4, 4, 3, 2 A World Record
Five states, four airports, 3 planes and two rental cars (the same one twice) all in one day and all for one trip from Augusta, Georgia to Albany, New York. A trying end to an otherwise extremely successful trip introducing the proactive philosophy and positive approach of the Arc of Delaware County to two large agencies, the last leg of the first phase of our Georgia project. More n the record later, but first ...
Once again … the wisdom of direct service staff, the importance of leadership and lessons learned:
This trip concluded the first phase of this year long project (see prior posts for details). We have provided six agencies in Georgia with two days of training over the last five weeks. This training has focused on our philosophy and approach as it applies to the people served. In two weeks we begin the second phase of an additional two days of training at each organization. That phase will focus on organizational culture and employee / HR practices. This week we learned:
1 This training is powerful. Once again 100% of our audiences (well over 400 people) enthusiastically describe this training as the absolute "best" they have ever experienced. The Director of our largest group told us any number of surveyors and consultants have eloquently reported to them what their myriad of problems are but none of them gave them the practical, systemic solutions we presented.
2 People are eager to do a good job. There is so much talk about poor work ethic in America; yet what we consistently find is that people truly do want to do a good job. But if there is no support or poor leadership they lose heart and things spiral downward.
3 Workers are smart. They know there has to be a better way and they can spot it when they see it.
4 The push and pull of change. Leadership is critical. It is an established fact that cultural change must start at the top. But not enough attention is given to the importance of an inspired workforce. Determined leaders will effectuate change. It may take time and it may get bloody, but change will happen. But it will happen a lot quicker and a lot easier if the workforce pushes while leaders pull.
There is ardent excitement in all six organizations; they have been introduced to a model they can believe in. One that makes sense; will benefit the people they serve; one that is encouraging and positive; one that answers a lot of questions they have wrestled with for years. They're excited and we are excited for them.
5 Alas, unfortunately the first phase of this training also confirmed or rather reconfirmed something very troubling we have known for years. That is, an awful lot of bad hiring and bad promoting is going on and has gone on for quite some time (as in decades).
6 Stop shooting yourself in the foot! Perhaps the most frequent question that arises when attendees start to understand our philosophy and approach is, "How do we get resistant staff to get on board?"
My response is always to begin by stop shooting themselves in the foot. By that I mean begin by improving hiring and promotional practices so as not to continue to hire or promote people who can not or will not eagerly buy into this effort. To achieve higher quality improving these practices is a must. At the risk of mixing metaphors, we have to stop the leak before we start to bale out the boat.
Once the leak is stopped and we are hiring and promoting better candidates they will actually help us turn around poor performers and move out those who are dead weight. Better front line staff will make the poor performers stand out and will make it easier to address their deficiencies. Better supervisors will help us follow through on the retraining of those who will benefit from same or discipline those who are incapable or who resist.
7 Change SWAN to SEAN! For years we have prided ourselves on hiring SWAN's. That is candidates who are smart, willing to learn, ambitious and nice. This emphasis has had many benefits; yet, time and again, we have lamented how hard it is to determine candidates' "willingness to learn". The more unique the organization the more important is the attribute of being willing to learn.
We have spent endless hours trying to improve our interviewing practices to determine this willingness. We do well but failure from time to time, particularly at the upper management level, results in many levels and degrees of frustration and dissatisfaction.
Consequently we continue to study, at times to the point of agony, this matter. We have concluded there are a few reasons why assessing willingness to learn is so difficult. One reason is that it is pretty easy to fake. Look attentive and interested and you can appear willing. Other reasons are that willingness to learn is a fairly passive act and it applies a disproportionate amount of the candidate's willingness to learn to the agency's ability to teach.
The most profound thing I have personally learned this year is that it is more about eagerness than willingness. It is not a matter of the candidate's willingness to listen to us lecture them but rather a matter of them demonstrating an eagerness to learn whatever it is we are teaching as well as those lessons that are unfolding around them even if a formal teaching session hasn't occurred. It is more about the questions they ask than the answers they glean. It is more about the follow up questions than the initial ones. It is more about taking the lessons, applying them independently and asking for feedback than on passing a quiz.
