I got this insight from one of our Viral Change clients in the health care sector. We were talking about values and behaviours in a hospital setting and how these affect the life of patients whilst within those walls. We had been working on this for many months and the Viral Change Mobilizing Platform was working extraordinary well. We all, clients and ourselves, were very proud of that.
But this colleague was pointing out something obvious that is often overlooked. She said, ‘the patient is with us for a week…we have a week to make a difference in the other 51’. And she did not mean medically or health wise only. I know her well, and she meant difference in the set of life values that we were working on all the time: feeling valued, compassion, care, dignity, perhaps hope, respect, certainly kindness and the whole set of ‘the humanity package’. In a week.
I was struck by the power of looking at what happens next versus what we are doing now, what is left behind versus what is now on the table, the day after versus the D-Day.
It’s an incredibly powerful way of thinking. Some people, like that health care worker, are blessed with this . But it can be learnt. We can force ourselves to think like this.
What happens after the seminar, leadership programme or offsite meeting, is far more important than what happens at the time. In Viral Change we put together very carefully peer-selected champions/activists in an intense 2 day immersions that we call Boot Camps. But these are vehicles to launch what happens the day after, and then that goes for months. In themselves, they are just vehicles, not an end. Yet, I often find it difficult to force people to think on day 3 of a 2 day Bootcamp. It is the rest of the non-Boot Camp dates that matter, when the entire diffusion of behaviours and shaping of the social movement takes place. It’s the 51 weeks, not the 1 week, as that colleague said.
This re-framing is powerful, it has zero cost, it focuses your energy.
From now, I will call it the 51 week problem.
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Critical Thinking [1] Accelerator from The Chalfont Project
At The Chalfont Project, we have crafted a short intervention on Critical Thinking [1]. In this short intervention we teach you and your team Critical Thinking methods and questions that will help you focus your time on the things that matter, make good and fair decisions and escape the dangers of human biases. We will also help you apply these methods to your everyday challenges in your organization.
You will learn about strategy acid tests and many mind fallacies, including various biases, and the practical Critical Thinking methods that you can use to address these.
This high impact, short intervention will:
- – challenge ways of thinking
- – provide immediate and trackable actions
- – drive change
- – develop a better way of functioning across the team, department or organization.