Adrenaline Junky

Nothing like a crisis to get the adrenaline going. Its all going a bit Pete Tong at the moment with former colleagues dying due to Covid-19 and staff off with either positive results or self-isolating, meaning that the service is about to fall on its knees. However, a few strategically placed phone calls and lots of toing and froing has resulted in a bit of a plan that should help the situation a bit. Also some positive clinical engagement, which was fantastic.

I’m not usually one that responds very well to instant and urgent changes, and trying to solve immediate problems. I like to ruminate over things, check all the facts, formulate a plan, get everyone involved. Time was not on our side so this week, and today in particular, have been very much making things up on the hoof, last minute conversations and plans, no time to overly consult, only with those that are critical, put a series of actions together and BAM! I can head in to the weekend slightly more relaxed about the prospects of the week ahead.

I feel surprisingly buzzy about it all to be honest. The time has flown by, I’ve not been wondering what task to do next. I’ve jumped from one conversation to the next, to the next and to the next. I don’t think I could sustain that level of activity or focus for too long, and admire those that do and those that work in environments that require that fast paced thinking and problem solving.

When adrenaline kicks in it stimulates our “flight or fight” responses. When the body is flooded with adrenaline it helps focus and engages the brain, improving cognitive responses. A bit like a massive caffeine hit. Apparently, it can improve your eye sight as the pupils dilate, and improves respiration. Even after the triggering event there can be a residual feeling of high vigilance and excitement and can intensify those feelings. As well as a burst of energy and strength the immune system gets a little boost too. (https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/71144/8-reasons-little-adrenaline-can-be-very-good-thing)

So, having started the day with the sad news of another colleague dying and not feeling like I wanted to really do much, at the end of the working day, I’m now bursting with energy and enthusiasm. Just as well as I’m hosting a virtual #bellringing session tonight and had better be on my A game.

Making your voice heard

Have you ever felt like you’re talking to deaf ears? You’ve been trying to tell someone something for ages and they’re just not listening? And then they even have the cheek to say that you never told them?

Just lately, I feel that I’ve been telling people what’s been going on but the message just isn’t getting through. Messages either aren’t being recognised for their content, or not being considered important enough to disseminate, therefore others aren’t finding out, and feel like nothing is being done.

Case in point today. For the last, who knows how many months, I’ve been telling a group of people what I am doing to help alleviate a situation for a larger group of people. That larger group of people have not had that information shared with them, so are getting up in arms about things appearing not to be happening. Because the larger group of people are getting irate, they’re taking it out on the smaller group, who are complaining that they are being got at. I’ve explained so many times that if they bothered to share the information that I’d given them with the larger group, the larger group would be more satisfied and aware of what is happening on their behalf.

Other recent situations have involved one person complaining that things they are responsible for aren’t working properly, so I’ve given advice on things they might like to try instead to see if it improves things (and I know they do because those same things have been employed elsewhere and worked well). They don’t bother doing anything different and come back again complaining still that things aren’t working right.

Am I speaking Martian?

I’ve had times when I’ve felt that I’m just not being heard. What’s given me the strength to speak up was having read a book called “Thanks for the Feedback” by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen. It gave me some practical tools to apply which ultimately gave me the courage to speak up for myself and get my point across.

Things that I have learned about trying to get my point across is that people need to be understood, be clear on what their own issues are, but also be clear on what my concerns are. People need to be educated rather than blamed or accused of something. It gets a far better response. Having clear expectations means that there should be no room for misunderstanding, and clearly people I’ve come in to contact with either need it repeating multiple times until it sinks in, or in writing so that I can refer them back to it.

Yet still some people don’t, or won’t listen.

Changing the Goal Posts

Things are always changing. How many of us has had a job description that bears no resemblance to the role that we actually do? How many times have we decided on a particular course of action then something has come along and meant that we had to go in a different direction, whether wanted or not? For those who project manage, how many times has the scope of your project changed, and resulted in having to adopt different technologies or processes or had to be scaled back or scaled up? How many times has our personal circumstances changed over the years? Change happens all the time. Its how we respond to those changes that makes the difference.

My personal circumstances have changed over the years from being a child, leaving school for the workplace, changing jobs, changing partners, becoming a wife and a mother, going back to higher education, becoming responsible for the delivery of projects, becoming responsible for the delivery of service, becoming responsible for a team of staff, being responsible for bellringing activities locally, nationally and internationally.

If you’re not used to change though it can be uncomfortable. Kubler Ross’s change cycle likens the change process to the same phases that a person might go through the grief cycle: first the shock that something might actually happen followed by the denial that it will happen, the “how many times have I heard that one” scenario. This is followed by the frustration and anger when we realise that things are going to be different and then the depression of things that are happening that may be out of our control and the lack of energy to get involved with it. But then things start to look up again when we start to engage with what’s going on and start to get curious. Then we start to feel more positive about the situation as we learn more about it and experiment with how the new situation is going to work then we become fully integrated with the new ways of life. Of course, how long we individually spend in each of these zones is a purely personal thing and we don’t move on until we are ready no matter how hard someone else pushes.

