Reviewing and reflecting means to ‘practice
the pause’.
I have chosen to call this the ‘R&R’
for the family. This R&R could be personal, or it could involve the whole
family at once.
R&R is about making a routine of
‘taking a break from the routine’ and ‘thinking’ about what we are doing. It
involves setting aside a regular and consistent gap in our ‘doing’ to pause,
reassess, and take stock of what’s working or not, celebrate the wins, and
challenge ourselves to new ways of doing better. R&R is as important, if
not more so, as the ‘doing’ to realize our Vision through our actions.
R&R is another avenue for learning
partnerships to thrive. Taking time out regularly with the family (and our own
self) to reflect and review gives opportunities to improve, develop and evolve
ourselves. A charter of agreement here could be useful: that during R&R,
every win - no matter how small is worth celebrating; any idea - no matter how
seemingly trivial is worth considering.
R&R could be part of our routine - and
it could be annually (ala the likes of the New Year’s Resolution), quarterly,
monthly, weekly ..... or even as often as daily.
How does it work?
Here’s an example of a simple R&R
process when conducting our family meetings:
- What’s hurting? Review what is not working - and brainstorm suggestions of how to do differently. Be grateful for the opportunity to do better. Indeed: Count your blessings....
- What’s working? Too often we forget to count - and in fact discount - what we consider ‘only small wins’. Do you remember in Kindergarten and Primary School how the teachers make small but constant awards to the children in the class? It is the validation that positively reinforces the behaviour we want developed - frequently, simply and joyfully. Celebrating often is key. Indeed: Count your bliss...
So who is accountable for keeping us to the
R&R? Let me suggest that it
could be part of the family charter. The parents could certainly start the
process off initially. It would be most effective when all members are expected
to facilitate this process. On an individual basis, the buck then stops with
you!
When I was growing up, an annual gathering
of the family at Chinese New Year created a natural opportunity for my father
to initiate the process for the year. We had family meetings and one of the
four daughters took the minutes. We rotated the ‘Keeper of the Minutes’. In the
same manner, one could elect to have a member of the family be a facilitator
for the R&R for the year. In order that it was not dependent on the one
person to lead this, a different family member can be rotated to be the ‘Keeper
of the R&R’ for the year ... which means any routine R&R through the
year was that person’s responsibility, say monthly, quarterly or annually.
Should there be an extraordinary need to
have an R&R, it would only seem natural that whoever called for the R&R
session would be the facilitator.
It is during these R&R (scheduled or
extraordinary) sessions that we get our conversational re-setting or
re-negotiation of routines. My father
held these ‘family meetings’ - which are more formal versions where
minutes are recorded and kept. However, currently the frequency of our
communications, and the honesty / transparency to re-negotiate and co-create
has not made the formal meetings as necessary. Yet I do not see it as out of
the question should it arise in the future...who knows what changes abound?
As simple as it sounds, this R&R is too
often underutilized. The excuse is the usual: “There is no time....We are too
busy.” What is the point of
existing just to be doing, doing, doing ....? Why not stop and simply be in
bliss - no matter how fleeting this may be? What is the meaning of life? I propose that it is not a
tangible endpoint or destination. It can easily be found in daily doses of
small moments of joy in our life’s journey. Remembering to count these
regularly is what gives life meaning ...
Some examples of how we have used R&R
in our family:
Stepping away from an emotionally charged
experience - which is a common occurrence with being around our loved ones. It
allows us to take the charge out of extremely negative (and even positive)
experiences which can blind us.I remember as a teenager what it was like to be
yelled at, to finish our school assignment rather than abandoning it to run off
to a party. If we took the time to step back and look at the situation, and
instead of slamming the door on mum as she's screaming out at us, what would it
be like if we sat down and negotiated a "time-out" for relaxation so
we can be more efficient in our project upon our return? (Sketching her our
intended timeline for completion of the project in the process as we waltz out
the door!)
Counting vs Discounting - It could be just
a way of stepping back and counting (rather than discounting) all the things
(no matter how miniscule) that we have achieved or won during the day. I
remember nagging my son about letting his violin practice slide during the
holidays. What my scotoma was on is that fact that he had been spending a lot
of quality time with his younger sister showing her the beauty of "Game
Boy". Look I am not about to debate the benefits and disadvantages of music
practice over those couch-potato-RSI-developing toys (you can tell I am
polarized against!!). What I failed to count is the beautiful relationship he
is building with his sibling.
Celebrate - Reviewing allows us to ‘count’
and celebrate all our wins (no matter how small). When the children were small
- every day was a reflection of their first smile, first words, first steps
..... we need to continue to count our little steps and tweaks to ‘leave things
better than when we found them’. eg one of the ways is when picking them up
from school, or when I am tucking Jett and Xian to bed - we speak off ‘what was
the best thing that happened today’. It’s like going through the daily rushes
of our life’s movie. As a director of our own lives, I then encourage them to
celebrate and remember to re-create more of these amazing moments
Learning opportunity - Sure there are times
when things do not go as planned, in fact it was seemingly way off course!
Review and reflecting allows us to take stock of how we could have done better.
eg in the same vein, I offer the children to speak of ‘what did not go well
today?’ and ‘how does it make you feel?’ It allows them to archive these rushes
from the cutting room floor (not discard them as they can be great lessons to
refer back to) and I ask them to re-edit it so that if a similar situation
happens again - how would they like it to be, how would it make them feel, and
how could they make it so? We even have a bit of fun with playing the movie
backwards with circus music and getting them to dissociate from it - getting a
bit more laughter and creativity (there is a fine line between silliness &
genius, right?) - and then re-writing the event and storing it for future
reference.
Don’t take my word for it. Do go ahead. Practice
the pause. What difference did it make for you?
By Dr Yvonne Sum
Dr Yvonne Sum CSP transforms leaders of tomorrow today: through speaking, coaching and writing. Having been a dentist, RAAF officer, executive coach, leadership facilitator & speaker, author, business partner, wife and mother of two, Yvonne has first-hand experience transcending changes across various contexts. She consistently provokes senior business leaders to ‘lose their minds and come to their senses’ by integrating their leadership lessons at home successfully back into the work tribe in Australia, USA and Asia-Pacific. She has presented alongside Edward deBono, Howard Gardner, Tony Buzan, and David Perkins. ‘Intentional Parenting - Learning Leadership from your Home Tribe’ is her first solo book due out in 2012.