The Importance of Self-Reflection (at Work & Beyond)
Hyper-alignment is a strong cornerstone of Consensus it’s how we all sing the same song, row the same boat, and look after our colleagues as we’d like to be looked after. Here, we’re all aligned on what makes the boat go faster, we’re all pulling in the same direction even though we have different roles in doing so.
Misalignment is the biggest reason for scaling companies to fail, so we put a lot of time and effort into getting this core value correct.
By running a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) we can collectively predict risks, and capitalise on opportunities.
In this article, I’ll discuss creating a safe space for SWOTs to be most effective, how you can use them to uncover the thoughts and experiences from your teams, and a productive action plan on how you can get the most from what you learn. I’ll even share some of my own personal examples from myself and our Buyer Enablement team at Consensus.
Getting Vulnerable
Vulnerability is something that takes an age to create, and a moment to destroy; so it’s worth being intentional about how and why you’re creating a safe space for people.
I truly believe that to create the best results, vulnerability and healthy conflict should go hand-in-hand.
Being vulnerable is seen as a good thing, but whilst it comes naturally for some people it takes immense bravery for others, especially in the workplace where it can often be misunderstood as a weakness. By understanding this balance of willingness and openness in your team, you’ll be better able to craft a space where the quietest voices are heard just as loudly. After all, it’s not always the loudest voices that bring the best ideas.
Conflict on the other hand, is often viewed as a bad thing; the enemy of vulnerability. We’re accustomed to shying away from disagreement and choosing the path of least resistance even if we may have opinions to the contrary. Sometimes it’s easier just to agree.
However, health conflict can foster healthy debate, bring ideas to the table from different perspectives, and serve our collective growth by learning from others.
Collectively at Consensus, we call this healthy debate ‘don’t hide the ball’, a reference to our CEO, Doug Johnson’s impressive basketball training openness to radical candour that serves our mission with immense effect. (Fancy learning more about healthy conflict? Check Amy Gallo’s fantastic TEDx talk.)
When you combine a vulnerable and safe space, with a desire for healthy conflict the outcomes will always be more diverse, innovative, and the team members feel involved in the journey forward.
Todd Janzen, our SVP of Buyer Enablement & Customer Success here at Consensus is a huge proponent of a ‘Rumble’: “A discussion, conversation or meeting defined by a commitment to lean into vulnerability, to stay curious and generous, to stick with the messy middle of problem identification and solving, to take a break and circle back when necessary, to be fearless in owning our parts, and, to listen with the same passion with which we want to be heard.”
Why am I bringing this up? Because to make SWOT effective for you and your business, you need to create an environment where learning can thrive.
Going vs. Knowing
When I returned from a management summit a few months back, I was determined to put SWOTs into action.
Being blessed with a very open, kindly vulnerable and innovative team, I penned a promise to them that we’d SWOT ourselves, our team and more. This wasn’t going to be the January ‘I’ll go to the gym more’ kind of promise, it was a sincere plan to keep our growth on track.
So as we dive more deeply into what a SWOT is and how you can use it to grow your teams, make that same promise to yourself. Promise that you’ll action what you learn and make a real difference to the lives of your team, and yourself.Before we dig deep into how to conduct SWOT, let’s revisit the basics.
What is SWOT?
A SWOT is an analysis of something that balances the strengths and weaknesses that you can control, with those external opportunities and threats you have to cope with. You can do it on your own, or join with others to collaborate and broaden the ideas and innovation inherent in people’s viewpoints. Most often, a collaborative SWOT is most effective.
Strengths (Internal)
Internal factors that give you or your business an advantage over others. These are things you or your team does well, or skills and resources you can access.
Weaknesses (Internal)
Internal factors that put you or your business at a disadvantage. These are areas where improvement is needed.
Opportunities (External)
External factors that you or your business can capitalize on to improve. These are favourable trends or developments worth taking and advantage of.
Threats (External)
External factors that could cause problems for you or your business. These are potential dangers that could harm success.
Who Uses SWOT & Why?
SWOTs are often only used for strategic planning—perhaps by product management or by senior members of the company—to decide on defining objectives. But they are just as powerful (perhaps even more so) in other areas too. Any individual or team can use them to understand and align on positive growth, and I’ve found it most effective when using them for both. People understand the idea, and use it as a tool themselves for their work.
Let’s explore:
Personal SWOTs
Listen, doing a personal SWOT is tough. It’s one of those conversations where not being honest only serves to harm yourself. You know the truth, you don’t have to share it with others so why not be very real and stick down those true weaknesses no-one else knows, or those strengths you’re proud of but no-one may care.
Here’s one example from each of my Personal SWOT sections:
- S: I am a dedicated, company-first person.
- W: I can be too abstract when explaining concepts
- O: I am surrounded by great people from whom I can learn great things
- T: I should be careful not to get distracted from the vision
Team SWOTs
We use Team SWOTs in two ways, both are valuable and both yield startling results:
Core Team Example
We use Core Team SWOTS just like the personal one, but we discuss in the team how we work, ways to improve, and areas to focus on. This not only helps us grow as a tight-knit team and form strong familiarity and bonds we rely on when the workload is tough. (We also use them to celebrate our successes, we #WINTOGETHER.)