That’s' why we are changing swan to sean. We need employees who are smart eager to learn, ambitious and nice. It's good to be willing but critical to be eager!
Now for more on our traveler's world record:
Bo, Jim and I are claiming a traveler's world record and if you have one to beat it, let us know.
We started by sitting on the runway in our turbo prop Delta Connections plane in Augusta at 8:00. As soon as the doors shut the pilot informed us there was a terrible storm in Atlanta that had put a hold stop on everything going in or out. What to do?
A call back home to our travel agent (glory be for Saturday hours) informed us all Delta flights for the next two days were over booked and we would be lucky to get flights by tomorrow night and we would most certainly have to split up. A real problem since Jim and Bo rode to Albany together.
Pat, our travel agent was great and after checking a bunch of options told us our best chance was to drive to Columbia, South Carolina and buy US Air tickets to Charlotte, North Carolina and grab a connection to Albany from there. She would write a letter to Delta Monday requesting a refund for our Delta tickets.
So back to the Budget rental car booth where we re-rented the car we had turned in three hours prior. Budget may think it is in the car rental business, but since the car was washed and gassed up when we took off again we realized it was really our pit stop and we gave thanks to our pit crew that got us out on time and refreshed.
Two hours later we were in Columbia and while it was very windy there we learned no flights there had been canceled and it looked pretty good our Charlotte flight would take off as scheduled. Still, having learned a lesson, we asked our pit crew chief in Columbia to hold our car in case we needed it again if the weather turned worse. She said she would hold it for three hours and then close it out. A couple of long lay overs in Columbia and Charlotte and we were off to Albany. However our adventure wasn't over. 30 minutes from Albany the worse turbulence any of us had previously experienced set in. The group behind us was have a ball yelling weeeee and woooo with every lift and dip. As for me, I was digging in the pouch in the back of the seat in front of me for that little white barf bag. While they were having fun pretending they were on an amuzement park ride I was breaking into one of those prepuking sweats that lets you know if it the "ride" doesn't end soon I'm going to lose it.
Breath deeply George, breath deeply I kept telling myself.
Fortunately the flight ended just as I was reaching the end of my control.
So, a little worse for wear, today's journey concluded:
4 states, 4 airports, 3 airplanes and 2 car rentals; a record Bo, Jim and I defy anyone to beat!
More next time,
George
Showing posts with label Training in Georgia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Training in Georgia. Show all posts
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Exhausted & Exhilarated.
Several years ago an experienced professional visited Delarc and wrote about his visit in his organization's newsletter, one with a state-wide if not national distribution. His tour was thorough. Our agency was one of dozens he had visited over his career.
He was quite taken with what he saw and the article contained many wonderful comments. One line he wrote though has stayed with me all these years later. When talking about the energy and spirit of our staff he wrote, "Exhaustion and exhilaration at the end of an 8 hour day."
Now, so many years later, and once more 30,000 feet over the Carolinas that's the line that sums up this trip. Up at 3:00 a.m. to drive two hours to Atlanta to catch an 8:30 flight home we're feeling exhilaration and fairly exhausted. It's hard not to be exhilarated when, once again 100% of the staff from two very different organizations are raving about the Shift Happens training we provided them this week. And while part of the exhaustion comes from being up at 3:00 the majority of it comes from the grueling training schedule and the associated physical and mental exertion.
Monday and Tuesday with one organization just north of the city of Atlanta, and Thursday and Friday with another an hour and a half away, Wednesday as a day of travel, debriefing of one, preparation for the other and then there's the matter of our real jobs back in Delaware County. Phone calls, emails, letters, and other items as necessary and maybe a little exercise fill up another ten-hour day.
Both agencies serve individuals with developmental disabilities but that's where the similarity ends. One was larger, one offered several other services, one had a foundation set by religious tradition, one was a division of a huge corporation, one focused on a limited geography, one had just recovered from a serious setback.
