even momentarily, can take time.
Research has shown that cultivating a habit of reflection can be what distinguishes the extraordinary from the average.
Reflection serves many purposes, such as increasing your self-awareness, allowing you to assess the quality and success of your actions, and identifying new actions that can enhance your overall performance.
It is about learning through experience.
And this type of learning is cost-free.
Reflection is scalable, and numerous coaching models incorporate questions to encourage reflection, insight, and learning.
You can dedicate as little as 30 seconds after a meeting, ten minutes at the end of each week, or extend your reflection to reflect in depth on your personal vision for your life.
And you can engage in reflection individually, as a team, or at a business level.
One simple model I use with my clients and that is adaptable both within and beyond a business context is the Rose, Thorn and Bud exercise.
Drawing inspiration from an exercise for children to help them establish a reflective habit; it can be done at home with your family too.
The Rose, Thorn and Bud Reflection Exercise
This exercise is incredibly simple and can take only a minute.
Simply take a moment to identify one of each of the following:
Rose: A good thing, small win, highlight or something positive that happened
Thorn: A lowlight or challenging thing you experienced and could use support with
Bud: A new idea, opportunity or something that you are excited about
It’s that simple.
You can do this on your own at the end of the day, at the start of a meeting. I occasionally start coaching sessions with this brief exercise as a way to transition between the events of the day and our coaching conversation.
Alternatively you can use it at home with your family as a way of sharing daily experiences.
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits found that the best way to build a habit is to focus on one specific thing, work on it until you master it, and make it an automatic part of your daily life. Then, repeat the process for the next habit.
“The way to master more things in the long-run is to simply focus on one thing right now.”
So start by keeping the exercise simple to make reflection part of your daily routine.
Taking it Deeper
If and when you want to explore further, here are three sets of questions you can use and help provoke deeper reflection:
Your Rose:
What has gone well today? What did you learn?
What are you most proud of?
What are you satisfied with?
What did I do to bring joy into someones life today?
Your Thorn:
What didn’t go well? What was a lowlight?
What opportunity did you miss?
What is frustrating you that you could use some support with?
Your Bud:
What new ideas emerged today?
What surprised or invigorated you?
What opportunities are on the horizon that excite you and that you are looking forward to?
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