Peer reflection as a good piece of theatre
For leaders and senior professionals who occasionally don't want to be the person who is supposed to know.
There are few places where experienced people can say out loud that they don't know, that they handled something badly, or that one particular person throws them off far too easily. In a good peer group they can.
Have you ever noticed how an actor in a film or on stage stands out the moment the performance is less convincing? A good actor carries the role and doesn't draw attention to themselves. The more real, the better. Peer reflection works for me when people bring something they are genuinely stuck with. No invented cases and no props either. The more real, the better.
The method is actually simple: you bring in a case, the group looks along with you, and together we explore what is going on. I guard structure and safety, but I don't have to stand in the middle. Sometimes my role is that of director, sometimes of cinematographer and sometimes of someone in the audience who says: perhaps the theme is different from what you thought.
In a well-played scene you can try something you wouldn't dare in real life yet. Adopt a different posture, phrase a sentence differently, hold the silence a few beats longer before you answer. In the safe space of the group you discover where the friction is.
The most interesting energy arises between the participants: questions, hypotheses, irritation, recognition and often the discovery that a rather different question was sitting underneath the original case. That is why peer reflection works best when the group stays together for a while. Partly for the pleasure of it, but mostly because trust takes time.
What we don't do: theatrical tricks, management presentations or the idea that someone already knows the answer. We examine the case. Not the person.
Authenticity is the only costume that counts here.
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That can be a single facilitated session or a group that meets a few times a year, within one organisation or across several.
Send me a message with who is in the group and what it should be about. Then we can see together whether this is something.
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