The RE Exercise For Self-Improvement

Sanders, can’t you just give me the three quick steps to take to get my team on point?" This is something we hear quite often from managers who don’t have time for long drawn out explanations and philosophy. Your world is impacted for time and it has to be simple for it to transfer through a human system. With that in mind, here are the three steps you and your team might consider. We call it the “RE” exercise.

You start by REflecting, go back in your mind 18 months and take a look at what has transpired. The key action here is to “ponder.”  Get to the side of your life river and look back up stream and ask yourself, “what did I learn, and what does it mean?”

The second step is to REcreate by putting yourself in a fresh environment. Recreation is often associated with long trips away and those trips are very impactful, but watch what happens to you when...

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​you go to a different coffee shop, stop at a different park and sit on a bench for 20 minutes and observe your surroundings. Your new environment will take your brain off of auto pilot and it is at this very moment that we encourage you to “Dream.” Try to piece all the things you have been processing in your mind together and give yourself a moment to have a crazy thought. When your entire team is empowered to dream and then share what they thought about you will win in two areas. First, you will get a major boost in employee engagement because freedom of choice and thought is a prime intrinsic motivator. Second, when you allow them to share their thoughts the diversity of ideas will inevitably help the team. Ideas of out left field don’t work at the time crunched Monday meeting, but having a process to share them over time should have a positive impact on your culture.

The third step is to REdirect your focus. The key action word here is “Drive.”  Now that you have looked back and dreamed about a better future, what are the key initiatives and correlating tasks? We have noticed people are much more inclined to hit their tasks with vigor when they have been given even 30 minutes to reflect and recreate.  The half way point in the year is a great time give the “RE” exercise a try and for many of our clients we implement it every 45 days.

Read our post on Good Followers Make Good Leaders