Brain Food for Pioneering Spirits: How does reflection help us develop effective solution strategies? Dr. Yasemin Yazan explores problem-solving with Jürgen, Marc and Sabine — from why too much reflection can be as paralyzing as too little, to a pilot-selection test that measured nothing but decision speed, to why time pressure is really just a power position in disguise…
Note: This session was recorded live in German as part of the Deep Talk Club, so the video above is German-language audio only. What follows is an English translation of the conversation, lightly edited for readability — the back-and-forth between the moderator and participants is preserved, but the original timestamps and speaker names have been left out.
A very good morning to you. Today we’re continuing with reflection and problem-solving. How does reflection help us develop effective solution strategies, is the question we want to engage with today under this room topic. So you’re all really, really warmly invited to join in and bring your first thoughts and impulses on the topic, gladly with concrete practical examples too, so that together, through the dialogue, we can make this reflection room possible and see together which direction the room develops in today, what insights we generate from it, and so on. And yes, for those maybe joining for the first time today, a quick reminder again — we record the entire room, the whole time, and it gets published later too. Accordingly, anyone who joins automatically agrees to that. And we have three small room rules: a profile picture where you’re recognizable, first and last name, and at least one sentence in your bio, to make sure these are genuine contributions and not Clubhouse trolls. Anyone who doesn’t want that for whatever reason can gladly use the chat, so we can pick up on this or that as a question, thought, or similar here too. And with that, I’m really curious who’d like to open the round with me this morning. I already see Marc joining. A very good morning, dear Marc. What do you say about this topic?
Good morning to the group, dear Yasemin. Something occurred to me, and I’d like to start with that, that we practice things and become aware of them. Because the question today is, how does reflection help us find more effective solution strategies. And one answer to that, how reflection helps us, is for me definitely to think in circles, think round, not just go in one direction. And it occurred to me — and here we’re talking to ourselves, probably, what can I do to find a solution — that this question today in the room, how does reflection help us find the right solution strategy, actually already implies the direction, so the only possible direction. Namely, does reflection really help us find more effective solution strategies? Yes, I’ll phrase that for myself, reflection helps. But it could also be that too much reflection, too much checking-thinking, keeps us from acting, and we never arrive at a solution, because there are perfectionists who never get into action at all and reflect for half a year, a year, two years, and then nothing happens at all. And I mention that nonetheless, because it always makes us aware that finding a solution alone depends on the question, because the question dictates the direction to us. And for me, my life experience has helped me a lot when I really let even the most absurd ideas in first, really open my head up, move really freely, open-minded, and start considering all possible directions. That would be my starting point for now.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And absolutely — that means, too much reflection can maybe, so there’s also such a thing as too much reflecting, it can also lead, so to speak, to it holding me back, to me never getting into doing, because I’m constantly reflecting and thereby somehow can’t get out of that, in quotation marks. That’s also an exciting aspect in this context. And maybe one could have reformulated ChatGPT’s “how” here toward “to what extent does reflection help us develop effective solution strategies,” and that already changes the question. So that means, today it’s actually partly about looking at how this supports us, so to speak, and maybe pulling out concrete examples here too, to look at how it can also be counterproductive. That’s a different point again. But I find it totally exciting that you bring that up, and we can address that on the side too, so to speak. Maybe there are opinions on that too. So, is that even possible, that you can reflect too much, so to speak — that would be a question you could add here too, to open up this other side too. Not only assuming that reflecting leads to effective solution strategies, but that it could also lead, as a thesis, to me possibly not getting into action at all if I reflect too much, but instead being stuck too much, too often, however you want to put it, in this reflection mode. I’d find it totally exciting to hear what the others think about that too. So how do they see it? Feel free to take a position on that too, and join in. So you’re all warmly invited too. And I also find the question in the chat exciting — a solution for what? Well, basically we could say, for all kinds of topics, aspects, business, private, and so on. We’re looking at the whole thing here first on an abstract level, to discover certain patterns, for example, in the approach, and so on. But it also helps us, in this context, to keep picking up concrete examples too, to be able to illustrate it accordingly. So I’m looking forward to us bringing in really concrete examples again today too, to illustrate this. Jürgen, a very good morning. What are your thoughts on the topic?
