Critical reflection

Assessment task
Compose a critical reflection (500 words) on your personal experience of being involved in a workplace change initiative.
You are asked to link your reflection to your knowledge of multi-facets of change supported by content covered in Week 1.
As an aside you can use the critical reflection writing guide to structure your critical reflection.

Reflective writing guide

Instructions

In this documentation tool, you can practice your reflective writing by using this framework of prompts that ask you to consider and articulate different aspects of a particular experience. This framework incorporates elements from various models commonly used in health professions (Gibbs, 1998; Johns, 1994).

As you work through this framework, remember that this is a way for you to crticially reflect on your experience of a workplace change in order to learn from it. So, you are not just describing what happened, but also examining how you responded, and why. In doing so, you test and develop: your self-understanding, your understanding of the world, and your skills and preparedness in handling future experiences.

How to use this guide:
Start by setting the context
What period of time are you reflecting on and what kind of experience was it?

Next, write a brief description of your experience during this time, noting the key features.

Next, try to explain what happened.
Why do you think you felt or act as you did in that situation? What were your own (internal) assumptions, beliefs or values that you were acting on?

What were some contextual (external) factors that influenced you here?

Now let’s test those theories.
Evaluate the personal assumptions, beliefs and values that you described earlier. Would you change any of them? Did the experience reinforce any of them?

What might be some possible alternative explanations for the experience you described? (E.g. how might the situation look from someone else’s perspective?)

Could or should you have behaved differently? How so?

What will you do now?
Is there any action that you should take now (in the short term)?

Has this experience affected your future plans (i.e. longer-term) – professional role, how you manage change, how you lead change etc

Finally, how do you feel about the experience now, after reflecting on it?