In both cases there was a mix of new and veteran staff. I loved it when one of the higher level administrators, who had lots of experience on the front lines caught me at the end of his second day to tell me that he agreed to attend the sessions because it was the right example to set, but that he expected it would be rather typical; something to be endured. He told me that he had "sat through" tons of training sessions over the years and to his absolute delight this was the best one ever. It was a comment shared by everyone else in both groups. Pretty awesome but read on…
How great is this?
On Monday and Tuesday a young but experienced woman suffered through the days with a serious head cold. She was sniffling throughout and used way too many tissues to count. Several times over the two days, Chris and Stacie, my teammates this time, and I commented to ourselves and to each other about what a trooper she was. She didn’t just hang in there, she fully participated. At times she was skeptical to the point of resistance, yet she displayed a hunger and eagerness to learn.
When the session ended late Tuesday afternoon she expressed sincere gratitude for all she learned. We told her we appreciated having her in the group and were proud of the way she went about learning and wished her well.
I don't know about Chris and Stacie but I was sure she was heading straight home to bed. We then turned our attention to a small group of their leadership team to debrief the two days and confirm the objectives they had set for the next six weeks.
About 30 minutes into the debriefing, our cold victim reappeared and politely excused herself for interrupting. She said there was something she felt she just had to tell us. She went on to say she had just spent the last half hour talking to her supervisor about a difficult subordinate… a person older than her with a strong personality whose performance had troubled her for quite some time (years?). She said that as a result of today's training she gained the confidence to confront the individual and the knowledge of how to do so in a way that would encourage improved performance. She said, "For the first time I feel truly empowered." How great is that!
Read on for more…
That was great. Now read this.
24 hours later Chris and I received the following email (which we promptly shared with Stacie) from a supervisor in the same group whose name is withheld:
Hello George & Chris,
I would like to share a story with you. Early this morning I received a call on my cell. Upon answering, I discovered it was a staff at one of our houses who attended both days of the training. My initial thought was "Oh, no" as this is a staff who I like and value, but she only calls me when she has a major complaint or concern, and usually results in me having to do some sort of legwork. I asked her how she was (sick?) and what was up. She then told me that she called just to tell me how much she admires the way I find just the right words to talk to the individuals we serve, and how she aspires to learn that skill, and just how much she appreciates that about me.
I am floored and humbled by the effect your training has had on our staff, and must express to you our commitment to the philosophy. Staff are excited that you're coming back, and look forward to it.
Just wanted to share and say thank you.
An uphill, no, up a steep mountain battle.
On one hand we truly are exhilarated by the response of these dedicated people to the introduction of our philosophy and approach which we were privileged to offer. But, and this is a huge but, funding is a huge obstacle. When we were first discussing the possibility of this contract we learned that the state of Georgia is the 10th largest state in the union by population yet it is 51st in spending on individuals with developmental disabilities. After working with four organizations we're beginning to learn how such poor funding over decade upon decade has created a huge mountain for providers to scale. On one hand I see the obstacles and the state of affairs and my heart goes out to these Don Quixote's; on another my admiration for them grows and grows, as does my desire to make the training we give them the very best.
It doesn't matter how you deal the Delarc cards.
On this trip I was joined by our Director of Residential Services, Christine Fritzsch and our Community Relations Assistant, Stacie Haynes. They represented two different ends of the Delarc staff spectrum. Chris has been with us 20 years, has worked herself up through the ranks with a tremendous range of experience and a wealth of knowledge. Over the years she has conducted enough training for other organizations to be considered a senior member of our training team. Stacie, on the other hand, is fairly new, having joined us only a few months ago, and her work in an administrative capacity has barely given her enough experience to be considered a junior member of the training team. What a great team they were and are.
The organizations we worked with provided a substantial amount of residential services and they found Chris' input invaluable. She was able to give them very specific answers to their many questions. No matter how serious or desperate the problems she offered concrete advice and practical solutions which they eagerly absorbed.
What confidence Stacie showed! She was always at attention, ready to step in and do whatever needed to be done. One day into the training and you would have thought she was a regular. She freely interacted with trainees, offered insights from a newbie, took photos and, video camera in hand, interviewed attendees, and she never once came off as a flack. I was impressed with her confidence and even more so with her perspective.
