Читать книгу Better Aged Care Professionals Ask Better Questions - Lindsay Jr. Tighe - Страница 13

In the last chapter, I focused on the general hats that we wear in our lives, and I am sure that you will recognise that the roles discussed very much relate to aged care professionals and immediately it becomes clear that many aspects of these hats typically sit more traditionally in the telling space. I say ‘more traditionally’ because in many instances your professional role is undertaken from a place of learnt behaviour from our own experiences and the way that we have been educated and trained to fulfil the role – very rarely is it undertaken from a place of conscious choice. In this chapter I invite you to reflect upon the choices you wish to make about your role going forward, given that up until now the choices you have made may well be unconsciously made rather than consciously decided upon.

The starting point for this reflection is to consider your mindset, because what you think drives your behaviours, actions and, ultimately, the results you achieve. I find that before we can look at changing anything, we have to start by looking at the way we are and the beliefs that sit behind our current behaviour. When we look closely at our beliefs, we frequently find that what we think isn’t something that we have chosen; it is something that has become programmed into our brains through:

•historic experiences or perceived experiences

•being passed on by colleagues/workplace cultures/education

•the media

•religious teachings

•cultural norms

•conforming to popular opinion or the ‘normal’ way of doing things.

Rarely do we make conscious choices about what we believe, and it can be shocking to realise how much of our thinking is based on conforming to set views rather than on independent, well-considered, rational thought. We have a natural tendency to go with the crowd and to conform, and most of the time we don’t even realise we are doing it.

In our workplaces there are many well-intended and strongly opinionated people who are ready to jump in and offer advice to new staff, and whilst often this is useful initially, it is interesting to be aware that we are starting to be inducted into a way of doing things, and the conforming starts without most of us being conscious that we aren’t making choices about how we’d like to carry out our roles. Whilst I accept that very often advice received is beneficial, I would like to suggest that it isn’t always good to make everyone fit into the same box.

As 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.