A good morning, dear Yasemin, hello Marc and everyone else in the room. My thoughts on this topic, and the remarks Marc just made, and you too, lie on two levels. First, with this topic I draw on a personal model that I’ve built up and refined over and over throughout my professional career. I’ve called it a problem-solving cycle, or decision cycle. And the second impulse — I think we already discussed a conceptually closely related area under reflection, about a week and a half ago, I don’t remember exactly, namely decision-making. And to add to that room, I also see the topic of unconscious bias that we had. And to bring that together now, let me try to sketch this out relatively briefly, by saying something a bit provocative — when I start looking for solution alternatives in a decision or problem-solving cycle, a necessary precondition is reflection. And let me justify that briefly, and then ask you, as moderator, for your assessment of whether we’re on a valid path with this. Specifically, I justify it by saying that exactly at this point, before I start thinking about solution alternatives, an inward look, a reflection, is required. And the reasoning for that is as follows: before I get to solutions, I’ve already gone through two essential steps. First, I’ve identified and outlined the problem, with the question, what is the problem? And second, I’ve hopefully gathered the necessary quantity, number, and quality of information needed for the solution. Without elaborating further, I’ll build the bridge to unconscious bias here. Mind you, these are the two essential stages of the decision process for me. I’ll repeat, problem identification and information base. Now let me build the bridge to unconscious bias, and why — that’s the justification for reflection — because both positions are very strongly subject to potential distortions, our distortions. Namely, with problem identification, we know this again and again through the ongoing work and the knowledge Yasemin shares from neuroscience, that our brain, when confronted with a problem, especially when it’s formulated under time pressure — think of your professional practice. If your supervisor kicks things off and says, we have a problem in a project, and it’s highly critical and needs to be solved now — then, in our brain, the first thing that happens is a very reactive, associative search for already-existing patterns, recognizing them, and offering them as a solution. That means, unconscious bias, for me, operates at this level of checking the problem — that we might not be solving the right problem at all, but a problem that’s been associatively presented to us, and thereby basically solving a difficult question, a difficult problem, with an evasive maneuver via an actually small problem. That’s why reflection is needed at this point. And the second point is information gathering. And here I’ll quote dear Marc again, who keeps saying, we take in, or we latch onto, what we want to see. And that’s a really essential point with the necessary information gathering, needed to solve this hopefully-correct problem — to question yourself, as the person who has to deal with the problem, do I really have all the information on this? Basically, dear friends, behind this question stands, how great is my knowledge, and how great is my ignorance, or could my ignorance be? And these two positions make it, and this is knowledge about knowledge for me, urgently necessary, before even starting to think about alternatives for solutions, to reflect on these two preceding steps and go within and say, hello, have I done my job?
Yes, great, thank you so much. Absolutely understandable, I find. And here follow-up questions arise from this too. On one hand, an impression could now arise, especially because of this bridge to unconscious bias, that reflection itself might need to be questioned, to what extent it even helps me, if I’m, in quotation marks, so to speak, affected by this. That means, on one hand, something like the distortions we’re subject to. That means, right at problem identification, are we even solving the right problem at all. And also with information gathering — we only see what we want to see. So the question arises, am I actually even capable of reflecting in a way that leads to effective solution strategies. And here I’d like to build on one of the rooms from the last few days, where we also talked about perspective shift and such. That’s why the approach to reflection, so to speak, is again a really important aspect. We’ll pick that up again with regard to methods, and so on. But also on the process level, to look at that again. We’ll get into that in the coming days. I’m really curious about that too. That would maybe be another point to mention on the side — what approach or which methods can also help ensure, for example, that a perspective shift becomes possible. That the perspective shift isn’t only made possible through external observation, or through someone giving feedback, but also through different positions I myself take in the inward view, to look at it, say, from a bird’s-eye view, and so on. We’ll discuss all of that. That, within the framework of reflection, this serves to undertake a kind of neutralization, or as much neutralization as possible, opening up different perspectives, looking through different glasses, and thereby also enabling different options. Yes, go ahead, Jürgen, you wanted to build on this.
Yes, thanks for the opening. Perspective shift has two possibilities, or two potential origins, namely, the perspective I take on and force myself into in my self-reflection, and say, put yourself into your client’s situation. So now, quite simply, from the project context — if I’m the contractor and I get this horror message, well we have a huge problem, do something, act — then a potential possibility, in self-reflection, in really genuine inward-looking, is exactly this perspective shift you mentioned, would be one for me. The second is something I’ve made my own after longer experiences, both positive and negative. From the very start of an assignment, of a project, I’ve sought out a confidant from my network who roughly fit the professional context, and asked them whether they’d be available to me as a counterpart in various situations. And for me, this point, exactly in anticipation of now-I-have-to-develop-solution-alternatives, now-I-have-to-develop-scenarios, is really important, because this step was very important — for me this is a prototype, carrying out the reflection with another person too, someone who, in a corresponding way — and it doesn’t even have to be strictly professional, because it’s often more about, let’s say, going into the psychological view too — how does that affect employees, what happens now to the project team if I suddenly say, stop, halt, back to zero, we’re starting over, or something like that. So, long story short. Perspective shift, yes, through building perspective within myself, potentially through putting myself into other people’s shoes, but also definitely through reflection in connection with communication with others.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much, and in this context maybe also to underline again that these two positions are equally important. And you can illustrate that quite nicely, for example. You know this, Jürgen, you mentioned it earlier — in a work context, for example, it’s often about being able to reflect quickly in the situation too. There I might not have the possibility to enter into an exchange with someone now, so to speak, to look at it in hindsight, but rather to make an adequate decision right in the situation, and then steer these processes relatively quickly, through self-efficacy and the reflection that precedes it. That means, to proceed differently here than, say, if I then, for example, have the opportunity afterward to look at the same incident, the circumstances again myself, through my own inward view, in self-reflection, as well as to go into exchange with a third, independent person. And the second point you named, I find at least equally important, and I’d like to raise awareness on this too. It’s often the case that especially in work contexts, or with assignments or such, there’s a very intense focus on, or the claim is somewhat out there, especially with coaches, that field competence — from my point of view that’s overvalued in many places — it’s often desired that someone is from the field, so they can somehow classify it, and so it goes faster, in quotation marks. But if we look at what the mandate of a coach or sparring partner is at that point, in this context of reflection, it can actually be counterproductive if that’s someone from the field, because they would ask completely different questions, or they might also be subject to similar guardrails, and also subject to certain aspects through unconscious bias, and not even question or look at it from this perspective in the first place. That means, it can even be an advantage, in that case, to exchange with someone who isn’t from the field, because they get puzzled in completely different ways, in various contexts where we might look at things completely as a matter of course and wouldn’t even think to formulate the corresponding questions. So maybe that’s worth bringing in here too. Marc, would you like to build on this too?
