Whilst working for the DHB I felt it was inappropriate to express personal views publically in any way so welcome the 'freedom' to express my opinion.
However my return to the DHB (I had worked there in a previous life as the GM responsible for Patient and Staff Health & Safety and Infection Control, among other things), saw me paying greater attention to hand cleaning. No, this is not a lesson on hygiene. Persevere and you will see the signficant leadership lesson.
There is no arguement now about the importance of hand cleaning, especially in a clinical setting. Attention was brought to this aspect of clinical hygiene back in 1847 by a Hungarian born Physician who made striking observations. Unfortunately when he presented his findings and recommended compulsory regimes of hand washing he faced considerable opposition. ln fact he ended up leaving the hospital in which he was working and it wasn't until later, and after a campaign with the support of his new employer did the requirements become compulsory.
In their book, 'It Starts with One: Changing Individuals Changes Organisations', authors J. Stewart Black and Hal B. Gregersen asked, "Why do we fail to see the need for change?" and noted, "Fundamentally, we fail to see because we are blinded by the light of what we already see."
In January, I was speaking at a conference on the Gatton Agricultural Campus of the Queensland University. My topic was 'Power and Conflict are Ubiquitous in Organisational Life.'
The audience were members of the Next Generation of the Federal Chamber of Agricultural Societies (FCAS) of Australia. This is the movement started by FCAS about four years ago to ensure engagement of younger people and future succession in their organisation. They, like our equivalent in New Zealand (The Royal Agricultural Society), have many people who have contributed significantly to these organisations. Unfortunately in the process new comers have felt they are unwelcome or they can not get a look in. The support of the Australiians for their nex generation is simply impressive.
These young people have a passion but what they do not have often are the street smarts experience often brings to deal with what they encounter. That is, the apparent resistance to new or different ideas and the dodgy tactics people use in debate and arguement. How do they deal with the 'This is the way we have always done it' and the 'We are different' statements?
They, like the Physician not only need to be prepared to question and challenge, they need the courage to carry on and not melt away at the first sign of resistance. The more we can support that courage the better. I argued that wherever there is confusion, conflict, turmoil or disagreement, there exists the opportunity to create a new understanding and future.
In 1930, a Robert H. Thouless published 'Straight and Crooked Thinking', which describes the thirty eight dishonest tricks of arguement people employ in order to assert what in fact cannot be asserted on the basis of the available evidences alone. His work is as relevant today as it was way back then.
There are only two intellectually honest debate tactics; pointing out errors or ommissions in facts, and, pointing out errors or ommissions in logic. Given that often statements used by opponents to prove them wrong will be of the intellectually dishonest variety and that almost all arguements consist of one intellectually dishonest debate tactic after another, they will need not only courage but patient and considered perseverence. They will need to resist the seemly urgent need these days to take any arguement personally and get emotinally overwrought.
I finished off with John Schaar's words: "The future is not a place to which we are going; its a place which we are creating. The paths to the future are not found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination."
One the way home, the RAS Youth representative our district sponsored to the conference wanted to know what they should do. I simply told him that in My Opinion, they should not wait to be told what to do next but own the opportunity to begin designing their view of the future. Then ask us oldies to help them build it.
