Some days seem to be plodding along, moving down the to-do list, but are suddenly blow apart. The flow stopped, screeching-breaks stopped, and the to-do list become irrelevant. Sure, we all know that these things happen, but we can never anticipate when or in exactly what form. Today was one of those days.
I'll outline the issue and protect the innocent, as the saying goes.
A huge part of public health is working with public health professionals, while being steadfast to our agendas and intentions. We all try to do our best. We try to be clear communicators and excel at listening. We try to compromise and negotiate new paths toward the goal. We try to create and invent optimal solutions without stopping as we move forward. We try to cooperate with each other and still get done what we need done. But, we are all human and we sometimes fail at one or more of these. And, therein lies the bad chemistry, the frustrations, and the pitfalls.
Mix that with dis-synchronized timing, and there is no alternative but to stop and regroup. This can be a good thing, even while it feels really bad. Unfortunately, the addition of caffeine and adrenaline only exaggerate the negatively.
So, to keep everyone pleased, on-board, one engages in humility, attempts behavior change, does a fair amount of backhoeing, and strategizes next steps.
2 comments:
I appreciate this post Michele! Yes, we are all human and I believe for the most part we are all trying to do our best and sometimes, many times, we do not succeed like we would like to! And, we all have the best intentions - especially when it comes to our work in public health.
On Friday morning, the UIC Maternal and Child Health Program and the UIC Mid-America Public Health Training Center co-sponsored a really great session on infant mortality and racism. The audience included many and diverse MCH professionals and academics across the city. Many new faces! Many familiar faces! Lots of passion and energy in the room! It felt good to be in the room with such an amazing group of people all doing their part.
The bottom line for me from attending this session is that the more we can get to know people, beyond face and agency/organization of employment, the more we experience our humanity and the more likely we will be able to do our work (together) to improve public health and maternal and child health. And, the more easily we can handle all those (unexpected) issues that come up everyday in the process of our lives!
Kris, I do think you are on to something here. Accepting each other as human beings is in so many ways our innate approach. But, little by little we are taught to not accept others. It takes intention, integrity, discipline to get back that "innocence".
Yes, I agree that the organizations and technology of today are not ideally suited to maintaining the human connection... sigh... In addition, there is a profound irony in that public is about acceptance. Somehow it seems easier and more PC to accept the foibles of the vulnerable, but not our colleagues and co-workers.
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