Some people struggle with change as they fear that they may be losing something. It might be that they will no longer be the acknowledged expert in that field, or that they may be replaced by technology or a younger, cheaper model, or that they might not be able to cope with the change, particularly where new technology is involved. Where regular routine is changing some people might be fearful of a change in security or safety. People are likely to be more resistant to change if they are not involved in the process from the start. As well as being anxious, they can become downright obstructive.

Having a positive attitude to change means that we spend less time in the frustration, anger and depressing phases because our mindset is already moving on to finding what the positives are and how we can be involved and engaged with the change, and learn what the benefits are going to be. Looking to the past and accepting it for what it was is only useful if we learn from it and move on. Accepting and embracing change early on allows you to adapt more quickly and be more flexible. The more often we encounter change, the easier it becomes to adjust.

I find that resisting change takes far too much energy. Even if I don’t necessarily agree with the change that is being put forward, more often that not, its going to happen anyway, so I may as well accept that and make the best out of it. Who knows where it could lead ?

The Unfamiliar Familiar

Today was my first day back on the hospital site for 3 weeks. I was a little apprehensive about it I’ll be honest. Not particularly about being back at work after a week’s annual leave, but being on site, where there are people, lots of people and patients, lots of patients. I think I was more apprehensive about that than the fact that I actually had to go and sit in my old office to cover for my number two whilst she’s on annual leave, which meant being back with the team that I moved on from just over a month ago.

I went straight to my old office, and set up my laptop and settled back into the smells and sounds that are along that corridor. Then I went in to the main office where everyone else is and said hello. There were a few comments like “where have you been?” but some nice enquiries about how I was getting on in my secondment role. I asked after each of them and how they were getting on generally, and explained that I’d been sitting in my old office for a couple of days whilst V was on annual leave, so if there was anything they needed, to just shout. To be honest, they know what they are doing and are quite capable of getting on with it but every now and then someone throws a curve ball that puts things out of kilter so I was just here to make sure that they were ok. They don’t need me, and that’s fine.

I had occasion to walk through the hospital site where nothing much seemed to have changed since I was last here. Although there was the vaccine hub outside and new tented waiting area. There were fewer people wandering around, only people that absolutely should be here are being allowed in the front door.

At lunchtime I went for what used to be my usual walk around the perimetre of the hospital site. Sometimes that walk became a bit of a chore, doing it because I felt I ought to do some exercise, but also rather boring as you can’t go very far in half an hour. Today, it almost seemed like a brand new walk. The season has been marching on and buds are starting to sprout as the first throws of spring are imminent.

The sights and sounds of a busy hospital go on, with or without you. It was quite reassuring that there was some familiarity about it, even if it did feel a bit odd being here.

Worth the wait?

Yesterday I ordered some books from Amazon which I hope arrive during the coming week, as I have some annual leave and therefore time to read them. Amazon told me that they should all arrive the following day.

Today Amazon tells me that my parcel should arrive today any time before 10pm. Thats going to be scary if the doorbell rings that late at night!

I have high hopes for these books. They will help me to understand and do better in the social media world. At least that’s what I’m hoping. I hope they are worth the wait.

According to logisticsmgepsupv.wordpress.com we spend around 6 months of our lives waiting in line for things, 43 days on hold with automated customer services, and 27 days waiting for a bus, 32 minutes per day waiting for a doctor, 28 minutes in a security line at the airport, 21 minutes for our significant other to get ready to go out, and 38 hours a year sitting in traffic. A Daily Mail survey suggested that we wait around 4 months of our lives waiting for the kettle to boil.

Sometimes the planning and experience associated with the waiting process can be extremely pleasurable. Like the smell around the house when you’re baking chocolate brownies. The creative processes of art, cooking, crafting, travel, and a myriad of other things can give as much pleasure during the creating or planning process as the final product does. And when you have that final product, it will be all the more sweet knowing the effort it took to create it.

As I’ve said before, I am an ongoing development as a human being and am trying to get as much pleasure out of the creation of the person I want to be, as much as what the end result might be.

Good things come to those who wait, apparently.

Models and Metrics

One of my current tasks is to write a strategy for data quality across our Trust. I’m needing to find out a lot about it and have been reading around the subject a fair bit to get some background information together.

One of the things I came across today was The Model Hospital. Its a digital information platform that helps with productivity, quality and efficiency. You can use it to benchmark against other NHS Trusts on all manner of things. It’s got some key metrics that trigger notification where there has been new information added. It churns out some fab looking charts. I might be spending a while rummaging around this gathering data.

I am a bit of a data nerd and love a good spreadsheet or set of facts to chew through.

Recording multiple metrics shows whether our processes are good enough for our service users and plots us against our peers and across the whole NHS Acute Trust sector.

This will be handy in identifying what is system related, operational or corruption data from elsewhere.

I can feel my nerdity peaking. I shall spend the day tomorrow fully immersed.

And to go with it, a special delivery arrived today from a #bellringing friend as a thank you gift, which I’m absolutely loving 👇

Wonder what else we could measure and benchmark in our everyday lives?