Yes, I have another really important point, and one thing I’d also want to add is two words — risk analysis, so self-reflection. I can distinguish between self-reflection and external reflection. And with external reflection, that’s what’s only proven true for me. With external reflection, I talk with other people, and then I always ask myself, what qualifies this person to reflect with me. Because there are simply people who’ve never consciously engaged with reflection, that automatically runs the negative program. In that case, self-reflection doesn’t help me at all. Example, I want to become self-employed, and you have people like — hey Marc, have you seen the news, the inflation, that’s crazy, I wouldn’t do it — that information doesn’t help me at all. And my favorite answer, in that sense — I don’t know where I heard it — I always say to myself with a little smile, how it doesn’t work, I know myself. So if I exchange with people who explain to me how it doesn’t work, I might as well skip it, because I’ve already given myself that answer. So I try to be open-minded, and even if the ideas are totally absurd — and with speed, with risk analysis, that’s where it maybe becomes easier to go straight into self-reflection. Let’s say I worked with Stefan, and Stefan comes into my office and says, oh man, we have something here that needs to go out immediately. I’ve noticed we’re out of paper, go get paper quickly, because I can’t send this by email. Then it would be completely irrelevant whether I get 60-gram or 40-gram paper. Stefan might not like that, but what are the consequences? There’s really nothing at stake. Then we just have the wrong paper, we use it for something else, or this time we use paper for the client that’s not quite as nice. But if I’m in the office with Stefan and we have a water leak, and I’m really completely useless with my hands, can’t do anything practical — then I have to react immediately in that moment and stop the water, because maybe computers are at risk, and I need to move important data or hard drives out of the way, and so on. There I really have no time left for reflection, there I act from experience and with the self-confidence that hopefully, in that second, the right thing will occur to me. And there too I still have the possibility to quickly call someone, either a neighbor in the office across the hall, hoping there might be a specialist there who knows what to do with a water leak, or a short circuit, or a fire, how to react correctly. So for me, the risk analysis in a decision would first be, how much time do I have, and what happens if I don’t act now? So, what are the worst consequences. And this short reflection then gives me a time window, whether I still have a longer time to think and check, or whether I really need to act immediately, right away.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. And here it also becomes clear again how important, or what role and relevance, experience plays again. We’d already underlined and picked up and worked out this together in other rooms too. And in this context, it’s then the case that the more experience I have in various contexts in my field, in my area, the higher the probability that, especially in such a fast process where I’m under time pressure, for example, this — we could say — this impulsiveness that then comes, is still nonetheless leaning on prior experience. That means, the more experience I bring to a field, and the more similar problems I’ve already solved
in the past, the higher the probability that, even if I have to make a decision here, so to speak, in relatively short time and relatively quickly, and rely, in quotation marks, on my gut feeling in that context, that this still draws on this experiential knowledge stored in my brain, and accordingly the probability also increases that it’s fitting again in context. Doesn’t have to be the case. It can be, especially when there are no comparison positions that would give me reference values, so to speak, and I then act according to a gut feeling, in quotation marks, in that context, that I could also be wrong here. But we’d said we also distinguish here between conscious and unconscious reflection. And reflection takes place in any case, even if we don’t realize or notice it right away. And especially with aspects where things really go incredibly fast, and also have to go fast — so especially in professions where you might work under really massive time pressure and don’t even have that long to actually enter into this reflection phase. Let me give an example, so you can follow what I mean with this time pressure. There are massive differences here too. It’s a difference whether I’m, for example, in a training situation, where I analyze the situation in the moment, so to speak, go into reflection, into the inward view, take on meta-positions, the bird’s-eye view, and so on. There too it’s in the doing, and to some extent under time pressure, but it’s something completely different than if I, for example, were working at an airport, say as a pilot, and I’m in the air and a critical situation occurs — there it really has to happen within seconds, so to speak. There we have completely different time scales behind it too, to maybe open up the difference here again. I believe, Marc, you wanted to build on this too.
