Читать книгу Better Aged Care Professionals Ask Better Questions - Lindsay Jr. Tighe - Страница 4

If you are reading this book, there is a good chance that either your workplace has suggested it or provided it as a resource for you, or you are interested in your own self-development and see this as a resource to enable you to learn new skills or improve your existing skills. Alternatively, you may have attended one of our Better Aged Care Professionals Ask Better Questions workshops, in which case you will have already heard the key messages in this book, and this is now a resource to enable you to embed and be reminded of these key messages as you put what you have learnt into practice.

Whatever the reason, I feel humbled to be able to share some insights and wisdom from my journey of working with some amazing Aged Care Professionals over the past three years, in the hope that there will be something meaningful in the book that enables you to be even better than you are already. I have come to learn what a fantastic job people who work in Aged Care do, and what a significant difference they make in the lives of people that they work with. My intention in writing this book is to honour this and share my passion for asking Better Questions in the hope that it will inspire you to want to use the skill in your professional practice, in the knowledge that it will enable you to make an even bigger difference in people’s lives.

By way of background, in October 2009 I published my first book – THE ANSWER, Improve Your Life By Asking Better Questions. The book had been written because my absolute passion in life is to ask people Better Questions, in the knowledge that when I ask people Better Questions I know that this will enable them to find better answers. This passion has led me to have a desire to share the wisdom in using this skill that I have learnt over the years with as many people as possible, given that it is such an amazing life skill and a real gift to bring to the table in so many contexts.

My first personal experience of asking Better Questions came about when I took on a leadership role in the corporate world, where I was technically incompetent but had a real interest and passion for turning around underperforming teams. It was a very interesting challenge for me personally, in that I was unable to fulfil the role in any way other than to ask Better Questions, and I have to say that this first experience of questioning more and telling less was quite magical for me – not only in terms of my own growth, but also in terms of what it facilitated in my team.

As a result of having quite literally ‘fallen in’ to a more questioning way of approaching things, I soon learnt that this was something that I wanted to learn more about as well as do more of, and about 10 years ago I left the corporate world to further develop my skills and passion for asking those Better Questions. Since then I have not only become more practiced in the skill itself, but I have also developed an absolute passion for training others in the skill, given that I know how much of a profound difference it makes in the world.

About one month after I published my first book, I received a phone call from a lady who was a client who worked in aged care and disability services. She advised me that in the aged care sector there was a new approach to working with clients being advocated called the Active Service Model. The main philosophy of the model, she advised me at a subsequent meeting, was to work with clients rather than to do for clients, to help support them in the achievement of identified goals, and to involve and empower them to make choices about what they wanted rather than make assumptions or take over the decision-making for them. Overall it was about empowering and supporting elderly clients to remain living more independently in their communities, if that is what they chose to do.

I was very excited to learn about this philosophy, in absolute certainty that the skill of asking Better Questions would facilitate its implementation in practice, as well as create clients who were more engaged, empowered and ultimately fulfilled in their lives. So we developed a pilot training program, which was rolled out initially to about thirty staff, on the basis that we would review the results achieved to ascertain if the training was effective and staff felt that they now had more skills to enable them to carry out the new approach in practice.

I have to say that I have been completely overwhelmed by what has happened following this pilot training program, not only with the success that has been achieved by Aged Care Professionals using the skill of asking Better Questions, but also by how quickly word spread about the program and the results that were being achieved. I have had to train other people to deliver the training program to meet the demand, and between us we have now trained thousands of managers, nurses, aged care staff, community health professionals and case managers in the skill of asking Better Questions across Australia.

I have to say that I have been humbled by the preparedness of the staff that work in this sector to take on board the training and change their current practice, which had often been in use for many years. Indeed, I have been in tears when I have received written or verbal updates from staff who have used the skill in practice with quite profound results. There is nothing more rewarding than knowing that the ideas I have shared around the skill of asking Better Questions have been embraced and utilised in practice, which ultimately has then benefited the wonderful clients in the sector and enabled them to shine.

I cannot promise that the approach I share will be the ‘magic wand’ and be an approach that will work in all situations. There is an assumption made that using the skill of asking Better Questions will work best with clients who have the cognitive ability to respond to questions, and with those who have the capability of making decisions and taking responsibility. That doesn’t mean that you cannot use the skill with clients with some cognitive impairment, but I must stress that the results achieved and the impact you have will likely be less significant due to these presenting issues.

Thank you for choosing to read this book. I trust that by learning the skill of asking Better Questions you will be inspired to support and enable your clients by taking a more person-centred and empowered approach with them, which inevitably will lead to better outcomes for all. Through asking Better Questions there is a greater sense of truly making a difference in the world, which then supports the reasons you are probably working in this sector in the first place!

As a final thought for my introduction, I trust that you will recognise that whilst this book is written in the context of your role as an Aged Care Professional, by the time you have read it you will realise that being a Better Questioner in any aspect of your life, friendships, partnerships, parenting and work, will be a great thing to do. Indeed, everyone we interact with is far more amazing than they realise, and having the skill to release their amazingness is a beautiful life skill to bring to all contexts of your life!