Move out of your comfort zone.
You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and
uncomfortable when you try something new.
- Brian Tracy
This week has been long…longer than most, but incredibly
productive. Well, unless you consider our team project. But that is an entirely
different tale to tell on another day. Back to two classes and being
simultaneously engaged and active always stresses me out, but I realize it is
my own undoing there. I just want to be sure I don’t miss a thing. For example,
in my 632 class this week, we touched on the emotional side of decision making
and reasoning. How much can I simplify my life at this point…easier than one
would think…remove the emotional elements from the equation of your decision
making process, and see how much clarity you really have before you…only then
will you be able to truly appreciate how overly complex we all making many
areas in our daily lives.
One highlight this module was watching one of my most favorite
Apple videos, “Think Different”! I absolutely am one of the few people I know
in my organization that sees things differently; pretty much everyone I work
with has worked at our facility for many, many years – some people have spent
over 25 years working at our hospital. I have usually seen myself throughout my
life as the round peg being forced into the square hole, but I don’t mind.
From a work perspective, with the amount of responsibilities we
each are tasked with encompassed with an ever declining capital budget, the
status quo is what we know and what many of my peers are willing to accept. I
am constantly pushing the envelope to try new things, ask new question, and
push people beyond their comfort zones…which usually makes me considered more
of the villain than the hero with many people I work with. However, I know it
is all worth it when I, and the senior management team, can see the fruits of
our labor and the results we can achieve as a team when we really focus and
exhaust all of our options together. Even in the simplest of things, I find
pleasure.
For example, around this time last year, I accepted a promotion
which came along with my own office. The office, however in all of its unfound
glory, was an old radiology closet and is a very bizarre shape. So bizarre that
it actually has a homemade desk to sit at to fit the space and had homemade box
shelving that used to hang on the walls above my head so that there was some
sort of storage/ bookshelf to use in it. When I first moved in, the Plant
Operations department offered to paint it and purchase new a new seat and desk
for me. I said that would be fantastic…but in my heart I felt awkward. The
plans they showed me did offer new furniture, however it was smaller and more
unusable than what I currently resided in. And it cost a lot of money. I was
also concerned that there would be a perception that the new found power went
to my head…just got the new job and already remodeling.
On the same token, I wasn’t really sure what I truly needed and
what I truly wanted. Then last week, one of my close friends was promoted to
Assistant Chief Nursing Officer. She already had an office, but would be moving
to a new one…and she wanted it painted and spiffy prior to her arrival, which I
completely understand. After helping her “remodel and redecorate” and select
paint for her space, I decided it was time to do mine as well – make it my own;
comfortable, usable, and inviting. So I began looking for furniture and paint.
Later that week our CFO stated we were dangerously close to missing budget for
the end of the year and there would be no unnecessary spending. At first I
thought to myself, "so much for my new office", but then I figured
why not ask if there was already left over paint from other recent renovations
around the facility. If the color could work and there was enough, at least I
could paint the place. Then I simply requested them to take down the home made
shelves and I could possibly re-purpose them on my own. Just having them down
would make me happy enough!
Then, when they were being taken down, another director inquired
if I was going to keep them or if she could take them for her department. I
instantly said she could have them - I didn't really want them and someone else
could use them, so why not! At that point, it gave me the idea to inquire if any
other directors had small bookcases in their department that they would like to
donate or trade for. I ended up finding an older bookcase with storage
underneath that worked perfectly for the space I had in the back of my office.
I was on a roll, and as it turned out, the color I liked best out of the
choices available happened to be onsite from a left over remodel in our labor
and delivery department. With a few personal touches brought in from home, new
paint, and trading unused shelves for a second hand bookcase, my office feels
perfect and finally like my own!
Although I was told "no spending", most people would have
continued to wait and become frustrated by not getting what they wanted and
when they wanted it. By thinking outside of the norm, and asking questions that
most would have overlooked in their thought process, I ended up being the crazy
one...everyone that passes my office could not believe the transformation that
had taken place, especially considering there was no approved spending. When
people asked me what my secret was to getting it done, I simply stated I
revamped my thought process and asked a new set of questions in a different
manner to find out what was available to meet my needs and still color only
slightly out of the lines. I guess you could say I did my own process
reengineering to not only revamp how I approached the constraints placed by
management, but also to rethink the resources we currently had and how I could
use what was already available to me. The difference is that dreamers like me
never give up on finding a better way that meets everyone's needs but still
manages somehow to pull things together in order to get the job done. I think
that because my core values and beliefs are slightly different, it allows for
me to develop creative and innovative solutions and critical thinking standards
that are different those of my peers (Brown, 2011, p. 377) .
Until we blog again!
Reference
Brown, D. R. (2011). An Experiential Approach to
Organizational Development, Eighth Edition. Upper Saddle River: Prentice
Hall.
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