Exactly on that example, dear Yasemin. You probably also remember classmates — I had a straight-A candidate, all A’s. I thought, he’ll become whatever he wants. He just breezed through, and he really wanted to become a pilot. And after years I ran into him again, and I said, did you fulfill your dream, did you become a pilot. Didn’t even make it through the selection process, exactly because of this question. The first test was just, do you like cats or dogs, mountains or the sea, sun or winter, and so on. He took too long to think about it, and then, they said, he simply didn’t make it further into the testing process, namely because he couldn’t decide fast enough.
Because he couldn’t decide fast enough.
Exactly, because he couldn’t decide fast enough, and the point of the test was really to check that. That was the first selection criterion, before they even checked his mathematical abilities, they checked how long the person needs to decide. The answer itself wasn’t the result. The solution was completely irrelevant. It made no sense at all, it was just about seeing how people react in stress situations.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much for that example. Jürgen, would you like to build on this at some point too?
Well, I can only reinforce and confirm this again. This topic of time at this position — I’ll repeat myself now, and go back to a room too — I just checked, in my view, we had the topic of time as a precondition, as a theme, as a prerequisite for reflection, so seeking out an appropriate space, an environment, and taking the time. And I can, if allowed, say from my personal experience, that this is certainly a critical point. Marc made it clear again with a job like a captain, and I’d say the essential difference, compared to, say, a project manager, is that part of a captain’s natural equipment is this deciding under emergency, meaning emergency defined by time scarcity. So, and I’ll now claim, every manager in a project situation or a problem situation, where the house isn’t literally on fire, should explain to me whether they really can’t carve out the time to — and I’ll keep it really brief now — say, I need an hour to think, to reflect. So far nobody has been able to conclusively refute that for me. And I think that’s also why this position is so important at this point, and demonstrates, for me, a leadership quality, an assertiveness as a feature of leadership quality — to say, no, I’m not deciding right now which direction I’m going with my solutions, but I’m taking the time to reflect on whether I’m currently on the right track. I can only absolutely confirm again what you all said.
Yes, thank you so much, and you’re opening up another point here too that I find important in this context. On one hand, it’s about carving out the time in contexts where that’s possible. And in many cases it is possible to really take the time. So not to make the decision ad hoc in the moment, but to gladly say, let me take this with me and I’ll get back to you. And with that you’ve already procured yourself the time, so to speak, to go within and weigh things up. And on the other hand, we also observe a phenomenon in companies, namely that managers, quite generally, take too much time with decisions. But not necessarily against the backdrop that they don’t get into doing because they reflect too much, but because they shy away from making a decision at all, or from stepping into responsibility, so to speak. And maybe responsibility, in this context, is also a really essential point we can pick up on. What role does taking responsibility play in this reflection process, at that point, in order to actually translate the whole thing into self-efficacy and get into doing and acting? What do you say about that, Marc, Jürgen?
I have to smile and laugh right now, dear Yasemin. I heard exactly this point recently. It was about our previous government, the Merkel government, where someone said, with all the discussion about what we’re doing now, the Paris treaties, the Paris agreement, that’s existed for a really, really long time already. But what we did, or what politics did too, was simply set down numbers. So, it was known that problems were coming our way. We need renewable energy, we need this, we need that, and then there were clever people who took paper and said, okay, by 2038 it would be great if we had this and that, but nobody went into implementation, and I found that really exciting too. Someone said, in fairness, the implementation, so what we actually need to do so that by 2038 or 2050 or 2027 these numbers are reached, nobody really thought about that, but it was at least a good feeling to just let ideas play out, generate ideas and say, oh it would be nice if we had CO2-neutral transport by 2038 or whatever. Yes, that sounds good too. Jürgen, let’s say 2038, write that down. But if nothing happens after that — that occurs to me right now with this example. Ideas were also collected there, but nobody went into problem identification afterward at all. So, how do we actually get there? But rather just, would be nice if it were like that, then let’s set that down now, and then I can file it away. And that maybe happens in many companies too, that things are known that could happen, but that action just doesn’t follow. And that you feel good saying, okay, we’ve already thought about it, and we’ve at least filed the process already.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much. And by the way, this is a really classic approach in project management too, not just defining milestones with concrete deadlines, but also deriving the measures as the next step, so to speak. And especially with deriving the measures needed to reach the milestones, that’s also, at the same time, the opportunity to check whether that’s even realistic at all. Because it’s often the case that once the measures are derived, it becomes clear, for example, that the deadline that was set isn’t realistic to meet at all, or it also shows how intensely, how many resources we’d actually need to bring in, in whatever form — whatever falls under resources in that context — to actually be able to realize it, and that this is a really necessary and important step in this context. Jürgen, you wanted to build on this too.