Over dinner on our last night, the three of us were discussing the training and the exceptional work the two of them did. We talked about the next team of Bo and Jim and of future teams. At one point I said to Stacie that one of the things that I particularly love about Delarc staff is that when it comes to such teams we can take all our staff's names, shuffle them up and deal out any two or three and always, and I mean always, come up with a great team. I know. I've done it time and again. Teams have included executives, professionals, direct service staff, aides, administrative staff, contracted staff and even volunteers and board members.
Always winners. It's amazing. It speaks to the depth of our culture and our commitment to recruit only the best.
Fill those buckets.
Tom Rath wrote a best selling book entitled How Full is Your [emotional] Bucket. When we introduce the topic of praise and reinforcement we sight Mr. Rath's book to show how important praise and reinforcement is to the general population. That sets the stage for helping the audience better understand how lavish we need to be with people we serve, many of whose buckets have been drained for years and years. They get it and they love it. They always leave inspired to use praise and reinforcement as a tool to improve their many and varied relationships and to use it to encourage the people they serve to learn and grow. It is amazing and very powerful stuff.
I hope after reading these passages your bucket is feeling a little bit fuller.
More next time…
He was quite taken with what he saw and the article contained many wonderful comments. One line he wrote though has stayed with me all these years later. When talking about the energy and spirit of our staff he wrote, "Exhaustion and exhilaration at the end of an 8 hour day."
Now, so many years later, and once more 30,000 feet over the Carolinas that's the line that sums up this trip. Up at 3:00 a.m. to drive two hours to Atlanta to catch an 8:30 flight home we're feeling exhilaration and fairly exhausted. It's hard not to be exhilarated when, once again 100% of the staff from two very different organizations are raving about the Shift Happens training we provided them this week. And while part of the exhaustion comes from being up at 3:00 the majority of it comes from the grueling training schedule and the associated physical and mental exertion.
Monday and Tuesday with one organization just north of the city of Atlanta, and Thursday and Friday with another an hour and a half away, Wednesday as a day of travel, debriefing of one, preparation for the other and then there's the matter of our real jobs back in Delaware County. Phone calls, emails, letters, and other items as necessary and maybe a little exercise fill up another ten-hour day.
Both agencies serve individuals with developmental disabilities but that's where the similarity ends. One was larger, one offered several other services, one had a foundation set by religious tradition, one was a division of a huge corporation, one focused on a limited geography, one had just recovered from a serious setback.
In both cases there was a mix of new and veteran staff. I loved it when one of the higher level administrators, who had lots of experience on the front lines caught me at the end of his second day to tell me that he agreed to attend the sessions because it was the right example to set, but that he expected it would be rather typical; something to be endured. He told me that he had "sat through" tons of training sessions over the years and to his absolute delight this was the best one ever. It was a comment shared by everyone else in both groups. Pretty awesome but read on…
How great is this?
On Monday and Tuesday a young but experienced woman suffered through the days with a serious head cold. She was sniffling throughout and used way too many tissues to count. Several times over the two days, Chris and Stacie, my teammates this time, and I commented to ourselves and to each other about what a trooper she was. She didn’t just hang in there, she fully participated. At times she was skeptical to the point of resistance, yet she displayed a hunger and eagerness to learn.
When the session ended late Tuesday afternoon she expressed sincere gratitude for all she learned. We told her we appreciated having her in the group and were proud of the way she went about learning and wished her well.
I don't know about Chris and Stacie but I was sure she was heading straight home to bed. We then turned our attention to a small group of their leadership team to debrief the two days and confirm the objectives they had set for the next six weeks.
About 30 minutes into the debriefing, our cold victim reappeared and politely excused herself for interrupting. She said there was something she felt she just had to tell us. She went on to say she had just spent the last half hour talking to her supervisor about a difficult subordinate… a person older than her with a strong personality whose performance had troubled her for quite some time (years?). She said that as a result of today's training she gained the confidence to confront the individual and the knowledge of how to do so in a way that would encourage improved performance. She said, "For the first time I feel truly empowered." How great is that!
