reflection – Vlogٷ Mon, 08 Jan 2024 22:19:40 +0000 en-US hourly 1 /wp-content/uploads/2019/05/cropped-fav-icon-B-32x32.png reflection – Vlogٷ 32 32 Reflection Prompts For Leading Groups /reflection-prompts-leading/ /reflection-prompts-leading/#respond Fri, 20 Dec 2019 18:46:03 +0000 /?p=7151

Introduction

Reflection Prompts for Leading is one of several tools and processes you can be trained in through the Minding the Gap Master Class – an online, on-demand course from Vlogٷ that uses the Framework for Availability to help leaders, teachers, facilitators and coaches create Relational Environments with groups that naturally build learning, participation and collaboration. We offer the prompts below as a free introduction to the course. They are an example of similar tools we give that take advantage of the growing knowledge of neuroscience and the way human beings interact with the world.

All the tools in the class are designed to cause availability. Any leader who can help people be more available will see a significant increase in human performance. We have seen this work in the classroom, in workplace teams and in countless community groups and other diverse settings where people work together.

When Someone IS Available...

They are...

Open, Receptive
Considering
Adaptable
Willing
Tuned in and aware
Future oriented
Connected
Responsive

When Someone IS NOT Available...

They are...

Closed/Guarded
Distracted/Easily Preoccupied
Distant
Reactive
Not able to listen well
Limited view of the future
Risk-averse
Quick to blame

Creating environments where people are more available increases their ability to participate, learn and collaborate – key elements of human performance and achievement. An easy and high impact way to do this is to first cause availability in yourself. That is where the Reflection Prompts For Leaders will help!

Why Do The Prompts Work?

Have you ever worked with a group and been caught off-guard by logistic issues you did not plan for? Or have you had your agenda ‘blow up’ when a tangent issue took the focus off your main outcomes? Maybe you have had your enthusiasm and love for what you were doing disappear in frustration while you dealt with all the tiny details? We know what each of those situations feels like and the impact they can have on you achieving your objectives. We developed the Reflection Prompts For Leaders to balance the doing AND the being of working with a group. The prompts help ground you in the reality of your task while also creating a context that helps you keep sight of the larger view that often gets lost. This organizes your work while keeping it meaningful: a great pathway to building availability for yourself and others.

The Reflection Prompts For Leaders work in any situation where you are working with a group: classrooms, workshops, team discussions, staff meetings, community groups – you name it! We suggest you “put pen to paper” and write out the prompts, along with your answers. At first it will take some time to answer them well: take the time necessary and you will find they are a valuable preparation tool. Eventually you will get to the point where you can answer them swiftly and naturally in your head.

Reflection Prompts for Leaders Working With Groups

(Deeper descriptions of the prompts are accessible through a pdf download below)

Prompt #1

What are the 2 or 3 main outcomes that MUST arise for this to be a success?

Drilling down to the essential targets focuses your frame and diminishes distractions. Use this part of the tool to hone in on the essence of your work. Other things may be achieved, but this question compels you to declare what cannot be left out.

Prompt #2

What must I keep my eye on?

As you begin to answer this question, first pay attention to those things that if they are not managed, the whole work would be in jeopardy. While there may be countless things to “keep your eye on”, asking this question orients you to the micro and macro landscape of your time with the group.

Prompt #3

What is profound about this?

This question is purposefully evocative. It is very difficult to answer from a doing disposition. It places you in a disposition of being and availability. This question helps provide a necessary reminder about what is underneath your work. Why is not just important, but profoundly important?

The Reflection Prompts For Leaders

are designed to give you a taste of the tool and what is available in the Mind the Gap Master Class. For the full tool, example responses and an easy “whiteboard” template to carry with you in your work, register for the entire class.

Register Here

Complete the form to receive afree PDF download of this Reflections Prompts For Leaders Tool!

(we will never sell or misuse your information)

Name
]]> /reflection-prompts-leading/feed/ 0 Izze Thieme – Creating Awe /creating-awe/ Wed, 16 Mar 2016 16:06:29 +0000 /?p=1122 I was once on a bus with two of my coaches from Vlogٷ, Michael and Charlie. We were in South Africa, finishing up our program there, when Charlie asked us this question: Can we create awe? Can we generate awe? Or is it something that simply happens to us?

Throughout our travels, I thought a lot about this idea of awe and similar feelings. I experienced awe many times; as I was walking through Robben Island, as I was speaking to Dennis Goldberg, when we were running around on a beach, happy as crabs, and even when I was simply cooking food with the people I was with. Awe was around me often. But how did it come about? Did I create it? Or did it happen to me?

My final answer came to this. I didn’t create awe, I didn’t sit down and say “Today, I want to feel awe, so here’s where, here’s what I’m going to do, and here’s how, etc.” I didn’t have a plan for awe. But, it also didn’t just happen to me, with no intention at all. I wasn’t inside these moments completely free of the thought of awe until it came to me. Instead, I had intentionally opened myself to the feeling of awe.

 

By walking into this journey with preparation, with internal projects churning and running, I was opened up to the possibility of awe, among other things, at all times. I had resources at my fingertips, in my head, in my heart, in my body that I had armed myself with through the preparation for this trip that helped to dictate how I was inside every moment. How present I was, how reflective I was, what I was open to seeing, to feeling, to asking, to creating, to playing. Preparation of self before a journey allows for a deeper context to appear, that without such preparation, we have the potential to beopen to less and to beless self-aware. Wemay not be as present inside moments, wemay not be as prepared for awe to be presented to us, nor will webe prepared to do anything with it.

The preparation I receive as a BoldLeader gives me the chance to experience every adventure as I normally wouldn’t without such preparation. I am not only open in so many ways, but I’m also analyzing afterwards in a very different way. I have a better idea of how I interact with new knowledge and new experiences. I’m armed and open at the same time.

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