Yes, of course. The counterpart to reflection is procrastination. Putting things off, buying yourself breathing room, or basically just not wanting to decide. But I think you also built a bridge with regard to responsibility, and I’d like to pick that up, to also rein yourself in, namely not to fall victim to procrastination, namely to reference my own responsibility, and the vehicle to carve out time, even toward a client, in my view — that through a really essential element of reflection, communication, I make my responsibility transparent again and say, dear client, do you want a solution that’s well thought-through, that I stand behind, or do you want a quick and dirty one, where we fall flat on our faces at the next milestone and say, well, we should have thought about it more. And this argument, admittedly a shock-value argument, is, for me, essentially tied to two important contexts. First, to reflecting and also consciously representing my responsibility in this situation. And second, the way, and especially the openness, with which I communicate and give reasons for why I need a reflection, an inward look, to become clear on whether I still — and this is very strongly tied to a professional context now — stand behind the further steps. So I found that a really good connection to our recurring, really essential topics of communication and responsibility.
Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much. And by the way, this is also a really classic topic in accompanying management consulting, consulting for companies — that here too, often under time pressure, this or that is demanded quick-quick, and that you don’t fall into that trap here, in quotation marks. But at the same time, recognizing that it’s also important to achieve quick solutions, quick results too, and now maybe from my experience, I’ve reinterpreted this a bit and renamed the terms too — in this context I don’t speak of “quick and dirty,” which managers, especially CEOs, particularly like to want, but rather to combine both together and say, what are the quick wins, so to speak, that we can maybe get into implementation relatively quickly, because then the corresponding stakeholders are happy and satisfied too. And nonetheless also to work on mid- and long-term solutions that ensure sustainability, meaning creating a combination. And I find that fits really nicely with the other rooms too, where we’ve talked about how, in many places, it’s often not an either-or solution approach, or there aren’t just single solutions or single impulses, and so on, but that it’s often these facets that lie in between. And regardless of whether we talk about tradition and innovation, where we said, yes, it’s also about combining both together, so to speak — here too it’s about combining the quick wins with mid- and long-term solutions that also simultaneously ensure sustainability, but also ensure client satisfaction, visibility for the workforce, that there are quick decisions, quick implementations, and so on here too, that there’s really work happening here, because that’s also a danger, if you look exclusively through the sustainability lens, in quotation marks. So that’s also what I mean by sustainability in this context, that it really brings something in the mid- and long-term too, if we implement it. Because that can, in reverse, also lead to us — not because we don’t make decisions, or because it’s not well reflected, or the measures aren’t derived, but because it’s so well prepared, and that of course also needs a certain amount of time — that the visibility of results then takes not just months, but sometimes even years to materialize, especially in such complex projects, and then the impatience keeps growing, or at some point people ask themselves, what’s actually happening here at all? Marc, Jürgen, does anyone want to build on this?
Yes, gladly, Jürgen. Sorry, dear Marc, but I have to grin really broadly right now, dear Yasemin, with your quick-grin, because that’s indeed a really valid tool that you should actually always have up your sleeve. And I’d like to build the bridge again, why exactly at this point, before entering — for me it’s a really important point — when I enter into solution strategies, it’s a really important point. Namely, time pressure doesn’t arise from time. Time is relative. Time pressure arises from the effect of a power position taking hold. In most cases from someone, or from a group. That’s basically building the bridge to our overarching topic, power. This time pressure I’m supposedly, or actually, I don’t want to deny it, subject to, is the expression of a power position. And you put that aptly. It actually belongs to — can you still hear me?
Yes, we can still hear you.
Yes, it belongs to the basic toolkit, these quick wins, in the sense of, I reach for a sedative, that’s all it is. I reach for a sedative to give myself some breathing room. That actually belongs there too. I found that a really apt bridge to practice, dear Yasemin. Thank you.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. So, what other aspects do we maybe not have addressed yet, that we’d like to build on? Marc, go ahead.
I’d like to come back to the private sphere, because that might be easier to follow. And what would be important to me is basically mindfulness and root-cause analysis too. Mindfulness in the partnership, or the root-cause analysis, is also, when we’re together with our partner or our friends — and these aren’t big problems now — but at some point you notice, the mood shifts. And I actually don’t know what happened. Once that’s happened once, the probability that it happens again is really high. And then thinking about, what happened beforehand that suddenly this strange tension is in the room. And with my partner, for example, I’ve noticed that she always needs something to eat and drink at regular intervals. And otherwise she’s a completely lovely person. But if she hasn’t eaten or had anything to drink, it could get dangerous — winking here, for me. And observing that and knowing, now I’ve overtaxed her, now we need a break, even if I’d like to keep going, now we need a break. Or maybe it could also be that, if you get up really early on a Saturday morning — I get up at 5 or 6am — my partner needs two hours more sleep, and I open my eyes and think, I could discuss something important with my partner right now, that doesn’t even concern our personal relationship, but where I need a decision from my partner, and they’re still half asleep. And for me, that’s also part of the practice, part of reflection, that every day, just like in your headline today, we can train our brain and our mind every day. What was the cause? What happened? Do these events come up more often? Can I take precautions? And what Jürgen just said about this power position — for me that doesn’t just come from people, and I find it a bit time-bound. Because when nature intervenes — say, on an airplane — or when technology intervenes, technology or nature can also have a power position in that case. Because when technology fails on an airplane, then technology exerts power. And when there’s a storm and thunder, then, in that case, nature would exert power over me. So power isn’t necessarily always connected to a person.
