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Join the conversation via an occasional email, focusing on the self-care part of the new year’s resolutions, Announcement: The Social PR Virtuoso® Master Course Has a New Home. It gives us just enough to work with—so that we know exactly what it is—but stops short of dotting every I and crossing every T for us. I wrote this poem about a sandcastle waiting in fear for the sea to approach to teach my year 4 class about the use of rhyme, personification and metaphor. We all worked like mad to win that game. Eventually I thought of a metaphor to describe how it felt. By evening of the third day, I had discharged my last patient. Operators may require a bit of nudging to return to proper operating procedures—although this should be done with an open mind, as they may be ready and able to show why the procedures should be revised. However, as a design is refined and improved, the life cycle of the system deserves serious consideration. Your email address will not be published. Although nature can do significant damage to an engineered system, the most severe problems are often people-related. But that’s OK. On this one, I’m paying attention to the lesson my kids taught me. (It’s a beach. Many engineers spend their careers doing nothing but keeping industrial processes operating smoothly. Clearly they were willing to risk ruin, and expend significant effort, a second (and possibly third, fourth, and …) time, for the potentially short-lived return of their satisfaction and enjoyment (not to mention everyone else’s). But not long after I settled down on my lounger, I noticed the same father-son duo back in the same spot. Fragments. But I can see the second child has started his castle too far out. "Sandcastles" is actually fairly straightforward in its metaphor: much like an actual sandcastle, a relationship can wash away, even if it has seemed sturdy all along. Today, social platforms are where your customers and constituents of all ages and stages literally live online. In this workshop, you will: Gone are the days when “social media” was the domain of your twenty-something employees. In the middle of the week. ), or brand visibility (how are you measuring this? Administration burden “death by a thousand clicks”, Patients are much sicker and care is more complex, Policing the Speech of Each Other Doesn't Improve Teamwork. Smart strategy is detailed… but not restrictive. What about you? I Didn't Match, May 10, 2019 A couple of days later, when I returned to the beach, part of it had been destroyed. Her perspective essays have been published in NEJM and JAMA among other journals. They need to be in the realm of “net gain.”. Sandcastle as strategy. 10 Key Marketing Automation Features You Should Know, Strategic Planning for Our One Very Brief and Precious Life, Don’t Lose Clients Due to Lack of Content Strategy, I Need to Develop a Strategy. 2. A lot of love and energy went into building it, and I was proud of what we had accomplished. Watching my children and their contrasting tactics in pitting their sandcastles against the rising tide, I thought about resilience, how it’s easier to have it when you’re outside the tide. Of course, the joy of construction disappears after a few days. Of course, the joy of construction disappears after a few days. It never stops. People. Feel free to use. And no matter how good a tool is, you still need smart people using it in a smart way, to derive the most benefit. The second child works in frenzies and pauses. But it’s like this: for some physicians, they are the castles positioned well out of the tide, with the wide, sturdy bases, that can withstand every seventh wave that sneaks higher than the rest (in Oregon, they are named sneaker waves). Engineering graduates should also understand that, during the course of their careers, they will likely run into financially-focused managers who will tell them to put off maintenance, or goal-driven managers who may ask them to run systems outside of specification. Published April 27, 2018. One day, I asked myself: why am I still playing it? Mentors have a duty to help mentees out of the tide, not pile on advice about being more resilient. It’s easy for the ones up the beach to withstand that sneaker wave, versus those who barely have their chins above water. The second ignores him, continuing his frantic strategy between each wave. So engineers should learn early on that, sooner or later, someone will have to go out and rebuild the sandcastle. Op-Med is produced by And one glorious day of my internship, I did it. But the work is like the tide. A supervision style known as Management By Wandering Around involves checking in with employees, in a casual and unstructured manner, and asking questions about how things are going—so as to discover how processes and procedures might be improved. Going to the beach on the North Oregon Coast is an exercise in contradiction. Although I’ve long since forgotten where I picked up this sandcastle metaphor, I often use it when thinking about the … How can a tree be seen as a metaphor for an internal process? And they rebuilt the castle from scratch, without exhibiting any impatience or frustration, showing the same careful attention to detail, working as a quiet but constant team. Required fields are marked *. If you’re a business leader, you should take this workshop to: © 2020 Shonali Burke Consulting | All Rights Reserved | Website Design by. I think back to my internship, where we dreamed about “winning the game.” It looked like this: if you were on-call every fourth night, and you could discharge all your patients by the end of the third day, you could get a free day on the fourth day of the cycle. No matter the season — even peak of summer — our family knows to bring the fleece jackets along with the sunscreen, the windbreakers with the beach toys. By visiting a secluded beach, they find themselves in a nightmare world, where time moves so quickly that people age, and ultimately die, in hours instead of years. You can’t build up your resilience when you’re already submerged by the tide. You can follow her on Twitter at @JL_Lycette. 