Flying visit

I needed to pop over to my substantive department to get them to start working on a specific task.

At first my ID badge wouldn’t let me in the department. How rude, I’ve only been gone a week! I set an individual off on the task required but needed to hang about to check he’d understood everything properly.

I decided to kill a bit of time by having a wander about and say hello to a few people. It was interesting how many of them didn’t respond. Even when I joked that I’d only been gone a week had they forgotten me already, only one person responded.

Now, I could take it personally, as a slight that they feel abandoned, or ignored themselves, but given that some of them hardly spoke to me when I was there before, I won’t take it to heart.

I went and sat in my old office for a while, which now feels a bit desolate and empty. I stared at the walls that I had put photographs my daughter had taken on, that were now bare. The photographs are now on the wall over my home office desk instead, no room in the new office.

Already I felt like a bit of an outsider. It brings into stark reality that everyone is replaceable and life goes on. I’ve never felt that I’m irreplaceable and have in fact tried to foster a culture that is not reliant on one single person to make it function.

I’ve always tried to encourage staff to have the confidence to make decisions for themselves, or at least know where to go to for help. I don’t want to be the bottleneck to progress, nor the sort of person who is unwilling to share knowledge in a vain attempt to hold some power over others, or some misguided sense of superiority, or feel threatened by someone else knowing more than me.

Information is for sharing. Knowledge is for those that want it. The team will move on without me and I shall always blow their trumpet.

Questions, questions

This coming week is going to be a week full of asking questions. As part of my new role I need to understand the detail of what I’m being asked to deliver and how what else is going on will impact, or vice versa.

I will be asking a LOT of silly questions I’m sure. But a silly question is not a silly question if it has to be asked. It is because there might be no immediate, obvious answer to the questioner. One might learn a lot through observation but in this time where we are barely meeting in person, it makes it difficult to observe.

Google provides many an answer and I’m not afraid to put that to good use. Then there’s the stuff that I already know or have some familiarity with. By targeting questions from a How? or Who? starting point, I’m more likely to get a better answer, or even framing it as a suggestion “I thought I might …” It might be off the mark a bit, but at least it would show some thought process. Framing a question correctly will make the question seem a little less silly.

Most colleagues are really helpful and are happy to give advice and support. Some are even willing to help further. It doesn’t matter how far you climb you won’t know everything and at some point, will need to ask that silly question.

Today I shall fully embrace that.

Being a bit random

When I’m interviewing people for senior posts I like to throw in a question that has nothing to do with anything, and also doesn’t have a definite answer.

A few months back my boss was telling me about writing some interview questions for a senior post within her team, so I suggested that she asked the question “how many jelly beans can you fit in a suitcase”?. The question has no answer because there are too many variables. How big is the suitcase? What type and size of jelly bean? What is the suitcase made of, soft or hard? Are the jelly beans in packets or loose? Can you squish them to get rid of the air spaces between them? And so on.

Essentially the question is to throw the interviewee off guard, to wake them up from the serious questions, and to get them to vocalise how they might approach a problem and how they might handle being thrown a curve ball.

I’m assisting with some interviews next week for a senior role in another service. The person I’m on the panel with was the successful candidate of the jelly bean interview. Again I’ve suggested a random question. Too many people have heard about the jelly bean one so we have a different one in mind. I’m confident none of the candidates read this blog, so I’m not going to be letting g the cat out of the bag. We’ve decided to ask the question “how many balls can you fit in this room?”. It has the same effect on the candidate, they won’t be expecting it, there are too many variables like size of ball, whether the furniture could be removed, could the balls be deflated, etc.

The trick then is to place the question somewhere in the middle of the interview. They won’t be expecting it, but afterwards they might be cautious that there’ll be another random question. It helps to identify their ability to think on their feet and to cope with the unexpected. It’ll be an interesting insight to their personality.

When 2 worlds colide

The trouble with starting a new job is finding your feet and who to talk to. In areas where you are less familiar you are more reliant on the information you can glean from others, and to which you must have faith that they’re telling you everything.

The trouble is you don’t know what you don’t know, and therefore don’t know what questions to ask of whom.

The first functioning day in the new job was to start a list of people to talk to over the coming weeks, then try to persuade them that its worth their while talking to me. I’ve started to set up the beginnings of a project plan, listed all the people that I’ve so far been advised to talk to, then attempt to book time in their diaries over the next 2 weeks. Its important to get in early to determine who I’m going to need to interact with regularly, and who I only need to check in with from time to time.

I’ve got a call booked with our Exec to make sure that we’re all expecting the same things and to put some solid definition around the project. I’ve got my Prince2 manual at the ready and have already set up a high level project plan.

I apply a project planning style to most things in my life, particularly around #bellringing as there’s so much going on sometimes its difficult to keep track of it.

Also interrelated are some guidance in PR writing around knowing the audience, hooking interest of those you want to engage with by writing an attractive headline, using words that are relatable, using action words that motivate them to want to talk to you, spell out the benefits of getting them to talk to you, telling the story of what the objective is then ending with a call to action, in this case persuading investment in service development.

Who knew the two worlds were so similar?