Read on for more…
That was great. Now read this.
24 hours later Chris and I received the following email (which we promptly shared with Stacie) from a supervisor in the same group whose name is withheld:
Hello George & Chris,
I would like to share a story with you. Early this morning I received a call on my cell. Upon answering, I discovered it was a staff at one of our houses who attended both days of the training. My initial thought was "Oh, no" as this is a staff who I like and value, but she only calls me when she has a major complaint or concern, and usually results in me having to do some sort of legwork. I asked her how she was (sick?) and what was up. She then told me that she called just to tell me how much she admires the way I find just the right words to talk to the individuals we serve, and how she aspires to learn that skill, and just how much she appreciates that about me.
I am floored and humbled by the effect your training has had on our staff, and must express to you our commitment to the philosophy. Staff are excited that you're coming back, and look forward to it.
Just wanted to share and say thank you.
An uphill, no, up a steep mountain battle.
On one hand we truly are exhilarated by the response of these dedicated people to the introduction of our philosophy and approach which we were privileged to offer. But, and this is a huge but, funding is a huge obstacle. When we were first discussing the possibility of this contract we learned that the state of Georgia is the 10th largest state in the union by population yet it is 51st in spending on individuals with developmental disabilities. After working with four organizations we're beginning to learn how such poor funding over decade upon decade has created a huge mountain for providers to scale. On one hand I see the obstacles and the state of affairs and my heart goes out to these Don Quixote's; on another my admiration for them grows and grows, as does my desire to make the training we give them the very best.
It doesn't matter how you deal the Delarc cards.
On this trip I was joined by our Director of Residential Services, Christine Fritzsch and our Community Relations Assistant, Stacie Haynes. They represented two different ends of the Delarc staff spectrum. Chris has been with us 20 years, has worked herself up through the ranks with a tremendous range of experience and a wealth of knowledge. Over the years she has conducted enough training for other organizations to be considered a senior member of our training team. Stacie, on the other hand, is fairly new, having joined us only a few months ago, and her work in an administrative capacity has barely given her enough experience to be considered a junior member of the training team. What a great team they were and are.
The organizations we worked with provided a substantial amount of residential services and they found Chris' input invaluable. She was able to give them very specific answers to their many questions. No matter how serious or desperate the problems she offered concrete advice and practical solutions which they eagerly absorbed.
What confidence Stacie showed! She was always at attention, ready to step in and do whatever needed to be done. One day into the training and you would have thought she was a regular. She freely interacted with trainees, offered insights from a newbie, took photos and, video camera in hand, interviewed attendees, and she never once came off as a flack. I was impressed with her confidence and even more so with her perspective.
Over dinner on our last night, the three of us were discussing the training and the exceptional work the two of them did. We talked about the next team of Bo and Jim and of future teams. At one point I said to Stacie that one of the things that I particularly love about Delarc staff is that when it comes to such teams we can take all our staff's names, shuffle them up and deal out any two or three and always, and I mean always, come up with a great team. I know. I've done it time and again. Teams have included executives, professionals, direct service staff, aides, administrative staff, contracted staff and even volunteers and board members.
Always winners. It's amazing. It speaks to the depth of our culture and our commitment to recruit only the best.
Fill those buckets.
Tom Rath wrote a best selling book entitled How Full is Your [emotional] Bucket. When we introduce the topic of praise and reinforcement we sight Mr. Rath's book to show how important praise and reinforcement is to the general population. That sets the stage for helping the audience better understand how lavish we need to be with people we serve, many of whose buckets have been drained for years and years. They get it and they love it. They always leave inspired to use praise and reinforcement as a tool to improve their many and varied relationships and to use it to encourage the people they serve to learn and grow. It is amazing and very powerful stuff.
I hope after reading these passages your bucket is feeling a little bit fuller.
More next time…
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Off to a great start...
Coming home
Up at 4:30 to catch a plane. It's Saturday morning February 9, Delarc Speech Pathologist Marcia Maxwell Brown and I are flying over one of the Carolinas as we head home from a week of exhausting yet exhilarating work. We spent Monday and Tuesday with one organization and Thursday and Friday with a second. The beginning of a year long project of mentoring six such organizations. We'll be back in two weeks to begin with numbers 3 & 4 and two weeks later with agencies 5 & 6.
