Читать книгу Better Health & Wellbeing Professionals Ask Better Questions - Lindsay Tighe - Страница 16

Have you noticed that a good way to become aware of your practices is to do some honest self-reflection about the way you approach your role? Whilst we often espouse certain values or behaviours, the reality is that no one will know what we consider as particularly important if it is not apparent from what we do on a day-to-day basis. Some people will say that they value being honest, but if you ask people who know them whether they view that person as being honest, they may laugh and tell you that they are manipulative and not 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 always meet those ideals – the reality and experience of others can often be different to our own perception.

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. However, if you genuinely have no idea how you’re perceived and are courageous, then why not ask your colleagues or other people who know you well, 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 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’s possible to work on this so that it becomes a reality. Several years ago, Lindsay was suddenly struck by the realisation that if she went to people who knew her, they were unlikely to describe her as being a ‘kind person’. Although she was aware that there were lots of positive traits that she displayed and she certainly wasn’t unkind, kindness wasn’t one that was high up on the list. Whilst she admits that being aware of this did not make her feel good, she always reminds herself that whenever she finds something that she doesn’t like about herself, she should celebrate it because once she is aware of it she can choose to change. If she continued in ignorance doing what she had always done, 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 Lindsay became aware of her desire to be described as ‘kind’, she recognised that something had to change in the way she was going about doing things – in other words, a change was needed in her behaviour. It was no good simply being aware of the need to change – it meant she had to take action. Her approach to this was to start a reflection journal that she completed each evening, where she would ask herself honestly how she had demonstrated kindness during that day. When she started to do this, she was quite disappointed in herself because she 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 things differently. So as she journeyed through her day, she started to identify opportunities to be a kinder person – often in the simplest ways. Within a matter of days, she was feeling great that she could write things in her journal that really did demonstrate that she was being a kind person after all.

Lindsay continued to update this journal for about three months. What she found really amazing was that she automatically started to do kinder things during the day without having to think about it – it became a new habit, and what a nice new habit to have! What is even more lovely is that when people talk about her nowadays, they will often refer to her as being a ‘kind person’, so that reaffirms for her that she is being more of the person that she wants to be in the world.

We hope that this simple example provides you with awareness about the importance of self-reflection, and also about starting to identify what is important to you within your role. The key action that will make you stand out from other professionals is that you will take the important step of choosing how you wish to fulfil your role, and what values and behaviours you will uphold in doing this. The important thing is that you make this choice, rather than simply ‘going with the flow’ in an unconscious state, and end up operating in a way that wasn’t what you intended to do.

Case example: Community Nursing

A gentleman attended our workshop where we shared the skills that you are about to learn in this book. He’d been a Community Nurse working with elderly clients for the past 25 years, and it was clear from the interactions in the group that he was extremely well liked and respected by his colleagues. He engaged fully in the workshop and was very open to hearing the key messages, particularly the ones around rethinking what your role is and that there are many ways to be ‘helpful’ (which you will read about shortly).

During the workshop, he realised that he was adopting the role of a nurse who ‘always knew best’ and that he consistently fixed things for his clients in the belief that this was what his role was and that he was being helpful and caring. He’d genuinely believed that he was fulfilling the role in the right way and that this was the way to be a good Community Nurse. Whilst in some instances it was true that he did know best and it was his role to fix things, he realised that if he really believed in enabling and empowering his clients and drawing out their ‘amazingness’, then his approach had to change. Indeed, he recognised that it was his fundamental belief about his role that needed to change, which would then give him permission to change the way he carried out his role in practice. He was going to have to reassess himself and the way he was interacting with clients. His traditional style would have to change.

During the follow-up workshop that he attended with us, he explained to the group how, after the first workshop, he had returned to work with the knowledge that he needed to change and to put what he had learnt into practice. He began using the techniques shared in this book and became a questioner and listener rather than a ‘teller’. He was amazed how positively most of his clients responded, and was really shocked to find that he was suddenly enjoying his role so much more than he used to because he saw himself as a ‘facilitator of outcomes’ rather than a ‘fixer’. He actually shared that he was feeling less pressured to always have answers, and because of this he found the role to be far more fulfilling.

This insight was very moving because it demonstrated that not only had this wonderful man been prepared to be open-minded about himself and recognise some limitations in his approach; he had also put into action what he had learnt to amazing effect. He had demonstrated beautifully that by being open-minded and having a willingness to change and do things differently, using questions can transform the way you work and enable you to be even more effective than you are currently.

This is a great example of consciously choosing how you wish to fulfil your role, and the good news is that you can choose at any time to change.

To conclude this chapter, we’d like to suggest that professionals who have a desire to ask Better Questions will highly value:

•empowerment

•caring

•flexibility

•open-mindedness

•fulfilling potential.

There will be more on the skills and qualities required to be a great questioner in a later chapter, but we hope this is a starting point for you to candidly consider your own approach/style, and the way you fulfil your professional role.