Better Aged Care Professionals Ask Better Questions. Lindsay Jr. Tighe

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СКАЧАТЬ I share this with you, I am reminded about a story that I often share in workshops that powerfully represents the idea of conformance rather than rational, well-thoughtout thinking, and my belief is that this represents a lot of workplaces and their practices. Let me share the story and you can see what comes to your mind as you read it:

      Start with a cage containing five apes.

      In the cage hang a banana on a string. Now put stairs under it. Before long, an ape will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all the apes with cold water.

      After a while another ape makes an attempt with the same result – again all the apes are sprayed with cold water.

      Turn off the cold water.

      If later another ape tries to climb the stairs, the other apes will try to prevent him even though they are not sprayed with cold water.

      Now remove one ape from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new ape sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror all of the other apes attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.

      Next remove another of the original five apes and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.

      Again, replace a third original ape with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four apes that beat him have no idea why they are not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest ape.

      After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all the apes which were previously sprayed with cold water have now been replaced. Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches the stairs.

      Why not?

      This story really invites us to take some time to stop and think about what we are doing and question ourselves in our practice. Often we are like the ape in the apes’ cage without even realising it, and we conform to the ‘way we do things around here’ rather than question what we do. Whether we like it or not, the fact that we are part of society or a workplace means that we can be likened to those apes, and to some extent there is a good chance that we are also creating apes by challenging others to fit into the way we like things to be done.

      Whilst most traditional roles within aged care have been more in the ‘telling’ space, more recent research and philosophies have become available that are presenting the idea that this may not be the best approach, and certainly not if it is carried out on a constant basis. I am sure you will have heard of phrases like ‘person-centred approach’ or the ‘active service model’ which both point us in the direction of doing less ‘telling’ and advising and more ‘asking’. Fortunately, the very fact that this is being promoted and shared in the aged care sector is causing us to question our ‘ape-like’ behaviour, and so, certainly from my perspective, this is a great thing to be happening.

      Whilst initially anything that makes us stop and think about having to do something different can feel like hard work, in the longer term it does give us an opportunity to become even better than we were before we started on the journey of change. So even though there may be some internal resistance to taking on board the new ideas presented to you, please recognise that you have an opportunity to ‘rattle the apes’ cage’ and even ‘go for the banana’ that your current unconscious practices may well not be enabling.

      As you step back from your role and reflect, two good questions to consider are: “What are the expectations of my role as an aged care professional?” and “How do I want to go about meeting these expectations?” As we have said, very often some of this is outlined to you by workplace cultural norms, but societal expectations play a part here too. I have often been advised by, for example, community nurses who work with the elderly that clients will say to them, “You’re the nurse, so you tell me what to do.” There are very often subconscious messages that you receive that will provide guidance to you without your even realising it, and it is interesting to note the impact they have on you and your thinking, which in turn will affect the way in which you fulfil your role.

      Self-reflection

      A good way to become aware of your practices is to do some honest self-reflection about the way that you are approaching your role. Whilst we often espouse certain values or behaviours, the reality is that no one knows that we consider those values or behaviours to be particularly important, because they are not apparent from what we do on a day-to-day basis.

      I have known people who say that they value being honest, but if you ask people who know them whether they view that person as being honest, they will probably laugh at you and tell you that they are manipulative and not very truthful! So, we should honestly reflect on recognising that we have ideals about how we’d like to be, but our actual practice may not meet those ideals, and the reality and experience of others is frequently different to ours.

      One powerful way that you can carry out this honest self-reflection is to ask yourself what others might say about you if they were asked to give a short description of your approach to your role. If you have high self-awareness, there is a good chance that you will be fairly accurate with this. However, if you genuinely have no idea how you are perceived and are courageous enough to ask, then why not ask your colleagues or some other people who know you well informally how they would describe you? Feedback can certainly be an enlightening experience!

      In addition, another great question you can ask yourself in this reflective space is “How would I like others to describe me when talking about my role?” This is a very powerful question to ask, in that it invites you to think about your vision for your ideal approach rather than the reality of your current approach, which may currently be quite different. By being clear about your desired vision, you have a starting point towards achieving this in reality.

      The good news is that when we do become aware of how we would like to operate, it is possible to work on this so that it becomes a reality. Some time ago, I was suddenly struck by the realisation that if I went to people who knew me well, they were unlikely to describe me as being a ‘kind person’. Although I was aware that there were lots of positive traits that I displayed, kindness wasn’t one that was high up on the list. Whilst I admit that being aware of this did not make me feel good, I always remind myself that whenever I do find something that I don’t like about myself, I should celebrate it because once I am aware of it I can choose to change. If I continued in ignorance doing what I have always done for the rest of my life, the potential for change would not present itself. So, honest self-reflection, whilst initially uncomfortable, can be an amazing tool to enable us to learn and grow, and to enable us to be the best that we can be.

      When I became aware of my desire to be described as ‘kind’, I recognised that something had to change in the way I was going about doing things – in other words, a change was needed in my behaviour. It was no good simply being aware of the need to change – it meant I had to take action. My approach to this was to start a reflection journal that I completed each evening, where I would ask myself honestly how I had demonstrated kindness during that day. I have to say that when I started to do this, I was quite disappointed in myself because I couldn’t think of things to write down. Quite magically though, when we start to focus on something, we suddenly start to identify opportunities to do it in a different way. So as I journeyed through my day, I started to identify opportunities to be a kinder person – often in the simplest ways. Within a matter of days, I was feeling great that I could write things in my journal that really did demonstrate that I was being a kind person after all.

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