2020 Engineering Revision, educating the next generation of engineers. Sand Castle is a good example, taking 13 people of various ages and compacting their lifetimes into 24 hours. So this is officially my first post of, and for, the 2020s which is, I think, completely acceptable, timing-wise. But it usually falls to an engineer to deal with the physical consequences that result from such managerial decisions. Before they know it, they realize they’re drowning, trapped too far out in the tide. Her blog, The Hopeful Cancer Doc, includes her writings on practicing oncology, maintaining hope in medicine, work-life balance, and various other musings. Read Do You Want to Talk About Your Weight Today? Sandcastles. But he is determined. Either way, do share via a comment, I’d love to know. And I made a choice to not play this game for a while. Colleagues may benefit from a better understanding of how a prior-generation system was intended to operate. It’s how we deal with the impact of those waves that makes or breaks our strategy. Make that last call to the insurance gatekeepers. Link to Do You Want to Talk About Your Weight Today? They have a game they like to play. Although failures can be reduced via analysis during the conceptual and design phases, the most difficult problems are usually unanticipated. Find me on Twitter at @brandur. Do you know which it is your organization or business does... and the business ramifications of not doing it well? Do those who’ve not yet experienced the true force of the tide doubt that it could be that strong? All sorts of things that could destroy it before its architects have had a chance to really enjoy it (as, indeed, I saw). Thus, one can never assume that a system is “done.” I regard as cruel any engineer who tosses a design “over the wall” and walks away without regard for others who must subsequently maintain system functionality. A day with no patients. There’s no shame in it.”. The memory of this beautiful sandcastle, and how it was built, destroyed, and rebuilt, has stayed with me long after I returned from my vacation. His determination is contagious, and I can’t help but join him, trying to dig fast enough to build a wall of sand to protect his castle. These well-entrenched physicians advise their colleagues around them, “Look at me, just build up your resilience, and you’ll be fine.” Hospitals have jumped on this bandwagon as well, incorporating resilience training as part of physician wellness programs — positing resilience as the solution to burnout. As a life-long Midwesterner, I haven’t spent a lot of time on the beach. 3. My co-interns clustered around me in jealous disbelief. So when you’re coming up with your strategy and measurable objectives, everything that you and your organization are going to invest—in that initiative—must be worth it from a business point of view, i.e. It only ever happened that one time. To no surprise, we are no match for the force of the ocean, and the waves take out his castle time and again. “Humdrum” to “Hallelujah” Do others criticize that I should be “more resilient?” Most definitely. But they should attempt, to the best of their abilities, to reconstruct the agreements and understandings that constrained the original design work. Please share any comments you have on resilience, burnout, sabbaticals, and related thoughts. Likewise, interpersonal understandings may have to be reconstructed on a regular basis. With The Social PR Virtuoso® I felt like we were building a sandcastle on a beach near the shore. Although I’ve long since forgotten where I picked up this sandcastle metaphor, I often use it when thinking about the life cycle of engineering projects. When the tide is beginning to come back in, they build their sandcastles on the edge of the waves. And so the erosion accelerates. They spent hours on it, and it was stunning. But watching this father-son duo made me think of how Social PR (or any) strategy can, in fact, learn a lot from sandcastles: Breaking news (heaven knows we’ve had quite the wave of shocking headlines in just the first couple of weeks of the year) or internal or external crises can lead to any number of unforeseen hiccups (at best) or catastrophes (at worst). Read more ), coughing out the remnants of a nasty, pre-holiday flu after I returned, and focusing on the self-care part of the new year’s resolutions I’d suggested before shutting down for the holidays while also getting back into work (and study) mode. For our entire careers, starting in training, we’re suckered into trying to “win the game.” Finish that last note. I try to gently suggest he relocate a bit farther from the waves, like his brother. Clear out that last in-basket message. System failure is not always a bad thing, as it may lead to knowledge of how the scheme might be improved. (Keeping a contemporaneous notebook is quite useful in this regard.) Doesn’t it strike you that expending a great deal of time and effort in building such a detailed sandcastle could be considered a waste of time? To continue the beach theme, it’s not the waves that are unpredictable. “Son,” I say, “let’s move up the beach, away from the waves. There can never be any real winners in this game. You’re too far out into the tide. Yet, once their original edifice was destroyed, the father-son duo returned to rebuild… on exactly the same spot. If the sandcastle is to be admired for more than a few hours, it has to be rebuilt. Smart strategy should result in an outcome that is a “net gain.”. The weather is unpredictable. These days, I’m still no expert, but I’ve made progress. The game looks very different positioned up the beach, versus mired in the middle of the tide. While soaking up the sun in Jamaica, I was fascinated by the attention paid by a father-son duo to building a castle in the sand. . The connotation of a sandcastle isn’t always positive. And it struck me how a simple (ok, in this case, not so simple!) No matter the season — even peak of summer — our family knows to bring the fleece jackets along with the sunscreen, the windbreakers with the beach toys.

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