Channeling 90's grunge music (thank you Sheryl Crow!!! A change would do you good), a change is already doing me good. I can feel it actively in – without sounding dramatic about it – everything.
After 5 years at St Vincent's, I'm heading to a group called CRANAplus as the Executive Director of Education Services (CRANAplus website). In the pursuit of a new role, I've weirdly loved the conversations that have loosely been called "interviews". Loose, not because they weren't good or robust or challenging or doing what they were designed to do. Rather, conversations have become fascinating again. People are interesting and interested in the world around them, not just their immediate microcosms of tightly controlled influence. They're bigger than the fixed mindsets that have kept them comfortable for innumerable years. They're reaching in directions that forces them to think about who they are and what they do in the world; the impact that they have on those around them.
I wondered as I left academia whether I'd miss having good arguments with people. Ones that challenged the ideas not the person and where you could be creative in your thinking about how and why this would work or that was not going to fly. Turns out I was right and the thing that stifled me the most was the small minded, short sighted, only financially driven decisions of a juvenile group working in quite a sophisticated organisation. The schoolgirl antics, the blocking, the in crowds dominating your daily practice and where I was reaching for a bigger goal, the solution seemed to reside in towing the local party line and subjugating one's ideals for popularity. Not to say that any of this doesn't happen in universities mind you. Just that there is more to focus on other than only that.
I'm here for an argument! I'm just saying, the Monty Python work never gets old!!!!
And yet not all of it was challenging. Some of it was downright invigorating as we strove towards implementing a system of nursing staff assessment that actually assessed staff insitu. Without the need to take them off the floor and with the "live" simulation of a real patient in front of them. It's like it was core business or something! While the idea certainly isn't new – student assessments have been done this way for many a year now – the concept seemed to have traction for staff who were time poor, doing "interesting" nursing practice but with no real implications because it didn't break a rule, and in a private hospital system that insists on everyone doing everything all of the time. The maths doesn't work broken down over an 8 hour shift. I've loved the being able to see that come to life – both practically and conceptually – and to see nurses being cautiously optimistic about what Education could be. And that doesn't only mean ticking a box to satisfy a compliance issue.
I've been euphemistically saying that I'm equal parts excited and terrified of what this new role holds. I was daydreaming at the tail end of a Nursing Leaders leadership programme yesterday and I realised that that's not actually the case. It's more that I'm curious to know what I'm capable of next. Yes, this is a step up into an Executive role. Yes, it's virtually based and without a fixed address apart from my excellent home office. Yes, it's with a group of people who seem quite lovely but who I've only met under interview type circumstances. It is a chance for me to really put my money where my mouth is and to lead with allocated authority. It is an opportunity to turn what I felt at the time was a less good professional decision in moving to Darwin, to good use. It is the moment where I can step up, stand up, turn up again as the version of myself that I'd prefer to showcase as opposed to being curated into being.
I'll take a few days downtime before I embark on this next segment of the path. I haven't had a break in a while and so it will be glorious to stretch, breathe, live, love and be merry. We'll head to the Gold Coast – animals in tow and with little on our minds except hurrying up to relax.
Let's see what's around the corner!
All of my changing love to you xx
Naomi
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