This is a great technique for learning from your experience.
The main idea
Various incidents will stand out in your mind, especially if they were unexpectedly successful or unsuccessful, pleasing or worrying. The CIA process helps you to learn from an incident, whether it was successful or unsuccessful.
Try this
This works best if you talk it through with someone else. They can help you by probing a little. If you do it on your own, write it down - it seems to help you to fill out the picture and get the most from the activity.
Choose a small but vivid recent incident that stands out because it had a good result.
1. Describe the incident in as neutral a way as you can:
when and where it happened
who said or did what - what actually happened from just before the incident until the outcome
what you were thinking and feeling at the time and just afterwards
2. Reflect on the incident and deepen your understanding:
why does it stand out?
what was going on for me and others?
what resources did I bring to the incident?
what did other people bring?
what mainly led to the good outcomes?
3. Now see what you can learn from it. What positive things does this incident tell you about your personal resources?
what helped the good outcome to happen, and what was my part in that?
if I could do it again, what could make the result even better? what would I do differently?
4. Consider how you can apply these resources in new or difficult situations
what resources did you bring (skill, knowledge, experience, attitudes) that you could strengthen?
how will you remember to apply these resources in other situations?
Why this matters
Being able to learn effectively from your experience is an essential skill for a new manager. It can also change your ideas about "success" or "failure".
You can adapt this technique for reviewing incidents that didn't go so well, so that however badly it my have turned out you can take away some really useful learning.
Another useful idea
Many successful people say that they learned more from their mistakes than their successes. What have you learned?
| © 2007-08 Joanna Howard - Disclaimer - Site by Agent8 Design |
"));