Thank you so much. And especially with the terminology, I find it becomes even clearer here. We talked, in the context of education, about these overarching key qualifications too, that play a really important role. And here, I find, with the terms we use, whether it’s reflection or mindfulness, and so on, responsibility, taking responsibility, and so on, it becomes clear these are relatively soft terms, partly, at that point too. That means, this isn’t about mere knowledge transfer, or similar, anymore. If we talk about mindfulness now, how can you learn mindfulness? It becomes clear, that’s not a training you can just sit into, where you go through mindfulness theoretically, so to speak. You could do that, but it won’t be particularly productive. It might be an aspect, embedded in an overall context, so to speak, where you can also look at the theory. But ultimately it’s about looking at what framework, also in educational contexts — and by education I don’t exclusively mean school or something, but really broadly understood as lifelong learning — is needed to establish or enable self-determination and self-efficacy, and to accompany this process, that a different framework is needed in many contexts to acquire such skills and competencies, so to speak, to make and gather experiences in certain contexts, and to keep entering into reflection again here too, to see what can be derived toward lessons learned. Fits well with these solution strategies too, to keep entering into reflection in hindsight too, and evaluate, to be able to decide faster each time, if possible, or also achieve better results. I don’t mean in numbers, data, facts now, but really reflection-based, whether the decisions or the solutions that were worked out are still, in hindsight, evaluated as fitting solutions, when we look at the whole thing in retrospect. That means, the reflections that take place at various points here — we’d already picked this up from a positional standpoint — that it’s not
just about maybe reflecting during planning, then reflecting in the situation, but also reflecting again in hindsight, to derive lessons learned, for example. Would anyone else like to build on this? Marc, Jürgen, go ahead, Jürgen.
Yes, I think that adds a point to the table that I think we haven’t addressed yet. With regard to the object of reflection, so the topic I set for myself — for me that was more this reflection in hindsight, whether I’m currently in a clear position to generate solutions, or rather, the right problem. Dear Marc, chapeau, that’s exactly the point. The right problem means nothing other than having penetrated as deeply as possible, not to have identified the problem, but the cause of the problem. If I don’t know the cause, what triggered an illness, then I can pour in as many medications as I want, and I’ll never solve the cause of the problem. Thanks for that again. But at this point, dear Yasemin, I find a really essential point of reflection — am I even, personally, able, at this point where we currently find ourselves, namely having to develop solution strategies, still the right man or the right woman for it. So, a really essential aspect of the reflection process was — we’d also established this once — an explicit strengths-weaknesses analysis. And that, in my view, is also a really essential topic. Not only, on one hand, have I correctly grasped the problem, do I have all the information about it, can I check that box and now start with solution strategies? No, but also to reflect, am I, in the current situation, still the right person for developing these solutions.
Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much. And with that I’d also like to bring in Sabine first, and then we can gladly make cross-connections again. Sabine, a very good morning.
A very good morning. You have a great topic. I would have liked to join earlier too. All hell’s broken loose at our place. We have nine tradespeople in the house, and I’m comparing that right now to how work happened in Sri Lanka. Four are dealing with the electrics downstairs, five are on the roof for solar. That’s quite something to compare. And here, these two days and they’re gone again. Over there it would probably take two weeks to work on that, and I think this reflection and problem-solving, that’s already a big difference, when I just look at how they, well, put mildly, what’s stressing me out right now is what’s going on here, because I was used to a different pace for two weeks. But how do I get to the goal? I have to say, I want them gone in two days, because we have no electricity right now and I can’t work. That was the one point I wanted to mention, again with the topic of cultural background, how different that is. But the second thing I wanted to say is, we’d need to reflect much more on the political side. I recently heard something where Arabs are already making fun of Europe a bit, because we, politically, in Europe, here — we’re not one Europe, but everyone does things a bit differently and we don’t move forward. While in the Arab world people try to make cooperation agreements to move the region forward as a whole. And maybe you have to say, hello, we can’t make everyone green, we can’t make everyone social. Shouldn’t our top goal be, how do we come together with countries without — of course we should keep respecting the values — but is there any reflection happening on that track at all?
Yes, thank you so much. Marc, Jürgen, do you want to build on certain points?
That would be a different room, I don’t want to specifically respond to that right now, that would be a taboo topic, we’ve already had that room too. Taboo topics can have many customers, re-election, only four years in office, basically all the terms we’ve already had in every room come up there. And a reflection, again on your observation, dear Sabine — it was the same for me. The first time I had the luck of coming back from China, I also thought I was pretty clever, and said to my partner and friend, listen, look here in front of the hotels, I find this odd. They have a hotel where cars get parked, and for every parking space there’s someone directing the car in. And I thought, Marc, you’re great at organizing, one person doing that would be enough. To which I got the answer, yes, yes, sure. It’s just that they have so many people, and they all need to be kept employed. And it’s also important that we have a task. And that’s why every person is responsible for one parking space, so that work gets brought to them. And the same is true in a pharmacy, quite strange, or in a shop, which I don’t know from Germany. In Germany you search for the sales staff, they hide. And in China it was like this — if there was a shop with five rows, five shelf rows, there’s also a person standing behind every shelf row that you can talk to.
