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Speaker 1: Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics

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Speaker 1: used by leading innovators to get so much out of

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Speaker 1: their day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an

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Speaker 1: organizational psychologist, the CEO of Inventium, and I'm obsessed with

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Speaker 1: finding ways to optimize my work day. I remember my

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Speaker 1: very first annual performance review like it was yesterday. It

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Speaker 1: was a horrific experience in which I was expecting a

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Speaker 1: glowing review, and instead my boss ignored everything good that

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Speaker 1: I had done and instead spent the whole time focusing

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Speaker 1: on what was wrong with my performance. I left the

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Speaker 1: meeting feeling pretty deflated. I also left the review feeling

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Speaker 1: completely underappreciated, and started my search for a new job

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Speaker 1: that very night. From talking to many people about performance reviews,

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Speaker 1: people often leave feeling a sense of unfairness. Most people's

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Speaker 1: bosses are not working next to them twenty four to

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Speaker 1: seven and therefore miss a lot of what can happen

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Speaker 1: in a person's working life. But in addition to this,

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Speaker 1: most people don't actually stop and reflect on what they

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Speaker 1: have achieved over the period of time between reviews. We

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Speaker 1: simply rush from one thing to the next, reacting to

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Speaker 1: the tornado of emails and meetings that come our way

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Speaker 1: every day. So research led by Giata di Stefano examined

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Speaker 1: the impact of staff and a call center who spent

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Speaker 1: fifteen minutes at the end of each day reflecting on

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Speaker 1: what they had learnt that day. After ten days, those

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Speaker 1: who were regularly reflecting had increased their performance by twenty

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Speaker 1: three percent compared to those who did not reflect. Yet,

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Speaker 1: in today's world, it would be rare to find a

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Speaker 1: person who spent this much time reflecting in your typical

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Speaker 1: office environment. Now, the benefits of reflection extend to leaders too.

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Speaker 1: The research by Claudiana lenage I hope I pronounced that

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Speaker 1: correctly and her colleagues found that just a few minutes

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Speaker 1: spent reflecting in the morning improved engagement and energy levels

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Speaker 1: in leaders, in addition to leaders having a more positive

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Speaker 1: impact on their followers. So, when my consultancy, Inventire moved

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Speaker 1: to a holocracy model of working almost three years ago,

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Speaker 1: where essentially we did away with our managers, we thought

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Speaker 1: deeply about how we would do performance reviews in a

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Speaker 1: way that felt fair but also insightful. A key part

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Speaker 1: of our solution was asking the team to complete quarterly

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Speaker 1: self reflections, whereby they would look back over the past

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Speaker 1: ninety days and answer some key questions about their own behavior,

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Speaker 1: so essentially critiquing themselves. So each team member is asked

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Speaker 1: to answer about nine or ten questions such as, what

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Speaker 1: are the key things that you've achieved in the last

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Speaker 1: quarter that have made you proudest, would have been your

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Speaker 1: most significant learnings this quarter, and how have these led

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Speaker 1: to self improvement. We asked people to reflect on a

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Speaker 1: time where they might have failed and how they've incorporated

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Speaker 1: those learnings into their future self and we asked what

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Speaker 1: they're most looking forward to achieving in the next quarter.

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Speaker 1: What's important about these questions is that they link directly

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Speaker 1: to our values. So, for example, one of our values

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Speaker 1: at Inventium is to bring zest in the form of

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Speaker 1: energy and enthusiasm for what you do at work. And

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Speaker 1: as such, one of the questions we ask people to

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Speaker 1: reflect on is we say, reflect on your work self

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Speaker 1: this past quarter, how would you describe your attitude, demeanor

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Speaker 1: and how you've worked with your teammates? Is there anything

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Speaker 1: you'd aim to change for next quarter? And as the

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Speaker 1: head of the company, I meet with every staff member

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Speaker 1: once a quarter to talk about their own reflections and

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Speaker 1: add my own to the mix, and using other data

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Speaker 1: points such as client feedback, helps to provide a complete

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Speaker 1: picture of each person's performance. So for businesses or even

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Speaker 1: individuals looking to introduce more reflection time and improve performance reviews,

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Speaker 1: think about how you can ritualize the behavior you know

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Speaker 1: is reflection, perhaps something that can happen daily, weekly or quarterly,

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Speaker 1: like it doesn't inventium, and be really strategic with the

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Speaker 1: questions that people use to guide their reflections, and then

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Speaker 1: think about how you can incorporate that into the performance

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Speaker 1: through you process. That's it for today's episode. If you

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Speaker 1: enjoyed it, or perhaps if you've been thinking about performance

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Speaker 1: reviews or think your boss should be thinking more about them,

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Speaker 1: why not send them a link to this episode or

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Speaker 1: maybe share it through your social media channels. I love

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Speaker 1: it when the podcast gets shared. It means that more

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Speaker 1: people get to benefit from the learnings on how I work.

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Speaker 1: So thank you so much for listening, and I will

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Speaker 1: see you next time.