Tiered Launch Example
We SWOT our product launches to drive continuous improvement: We’re a content creation department serving the business and customers with engaging product experiences through video, tours, and other means.
As a rapidly scaling company, our product offering is frequently enhanced with new features or better ways of doing things, so we work closely with our Product Marketing folks to ensure all our content is up to date.
Tiered launches help us categorise these launches by scale, so our Tier 1 launches are most important (like Claraty, our new AI assistant).
Here are some examples of our most recent SWOT:
- S: We had everything ready for the launch
- W: Assets were not available from the start
- O: We can use the GTM plan to ready the assets needed
- T: The demo system wasn’t updated as early as we’d have liked
Product SWOTs
Product SWOTS are possibly the most common in the SaaS space, as it’s a tool often used by Product Management teams to align the product.
Here’s an example:
- S: We’re the only full-funnel product experience platform trusted by Enterprise customers
- O: The rise of AI is pushing businesses to invest, we should keep driving our AI features forward
Company SWOTs
Often thought of as an activity limited to the Exec team or C-suite, doing a company SWOT can bring insightful ideas and risks unforeseen by others. If the flow down of vision, goals and metrics has failed, your employees won’t be hyper-aligned and the company growth will suffer as a result. Doing a Company SWOT in a team setting means you can check if everyone’s on board and pulling in the same direction.
- S: We’re the only full-funnel product experience platform trusted by Enterprise customers.
- W: We don’t serve the 1-3 user use-case as well as larger projects
- O: We’re trusted on G2 and Capterra, but there are other review platforms too
- T: We invent something, people copy it. Every time. We should keep our eyes open for competitors trying to follow our lead.
Running a SWOT
Sharing SWOT with Your Team
As a leader, you should share your strengths AND your weaknesses with your team. In fact, I shared my whole personal SWOT with my team. By being vulnerable I helped them share theirs in the team as well.
We’re building a platform for growth, but without strong foundations, your actions could be weak and misguided.
Put Pen to Paper Yourself
You’ll see above I went on the same personal journey as I’m asking from my team— understanding what it’s like to uncover the good and bad, and making space for real growth. So, even if you’re not up for sharing, be up for the challenge in private and realise the benefits yourself. You’ll be better prepared to explain, use, and action what you learn when you do a SWOT with the team.
Don’t Get Hung Up on the Tools
Regardless of what some over-paid consultants will tell you, you don’t need fancy tools to get started. I literally began with a notepad. It’s uncluttered and indelible. But it really doesn’t matter.
We used Lucid for our team SWOT, notepads, iPads for personal SWOTs, and ClickUp for our Product launches SWOTs. Finding a collaborative place for shared SWOTs is helpful, but the best step is just to start. Remember the analogy from above, you’re actually going to the gym, not just pretending you are.
Stop, Start, Continue: Turning SWOT into Action
How to Take Action
Welcome to the most important part of this article: the part where ideas turn into actions and everyone gets aligned on a productive way forward.
This second and ESSENTIAL part of a SWOT is the action plan afterwards. In my experience, people agree on and act most readily upon these because they’ve had a hand in crafting them, and they’re seen as a positive way to move forward.
Write in a shared space what the team wants to Stop doing, Start doing or Continue as before, and they get pulled from the various SWOT sections into this action list.
For example, here are three (of the many) from our Product Launch SWOT:
- Stop: We’re going to stop immediately saying YES to things that might disrupt our scheduling.
- Start: We’re going to start getting all assets prepped ready in advance of video production.
- Continue: We’re going to continue our great collaboration & communication with other departments
Translating SWOT into Practical, MEASURABLE Goals
Depending on your systems and processes you can even turn Actions into Goals, especially for those personal goals you like to set for your team members, looking together at the weaknesses or opportunities is a great way to uncover ways to grow, and it’s an added bonus to make these measurable results feed back to next time you do a SWOT.
| SWOT Actions | Decision | Objective | Key Result |
| Stop | We’re going to stop immediately saying YES to things that might disrupt our scheduling. | Communicate better on our schedule/roadmap | Send a Tiered launch and Refresh Roadmap to GTM team on monthly basis. 3 updates by end Q1 |
| Start | Assets were not available from the start | Decrease workload at near launch date | Asset template built and delivered by end Q1 |
| Continue | We’re going to continue our great collaboration & communication with other departments | Increase alignment with GTM teams | Schedule 1 feedback meeting per Q with each GTM team |
Note: The Objectives should be hard, but achievable. You can align them with the SWOT to solve a Weakness or grab an Opportunity, or for better results align them to the SWOT Actions, keeping the growth on track and everyone hyper-aligned.
Why You Need to Revisit SWOT Regularly
Lastly, doing a SWOT once is pointless. After all, there is strength in repetition. You wouldn’t check your map at the start of a long hike and then never check it again.
Knowing where you are is the first step in moving forward but ‘re-swotting’ is the most valuable part to maintain alignment. Redoing Personal SWOTs helps personal growth, and redoing Team SWOTs helps new members join that alignment and have their voices heard too.