They were so different; yet in so many ways the same. One rural; one more urban. One somewhat larger; one a little smaller. One serving certain individuals with developmental disabilities and the other specializing in a somewhat different mix. We followed the same training agenda but found ourselves varying from it to meet each organization's particular needs.
Preparation, preparation, preparation
During this trip I relearned a lesson I first learned many years ago. Preparation is oh so important. It enables you to think beyond the material you want to cover and they agreed to receive. It enables you to listen to the audience without losing confidence that you will get them where they want and need to go even if not by the same path..
In both cases they told us we left them in a better state than when we arrived. We brought them a renewed consumer-centered focus and left them with the energy that focus generates. They'll need it because we also left them with some very ambitious objectives to achieve before we return in six seeks. We also left them with a firm belief that the objectives are worthy and with the confidence they will need to see them through.
A gift from a good friend
Art Dykstra, a personal hero and good friend once gave an auditorium full of people the book, How Full is Your Bucket? How fortunate I was to be in that group. And how fortunate for the hundreds, maybe thousands of people, these most recent folks included, I've talked to about the book since then. In addition to the other objectives, they left with a commitment to fill the emotional buckets of the people they serve, the people with whom they work and their families. There will be an awful lot of bucket filling going on and the thought of that, in turn, fills ours.
Caring without restraint...
So important with everyone and especially with the children and adults we serve. Yet taken for granted to such a degree that everyone believes they do it well. Yet after a couple of days with us they realize how much better they can be and need to be.
A remarkable exercise
At one point, early in the first day, we ask our audiences if they care about the people they support. Of course, just like all our prior audiences, everyone present raises their hand. We then ask them on a scale of 1 to 10 to jot down the average caring of their particular work group.
We then ask how many of them had a teacher in school that genuinely cared about them. How many had a teacher that made them feel special, that bent over backwards for them. A teacher that could help them turn around during a bad day and who could get them to work hard even with subjects they really didn't like.
Over the last few years we have conducted this exercise with hundreds, if not thousands, of people and the responses are always similar. About 80% of the audience raise their hands. We ask them to look around and notice how many people don't raise their hand. How many people can't remember even one teacher who really cared about them. This, I believe is the real problem, the real shame of our educational system.
We then ask how many had two such teachers and are amazed that rather consistently about 50% of the people raise their hands. That number reduces to about 10 % when we ask, how many had three such teachers.
We then ask them what would happen if we had all those teachers that everyone had throughout elementary, middle, high school and college in one room and asked them if they cared about their students. To no one's surprise, everyone is quick to respond that all those teachers would surely raise their hands.
We then ask how many folks have had to struggle with the decision of seeking nursing home care for a parent or grandparent and a fair number of hands go up. We ask those folks what the source of the struggle was and inevitably the majority respond they were afraid their family member would not receive the care, the very basic care, they required.
We then ask them what would happen if we had all the employees of all those nursing homes in the room and asked them if they cared about their patients. "Everyone would raise their hand", comes the unanimous response.
This exercise hits people very close to home and makes it very easy for them to see that caring is determined by the response of the person receiving the care, not the person being paid to care.
After this exercise and further discussion we conclude the exercise by asking them to once again rate the average caring of their particular work group. It probably comes as no surprise, yet is still striking that no one has ever said their rating was higher the second time around. As individuals, families and organizations we have a long way to go if we are to care without restraint!
Up at 4:30 to catch a plane. It's Saturday morning February 9, Delarc Speech Pathologist Marcia Maxwell Brown and I are flying over one of the Carolinas as we head home from a week of exhausting yet exhilarating work. We spent Monday and Tuesday with one organization and Thursday and Friday with a second. The beginning of a year long project of mentoring six such organizations. We'll be back in two weeks to begin with numbers 3 & 4 and two weeks later with agencies 5 & 6.
