So simple, but few marketers do it….
Over the last two weeks, I have had the privilege of training some 50 corporate marketers at different stages of their careers – junior executives, managers, and directors.
The was one common issue – they were all under so much pressure to deliver, they didn’t have time to reflect.
Although these marketers are at the top of their games exceeding target growth for their businesses, they could be doing so much better, just by factoring in time to reflect.
Reflection is not a luxury.
Whether at an individual or team level, giving our brains time to review our actions to identify what we did well and what we could improve is an investment that always pays handsomely.
So, I was very surprised to learn that not one of these excellent marketers had built systematic processes to reflect on campaigns or any activities for that matter.
They were all so busy with overlapping projects that they were under constant pressure to deliver.
As a result, they were confusing efficiency for effectiveness. Just how much could they perform if they allowed themselves time to reflect.
For those of us old enough to remember Steven Covey’s importance and urgency matrix, reflection is a classic quadrant 2 activity – important, but not urgent. Simply too easy to ignore or perhaps too hard to implement?
So, one very simple tip to give you and your team competitive advantage.:
At a personal level, write a daily journal that reflects on the day's activities. It doesn't take long. Bullet journaling accelerates the process further.
At a personal level, try this. List 3 things you have done and are proud of and 3 things you could do better tomorrow. This simple act will also engage the subconscious to develop those ideas further as you sleep.
At a team level, built into your planning cycle for any project a ‘washing-up’ or reflection meeting to assess what went well and what you could do better next time. Make sure you right down the results and review them before you start the next project.
The benefits of these easy reflections activities will be extraordinary.