Yes, thank you so much. And I’d also like to go into this point again in the last few minutes, to make a differentiation here too, or raise awareness with regard to this point of strengths-weaknesses analysis. Because exactly this point, not just related to ourselves, but also plays a really, really important role in a consulting context, and unfortunately isn’t often strongly enough followed through in implementation, maybe by some consultants. We’ve had rooms where we also talked about the differentiation between clients and customers, I believe. What’s the actual difference, or why does, for example, a consultant have a really special position, and a really special responsibility in their doing, because different aspects that are done or not done here can also backfire quite badly. That means, on one hand, for example, something like the strengths-weaknesses analysis, in order to even submit an offer against this backdrop, to take on a project or maybe also decline it. That would, for example, be unthinkable in a grocery context. So if I go into a supermarket, for example, and want to buy bread, nobody will check whether this bread is good for me in some way, or whether I actually need this bread, or whether this solves my problem, namely satisfying my hunger. Or maybe something else would be better than bread in this context. So that would be unimaginable. That’s clear to us. I go into the store, order something, wherever that is, and get it delivered. And in consulting and coaching contexts, there’s a completely different responsibility behind it, so to speak. Here it’s really about, and that’s the task of the coach, the consultant — different professional fields, you could open this up for therapists too — where it’s really about looking closely, and then also, for ethical, moral reasons, and so on, strengths-weaknesses analyses, various weighing points that play into this, to decline an assignment too, meaning not accepting the assignment to make money, because I can earn good money with it, but to really carry the responsibility, and against the backdrop of the corresponding reflection, also say, this makes sense, or this doesn’t make sense. And then not a want, so here we distinguish again between want and need — that means, in such professional fields, to really act need-oriented and not follow the want. Really important difference. And that’s why, in this context, we don’t speak of customers anymore, but of clients. And here too, when you look at the scientific context, there are very, very many differentiations that are also made linguistically, against the backdrop of the distinctions being made, and making clear what responsibility lies behind it, and what far-reaching consequences it can have if you simply follow a want, simply serve a customer, instead of actually being aware, in the moment, of what my role actually is, what my task is as a consultant, as a coach, and so on. And I find it important to underline this again at this point, because I think that, with all the examples we’ve opened up today, it makes this maybe more tangible too, for the perspective, if I, as a user, want to hire someone, so to speak, what aspects can I take into account, to, for example, also assess the professionalism of my counterpart, when hiring the right person. Would anyone like to build on this too, before we move into the closing round for today? Marc, Jürgen, Sabine.
I can only give an example, sorry, I have something in my mouth, but bear with me, because it fits right now with your remarks, dear Yasemin. I had a case, well, let’s call it a case. I got a project because of it, afterward, through an open conversation with the client, that after the invitation round, where a decision was being made between three consultants, I was the one who said, at the end, I’m sorry, I can’t agree yet to whether I want to accept this assignment. I first have to think about whether I can even do this at all. However that might sound. And only once I signaled after a day, well, I do see myself capable, lo and behold, did I get the assignment. That might have been a stroke of luck, because another manager who could have sat there might have said, well, she can’t decide, or isn’t clear about herself. No, that has nothing to do with it. It’s not just about being clear about yourself, but we had two essential support points today. On one hand the problem and its causes, and on the other hand the quality and the inward view regarding the person who’s supposed to, or has to, handle this problem. And those belong together at their root, and I found that a really apt wrap-up.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much. Then let’s move together into the closing round for today. Let’s just go backward — Sabine, Jürgen, then Marc, and then I’ll gladly announce the room for tomorrow too. Sabine, what were your highlights from the room?
Yes, the whole room was a highlight again. Yes, sorry, I went off onto the political level. But it’s still something that really bothers me overall right now — that we always look so broadly at whether we’re pleasing everyone, instead of looking more, like those countries do, at what our country’s goal is, and how we move forward. And I find that quite something. I mean, we’re at the IAA now I think, which opens today I believe. What happened there? The Chinese, with their BYD booths, had three times, I think, the size of the Mercedes booth. That really gives you something to think about. Yes, otherwise I found the reframing, and, no wait, reflection and problem-solving a great topic. Thank you.
Yes, wonderful. Thank you so much. Jürgen.
First of all, I’m with you, dear Sabine. I can really relate to that. Well aware that this underlying feeling of course also crosses over into the topic of unconscious bias, into other actions and ways of thinking, but that’s a different topic, but I can really understand it. Heartfelt thanks to all of you for your contributions, dear Marc, Sabine, and thank you, as always, dear Yasemin, for building the bridges in your moderation on such a complex topic, and holding it all together. And it was, once again, I’ll say it now, dear Marc, it was once again an hour stolen from paradise. Thank you for that.
Yes, wonderful, thank you so much. Marc.
