In the military, where the notion of debriefings originated, personnel returning from a mission are questioned thoroughly. Sometimes gently, sometimes aggressively. Their interviewers want to make certain that everything they've noticed and learned has been evaluated and shared with the right people. That's among the fundamental reasons that the US military has the finest and most well-trained forces in the world.
However, you don't have to agree with the popular notion of business as guerilla warfare to benefit from personal debriefing. Furthermore, the less you associate debriefing with critical and unusual events the better. You'll learn a lot more by debriefing yourself on those everyday events that are a normal part of your responsibility. And the more you integrate debriefing into your personal activities, the more useful tool it becomes.
FYI: Contrary to conventional wisdom, studies show that where there are processes by which tiny factors of influence or change are recognized and acted upon they will accumulate to produce meaningful outcomes. This research provides the background for the idea of small wins, the notion that sucessful learning takes place in staggering baby steps. Attempting huge steps of learning is a formula for both failure and demotivation.
Make debriefing a regular expectation. I debrief myself in three different situations: While learning and practicing a new skill. When I have an important success. When I have a failure.
Debrief as soon after the experience as possible. Whether I'm in a team meeting, coaching an individual, working alone, or learning a new skill, I inevitably take a few minutes afterward to assess my experience. I've learned that the sooner I debrief, the more likely my insights will make sense, stay in my memory until I can get to paper and pencil, and figure out who can give me further insights. The emotions of an experience drive my thinking and analysis, and the longer I wait to debrief, the more quickly the emotions and drive will dissipate.
Create a personal debriefing structure. I have a template of questions in my front lobes that I can refer to instantly for debriefing. What went well, and why? What needs to go better and why? What am I missing? On occasion I also ask myself who I need to check in with. The last question is the most important: How can I use what I've learned in the future? I spend much time on what went well.
Years ago, I coached an agricultural economist who was a purchasing director of a major foods company. He told me that he'd been working on his weaknesses and failures, and that he spent time nearly every evening figuring out how to "fix them." Because of his lack of success, he'd hired me to help him with his problem. After listening to his frustrations, I suggested that he try on a new approach to his development. Instead of thinking through that day's frustrations, I recommended that he pay attention to his for that day. Then, debrief those successes: figure out what made them successful. I suggested he follow up that debriefing by tracking his reasoning and behavior. That would make it possible to leverage those learnings into new situations. He was initially resistant, but committed to a two week trial run of the new approach.
About three weeks later, when I walked into his office, he was lit up with a smile. "You've already earned your fee," he said. "That approach worked like a charm." The following year he took me out for lunch to the nicest restaurant in town to celebrate his promotion to vice-president. He is now an EVP at the General Mills Company.
Although the typical modus operandi for personal development is to focus on strategic weaknesses, that approach should never be used in isolation. More often than not, once we've learned how to carry out a thorough debriefing of our successes, we'll find that we can learn as much or more with that approach. This is the kind of learning that's transferable to other situations. Whether we're focusing on weaknesses or successes, technique is everything. Chunking learning into tiny bits more readily results in small wins.
Remember the power of stories. Even the most valuable facts, concepts and learning can be easily overlooked or forgotten unless you've put them into a story. So when I'm jotting down info, I'll add the situation, the people and the action to my notes. It provides a verbatim for myself, a story to tell to others when I'm coaching, as well as input for an article or book. Stories make my learning memorable.
Daniel Coyle, the author of The Talent Code, says that because of the time needed to develop the subject matter and expertise, the best coaches tend to be in their sixties and seventies. Since I'm in my mid seventies, I agree. However, one of the major keys of my success has been personal debriefing, a skill I've refined and used regularly since I was in my late twenties. Debriefing is a vastly underused business and personal strategy that provides unlimited opportunities for growth and development for anyone.
