Doris Young Associates'
Young Thoughts
Volume 6, Issue I
January 2005
IN THIS ISSUEAccepting Differences
Finding Your Blind Spots
Lighter Side
Accepting DifferencesAcceptance has two components: receptiveness and respect. Building up the capacity and willingness to accept others creates more relaxed interactions. People should be allowed to reflect their background and culture in their behavior without rejection. When an individual is receptive he or she is patient and adapt to coworker's differences. Receptiveness is an atmosphere that grants behavior and style freedom. Respect goes beyond simply “putting up” with others’ differences. It is being able to fully appreciate every individual, based totally on the qualities they bring to the task at hand. Respecting the view of other people without blemishing or tarnishing them with negative cultural or racial characterization is the only way to have successful relationships. Ultimately, respect is seeing value in people based on their contributions rather then their background and culture. When an individual respects and values diverse characteristics or behaviors with patience and openness wonderful teamwork follows. Respect creates trust. Positive behaviors related to diversity result in the ability to interact effectively with people different from one self. With self-awareness, one understands personal values, motives, and beliefs. Become conscious of personal strengths and weaknesses and be sensitive to the effects of those characteristics on others. Develop skills necessary to adjust behaviors while still maintaining identity, values, and beliefs is an important step. Knowing yourself and how you affect other people helps you choose appropriate behaviors. As a skillful person you can manage situations and successfully interact with people who may be very different from you. With these skills you will be able to modify your behavior to meet the needs of any situation. Effective interpersonal skills reflect an ability to be flexible when reacting to the ideas and opinions of others. You show respect and trust through cooperation, attentiveness, and friendliness. This, in turn, results in more harmonious relationships and increased productivity.
The bottom line is that people who make an effort to find out more about diverse cultural groups work better with others and enjoy their work more. People who have interest in learning about other people and their history create the kind of environment where everyone enjoys working. This is the way to understand and use information to develop unbiased working relationships. Retention of the best nurses requires a work environment that will embrace differences. The Discovering Diversity Profile enables your staff to discover their opinions and feelings about workforce diversity. Interpretation and analysis stages will give their individual feedback on responses. This will increase awareness of individual, ethnic, and cultural differences, and identify potential areas of conflict while helping them gain insights into achieving positive resolution. To increase your departmental knowledge, understanding, acceptance, and behaviors related to the diverse healthcare workplace contact Doris Young at 800 673-8005 or www.DorisYoungAssociates.com
Finding Your Blind SpotsKnowing yourself is the first step to acceptance. Everything you build is according to your own specifications. You only allow people to treat you as badly as you think you deserve. The good news is that they can relearn. You must learn to send new messages. You start by understanding yourself and how you respond to the world. If you’re not getting what you want you have to change to get it. This means you have to figure yourself out. We all can see what needs to be fixed in others. This is called projection. What you need to know is that if you see a characteristic in other people you also have that characteristic. This is true for both positive and negative characteristics.
We all have blind spots. There is a way to know what your blind spots are. If you see something in someone close to you and don’t see it in yourself, you have either disowned or denied it. You will continue to see the people around you as mirrors of your rejected self until you heal the split in yourself. The way out of this house of mirrors is to be willing to admit you have the characteristic you see. Next, you must become willing to change those characteristics that are inconsistent with your concept of yourself. One exercise I found in “Receiving Love” may be very helpful in recovering the “split” part of you.
Begin by listing all the characteristics you see in people closest to you. You may want to focus in on your mate or mates if you have had more then one. Note whether you see the characteristic as positive or negative and list them separately. Ask three to five people close to you to give you a list of adjectives they see in you. Ask them to hold nothing back and note whether the traits are positive or negative with a plus or a minus sign.
Go through the list of all the characteristics and give them a rating from one through five. One being the characteristic most unlike you and five being the most like you. Then go through the list and choose five of the positive characteristics you gave the lowest scores. These are the characteristics you think are least like you. Now rank them putting least descriptive at the top and most descriptive at the bottom of the list. These are the characteristics you have disowned. Do the same thing with the negative characteristics. Rate each characteristic one through five. One being the characteristic most unlike you and five for the characteristics most like you. Then go through the list and choose five of the negative characteristics you gave the lowest score. These are the characteristics you think are least like you. Now rank them putting least descriptive at the top and most descriptive at the bottom of the list. These are the characteristics you have denied. Now rewrite all ten of these characteristics as positive affirmations. These are characteristics that you want to now own. For example, if one of your negative traits is “suspicious,” you may want to be more “observant.” Your positive affirmation could be “I check my relationship for positive energy everyday.” This may seem like a difficult process for you or you may feel resistant to putting in the effort for this. I assure you that the benefit are enormous. By getting to know your disowned and denied parts you will improve your self esteem and relationship with others by leaps and bonds. Doris Young can help your work team function better. If you are ready to have a more successful healthcare workplace contact Doris Young at 800 673-8005 or Doris@DorisYoungAssociates.com See www.DorisYoungAssociates.com
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On the Lighter Side
You know you are a nurse when: You compliment a complete stranger on his veins...
You find yourself betting on someone's alcohol level... Discussing dismemberment over a gourmet meal seems perfectly normal... You get an almost irresistible urge to stand and wolf your food even in the nicest restaurants... Your idea of fine dining is anywhere you can sit down to eat...
You have the bladder capacity of five people... Your feet are slightly flatter and tougher than Fred Flintstone's... You have witnessed the charge nurse muttering down the hallway "who's in charge of this mess anyway?"... You refer to vegetables and are not talking about a food group... You believe that unspeakable evils will befall you if the phrase "wow, it's really quiet" is uttered...
You threaten to strangle anyone who even starts to say the "Q" word when the ER is even remotely calm... Your diet consists of food that has gone through more processing than most computers...
You believe chocolate is a food group... You believe a good tape job will fix anything...
Your idea of a good time is a full arrest at shift change... You believe in aerial spraying of Prozac... You disbelieve 90% of what you are told and 75% of what you see...
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