I’d like to bring in one more example on the topic of how reflection helps us find effective solution strategies. For anyone who doesn’t have a coach or a consultant — it sometimes helps me, when I talk with someone and tell them what happened, in this case my partner — you can imagine, the client might not buy from me this year, that’s a disaster, that’s a really, really big client. While telling it, solutions occur to me, because I also have people in mind, including you, dear Yasemin, and I already ask myself, while telling it, is the client really that big, do I really earn that much money with this client, what’s actually happening there, is that really correct, can I prove it, can I check that again, whether I’m really only earning revenue or money from that, maybe it was also just work. So, anyone who doesn’t have a coach, and has someone they trust, talks with them, and if they don’t have a partner to talk to, I’m firmly convinced it even helps to talk to your dog or your cat, because while talking, we have to structure our thoughts. I wish you all a strong end to the day.
Yes, absolutely. I’m totally with you on that, and there are studies on this too, that show, for example, that just therapy sessions, where the therapist basically doesn’t say much at all, but often exclusively asks questions and supports and accompanies the session with guardrails, so to speak — or a coach also does this on a different level — that through this exchange that takes place, a lot, a lot already happens. The same applies to self-talk too, by the way, equally. That means, if I have someone across from me who only listens, exclusively listens and nods and says nothing at all, I still have the feeling, when I leave the conversation at the end, that it was a great conversation, and actually it wasn’t even a conversation, my counterpart just nodded and said nothing and asked no questions either. So even that works wonderfully. It’s a really exciting aspect. And nonetheless, I’d still like to underline in this context, because I know it from my practice, that there are also many people who tend to keep thinking that many problems, many aspects, can also be solved themselves, and not to underestimate the impact of having a professional at my side who accompanies this process. And that quite independently of where I stand, and how far along I already am, and how good I already am at my own ability to reflect. If I have someone who does this well, who’s maybe even a few steps further along with experience and so on than I am, and accompanies this process, then I also get different results, against the backdrop, we’d already mentioned this earlier, that we’re subject to unconscious bias, that we’re operating in our field, that we simply don’t see certain things because we have blind spots. And I can, if I exchange with someone — on one hand I can, or should pay attention to it being someone who also has the ability to actually act through questions, regardless of whether they come from the field or not. We already talked earlier about how sometimes being outside the field even brings advantages, which I can use really, really nicely here. But nonetheless, these competencies and these techniques, so to speak — I simply don’t have those in a private context, they’re often not available to me. I only have them to the extent that I maybe apply them for myself, or maybe learned them somewhere in a training once. That’s already something different when I go through this process with a professional, and by professional I really mean someone who does this well. I myself, I’d already mentioned this in other rooms, invest really, really a lot of money into having this reflection professionally accompanied, over and over, even though I’ve already achieved various things, done things, and so on, and bring a lot of experience in many, many areas. To really establish a kind of balance here too. That doesn’t mean you exclusively let yourself be accompanied externally. You can play with that a bit too, pause sometimes. That’s also good, when you do that. That it’s also not a process that’s permanent, so to speak, but that there are pauses again and again too, that it’s maybe topic-based, that you close out a topic and then time passes, and then you reflect for yourself again in that time, in exchange with sparring partners, do that, and so on. And these types and forms, the settings, and so on, we’ll pick that up in the coming days too. I’m really looking forward to that too. I just wanted to raise awareness on this, against this backdrop. That’s maybe an impression that arises for me, simply against the backdrop that I experience, in many places, that people simply have the feeling, oh, I’ll manage that somehow on my own, I don’t want to spend the money. And maybe get in their own way, at the speed at which they could otherwise progress in certain contexts, really outsmarting and standing in their own way. And I still, I like to say this again and again, I’m not a fan of “cheap is cool.” I really don’t like this propaganda at all, and find, whether it’s about products we buy, or about such consulting contexts or similar, that’s the wrong approach. The question is always, what value does it bring me, what does it bring me, what am I doing this whole thing for? And to always weigh, when do I get support from outside, in which context does it make sense? And to then go into hiring someone accordingly, even if it maybe first feels like your wallet is shrinking a bit. But it’s often the case that it might support us, for example, against making wrong decisions, against the backdrop of the corresponding accompaniment, also not going down flawed paths first, saving time. And even with flawed decisions I might make, because I haven’t reflected sufficiently or intensely enough, it can be that I later pay much, much more than I would for coaching or consulting, namely tuition fees, as I like to call it, tuition fees I could have spared myself if I’d had the right people and partners at my side. And I’d also like to underline here, in this context, that this usually isn’t just one coach, and not just one consultant or whatever, mediator — there are various contexts where I can hire different people — but it’s often the case that I can also look, context-dependent, in which context I currently need support, and then also hire different people accordingly, each of whom is the best in their own respective field. And with that, I’d like to wrap up for today, and yes, tomorrow we continue with reflection in leadership. What role does reflection play in leadership, is the question we want to engage with. So you’re all really, really warmly invited to join again tomorrow morning at 8am, and shape the reflection room together again. Thank you so much for joining. It was great today. Until then, ciao.