They were so different; yet in so many ways the same. One rural; one more urban. One somewhat larger; one a little smaller. One serving certain individuals with developmental disabilities and the other specializing in a somewhat different mix. We followed the same training agenda but found ourselves varying from it to meet each organization's particular needs.
Preparation, preparation, preparation
During this trip I relearned a lesson I first learned many years ago. Preparation is oh so important. It enables you to think beyond the material you want to cover and they agreed to receive. It enables you to listen to the audience without losing confidence that you will get them where they want and need to go even if not by the same path..
In both cases they told us we left them in a better state than when we arrived. We brought them a renewed consumer-centered focus and left them with the energy that focus generates. They'll need it because we also left them with some very ambitious objectives to achieve before we return in six seeks. We also left them with a firm belief that the objectives are worthy and with the confidence they will need to see them through.
A gift from a good friend
Art Dykstra, a personal hero and good friend once gave an auditorium full of people the book, How Full is Your Bucket? How fortunate I was to be in that group. And how fortunate for the hundreds, maybe thousands of people, these most recent folks included, I've talked to about the book since then. In addition to the other objectives, they left with a commitment to fill the emotional buckets of the people they serve, the people with whom they work and their families. There will be an awful lot of bucket filling going on and the thought of that, in turn, fills ours.
Caring without restraint...
So important with everyone and especially with the children and adults we serve. Yet taken for granted to such a degree that everyone believes they do it well. Yet after a couple of days with us they realize how much better they can be and need to be.
A remarkable exercise
At one point, early in the first day, we ask our audiences if they care about the people they support. Of course, just like all our prior audiences, everyone present raises their hand. We then ask them on a scale of 1 to 10 to jot down the average caring of their particular work group.
We then ask how many of them had a teacher in school that genuinely cared about them. How many had a teacher that made them feel special, that bent over backwards for them. A teacher that could help them turn around during a bad day and who could get them to work hard even with subjects they really didn't like.
Over the last few years we have conducted this exercise with hundreds, if not thousands, of people and the responses are always similar. About 80% of the audience raise their hands. We ask them to look around and notice how many people don't raise their hand. How many people can't remember even one teacher who really cared about them. This, I believe is the real problem, the real shame of our educational system.
We then ask how many had two such teachers and are amazed that rather consistently about 50% of the people raise their hands. That number reduces to about 10 % when we ask, how many had three such teachers.
We then ask them what would happen if we had all those teachers that everyone had throughout elementary, middle, high school and college in one room and asked them if they cared about their students. To no one's surprise, everyone is quick to respond that all those teachers would surely raise their hands.
We then ask how many folks have had to struggle with the decision of seeking nursing home care for a parent or grandparent and a fair number of hands go up. We ask those folks what the source of the struggle was and inevitably the majority respond they were afraid their family member would not receive the care, the very basic care, they required.
We then ask them what would happen if we had all the employees of all those nursing homes in the room and asked them if they cared about their patients. "Everyone would raise their hand", comes the unanimous response.
This exercise hits people very close to home and makes it very easy for them to see that caring is determined by the response of the person receiving the care, not the person being paid to care.
After this exercise and further discussion we conclude the exercise by asking them to once again rate the average caring of their particular work group. It probably comes as no surprise, yet is still striking that no one has ever said their rating was higher the second time around. As individuals, families and organizations we have a long way to go if we are to care without restraint!
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Making the Shift happen
Hi there, I'm in Lithonia a suburb of Atlanta. Monday and Tuesday of this week we started an exciting one year project with the Department of Human Resources Office of Developmental Disabilities. The project contract calls for us to mentor 6 DD Agencies.
We will do this by providing four days of pretty intense in house training to each organization. The training is a lot to digest so we are doing it two days at a time over the next two months. Monday and Tuesday in agency # 1; Thursday and Friday in agency #2. Then back home for a week. Then back to do agencies 3 and 4, etc. When we are done with the first round of training we will start the second round on the same schedule.
