If you are a newly hired financial reporting specialist at Megacorp Inc. you might soon feel that you’re on a production line, a constantly cranking supply chain responding to a never ending demand chain. One way to avoid this ‘Model T’ effect is to build an hour or so into your week/month to apply the taxonomy of reflection, a useful model recently proposed by Peter Pappas, who is clearly a reflective practitioner himself.
The trouble with some workplaces today is that there is no time for reflection and even when there is, many of us are less than structured in the way we reflect. That’s why models like the taxonomy of reflection are useful. They remind us that serious reflection is hard but also provide a framework for that reflection to make it a tad easier.
Let’s say you’ve just delivered a new financial reporting format to your organization. Try clearing your mind and getting reflective for a moment so you can apply the six levels of the Pappas model to your effort.
1. Remembering – What did I do?
Some of you may well stumble at this first hurdle as producing new report formats under typical corporate pressure may mean that it’s all just a blur. So keep it simple. Just refreshing your memory about the purpose of or drivers for the report may be enough. Don’t get bogged down in trying to recall every step of your report definition line-by-line – unless of course you need a quick powernap (what we in the U.K. call a ‘kip’ or in military parlance, a ‘gonk’) at your desk.
2. Understanding – What was important about it?
I advise a Twitter approach – try to describe what was important about this particular financial report in 140 characters or less. Focus on the delivery outcome e.g. ‘I made it easier to understand segment reporting in our grapefruit business’ or some such. Do exercise restraint. The phrases ‘saved the world’, ‘put an end to poverty’ or ‘who gives a’ should not be part of your 140 characters.
3. Analyzing – Did I see any patterns in what I did?
This is where you cast your mind over other reports you or your team have produced in the past and compare them to your new report to tease out common elements, connections and overlaps. It’s important to do this without the help of artificial stimulants (e.g. Red Bull, salty liquorice, helium etc) as you are not searching for psychedelic patterns.
4. Applying – Where could I use this report format again?
(Pappas actually puts this before analyzing but personally I find it hard to apply anything before I’ve analyzed it.)
Is there another business unit, LOB, department, manager etc. that could use a report like this? Could this report format become a re-usable template to save work next time? Whatever you do, please avoid insisting that your format should be applied everywhere by everyone just because you think it’s awesome.
5. Evaluating – How well did I do?
You can really only figure this out once your report is out there and being used in anger. Somehow you should get some idea of benefit realization from your report. If only to have this documented in that long list of raise-reasons you want to bring to your next performance review.
6. Creating - What should I do next?
With all this reflective content front of mind, you should be in a great position to spark ideas for new reports that you can propose to your boss/CFO the next time you are invited for lunch in the executive dining room. But be selective. Bombarding them with wacky new report formats every day will only lead to the kind of Pickwickian imbalance in your own personal income statement that is certain to occur when you are fired.
Just to reiterate. Step 6 is the real bonus from your application of the taxonomy of reflection. So make sure you don’t skip it and just head hi-fiving for the snacks after step 5. But all joking aside, many of us could benefit from the application of the taxonomy of reflection in our workplace, whether as individuals or teams, on a weekly or monthly basis. That’s why I recommend the taxonomy of reflection to all users of our Crossfire Reporting Platform who want to get the best from Crossfire’s comprehensive functionality.
