Creating a Safer Workplace Culture Through Art and Poetry (Michelle Kaplan, the Corporate Poet)

SHOW NOTES:
Contact Michelle Kaplan: Linkedin - Instagram
Burst and Fleurish (business): Website - Facebook Group - Shop
Poetry books available on Amazon: And - Burst and Fleurish
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4-L’s Retrospective

4 L’s Retrospective  Exercise for Teams, Leaders and Solopreneurs

Create 4 quadrants using a whiteboard, paper or an online tool such as Miro. In each of the squares you enter one L word:  4 L’s – Liked, Learned, Lacked, Long For.

On a physical whiteboard, paper, cardboard or shared virtual whiteboard (such as Miro), make 4 quadrants to collect information by using the words LIKED, LEARNED, LACKED, and LONG FOR (one L word in each of the squares). Decide on the period you want to look back, such as the prior year, a particular season, or whatever time period you want to reflect on. Team members will write in each quadrant what they liked, learned, lacked or long for during the period of reflection.  If you’re a Solopreneur than dig deep and be honest with yourself.

This exercise is a great way to learn from your mistakes and epic fails along with a chance to double down on your successes. It is extremely important that all team members contribute their feedback to each of the quadrants. In fact, nobody should be dominating these responses. If you think this exercise might be uncomfortable for some team members, you may want to allow all participates to answer anonymously. That way you have a better chance receiving more honest feedback and willingness from participants to voice their opinion. Some employees may say they have nothing to share, in those cases you should examine how engaged they actually are in their job.

Here’s the lowdown:

Liked is probably the easiest to fill out because this is an area where people feel free to complement and maybe even brag.

Learned – requires people to be more open about their mistakes and requires a safer environment that rewards honesty rather than punishes it.

Lacked – can be an area where team members might gripe or be afraid to mention areas where their management fell short. But again, having that open-honest dialogue will help this exercise to be most effective.

 Long For – this might be the area where you get a lot of pie in the sky ideas, so as a leader you need to distill what I call Genie wishes (like a month off in the Bahamas) from real things that the business can actually provide and it makes sense for the goals of the business. For instance, if your employees are longing for more human connection at work and you’ve been forced to go 100% virtual, you can do something about this (based on what is affordable) such as employee retreats, group training sessions or an activity such as this retrospective where everyone feels heard.

This activity is important because, it encourages teams to look at specific actions they should start, stop or continue doing.

Try Miro to build your virtual 4-L Retrospective and other sharable boards and you can get a free 4-L Retrospective Miro template.

On this segment of Get the Balance Right podcast we are trying something new! Based on feedback from audience members, clients, coaches, mentors and peers I will (eventually) include solo shows. For those who have jumped into the podcast pool, you know that the idea of presenting solo shows can be rather scary; not only do you have to carry the whole shebang, but there’s that daunting self-doubt that nobody cares what you have to say. Thank you all for your subtle and not so subtle pushes into the deep end, but I’m not entirely ready to dive in. However, due to the encouragement from those mentioned above, I will start dangling my toe in the solo-episode water; starting with THIS episode. 

For my first solo topic (short-style attempt) I chose one of my favorite leadership exercises, called a 4-L Retrospective. Over the years, when I have lead teams, I’ve utilized this exercise to gain insight from the prior period to influence the actions in the current or upcoming period.

To really benefit from this exercise, you must have a safe workplace environment where everyone’s ideas are encouraged and honesty is rewarded. Choosing this exercise was partly based on the time of year but mainly as a compliment to the discussion I had with my guest Michelle Kaplan. In this episode we discuss how to nourish a safe workplace through creativity. To learn more about the 4-L Retrospective exercise, see the section below.

As noted, on the podcast I’m joined by Michelle Kaplan, who is known as the Corporate Poet. She has approximately 30 years of experience in HR and 15 years as a Professional Development Trainer and Coach. Michelle’s approach to coaching is non-conventional, because she brings her own twist into it by incorporating poetry and creativity along with her training, whether its entrepreneurs or their teams. She helps business leaders who are struggling with challenges such as decision fatigue, retention issues, or workplace issues such as performance, interpersonal conflicts, and communication.

She’s also written two poetry books, one is called And, the other, more recent book is Burst and Fleurish. Her poetry has been notably recognized as Amazon’s #1 Hot New Release for Inspirational Poetry. On this show we will discuss her a unique perspective that is the result of her background in HR, combined with her passion for creativity and her innate intuition. We also dive into the topic of poetry at work: why art matters in business; how creating outside the lines positively impact the bottom line.

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