Each agency will develop 4 Action Teams that will be charged with helping exisitng agency resources so that moving forward will be more manageable and so that the Shift will begin immediately. The four Action Teams are:
1 Assessment. This team will support the assessment of all staff members in 6 basic Shift Happens Competencies.
2 Training.
3 Culture Building.
4 Performance improvement.
One of our big concerns as we developed the contract was, what will happen after the first year?
This project is the beginning of a quality improvement effort that will take 3 to 5 years. What happens after we're gone. Yes we will provide each agency with 2 days of follow up visits during the year and yes we will also provide them with one hour telephone support in each of the next 12 months and yes the contract will fund 2 staff members from each agency to visit our organization for 2 days of high impact individualized attention, but what happens after the year is up? This was a big concern.
We hope collaboration will be the answer. The Champions of each Action Team will meet every six weeks to compare notes, share common experiences, brainstorm solutions to common problems, identify follow up training resources and, very importantly, share a common proactive, positive language.
In addition, quarterly the CEO's from each agency will meet with the Champions to hear about progress and address concerns of mutual importance. We hope by the end of the year these six agencies, some small, some quite large, some in urban settings and others quite rural will develop positive relations and be resourceful to each other.
If the rest of the project goes as well as the first two days, the results will be remarkable. The Office of Developmental Disabilities has impressed us with their selection process. We have conducted pre training conference calls with each agency and each was as impressive as the next. All different in size and location but all eager to participate in this very sinificant undertaking.
It confirms my belief that many of the people working in this field are desperate for a better way of doing things. They are talented and committed. They work hard for very modest pay and they are frustrated by the overly beaurocratic systems which control them and which seem to offer more obstacles than solutions; yet they won't give up and they still want to do more and better for the people they support. Yet, they often just don't know where to turn for guidance and direction.
Our proactive philosophy and positive approach offers many of them the kind of comprehensive, consumer centered, innovative solution they have been longing for.
I'm encouraged and excited.
More later.
George
We will do this by providing four days of pretty intense in house training to each organization. The training is a lot to digest so we are doing it two days at a time over the next two months. Monday and Tuesday in agency # 1; Thursday and Friday in agency #2. Then back home for a week. Then back to do agencies 3 and 4, etc. When we are done with the first round of training we will start the second round on the same schedule.
Each agency will develop 4 Action Teams that will be charged with helping exisitng agency resources so that moving forward will be more manageable and so that the Shift will begin immediately. The four Action Teams are:
1 Assessment. This team will support the assessment of all staff members in 6 basic Shift Happens Competencies.
2 Training.
3 Culture Building.
4 Performance improvement.
One of our big concerns as we developed the contract was, what will happen after the first year?
This project is the beginning of a quality improvement effort that will take 3 to 5 years. What happens after we're gone. Yes we will provide each agency with 2 days of follow up visits during the year and yes we will also provide them with one hour telephone support in each of the next 12 months and yes the contract will fund 2 staff members from each agency to visit our organization for 2 days of high impact individualized attention, but what happens after the year is up? This was a big concern.
We hope collaboration will be the answer. The Champions of each Action Team will meet every six weeks to compare notes, share common experiences, brainstorm solutions to common problems, identify follow up training resources and, very importantly, share a common proactive, positive language.
In addition, quarterly the CEO's from each agency will meet with the Champions to hear about progress and address concerns of mutual importance. We hope by the end of the year these six agencies, some small, some quite large, some in urban settings and others quite rural will develop positive relations and be resourceful to each other.
If the rest of the project goes as well as the first two days, the results will be remarkable. The Office of Developmental Disabilities has impressed us with their selection process. We have conducted pre training conference calls with each agency and each was as impressive as the next. All different in size and location but all eager to participate in this very sinificant undertaking.
It confirms my belief that many of the people working in this field are desperate for a better way of doing things. They are talented and committed. They work hard for very modest pay and they are frustrated by the overly beaurocratic systems which control them and which seem to offer more obstacles than solutions; yet they won't give up and they still want to do more and better for the people they support. Yet, they often just don't know where to turn for guidance and direction.
Our proactive philosophy and positive approach offers many of them the kind of comprehensive, consumer centered, innovative solution they have been longing for.
I'm encouraged and excited.
More later.
George
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