Poised for Practice
It’s personal
'Preserving the soul means that we come out of hiding at last and bring more of ourselves into the workplace.' David Whyte
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Are you aware of your own professional identity and the 'identity work' performed by individuals and professions, often unseen but of critical importance?
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Do you wish to lead your practice?
Do you see leading as a person or a practice?
Are you expected to be a leader or do you long to see more leadership in your organisation, yet not sure how to achieve or sustain this?
Is real leadership encouraged? Permitted? Understood?
and what about the importance of followership? If we are all striving to be leaders, where are the followers?
Are you feeling stuck, isolated, uncertain, stressed, burnt out, torn in pieces (mentally, ethically, emotionally, spiritually) and unsure how to fix this?
Are you feeling the problems are getting bigger and the solutions are never enough?
Do you sometimes ask yourself, ‘am I having any effect or contributing to real outcomes?’
Are you struggling to sustain your own wellbeing and that of your team, community, organisation?
Is it a daily focus to navigate through the precariousness of your professional world?
Is it personal?
Yes, so personal.
Is it political?
Yes, so political.
Lost your Poise?
It’s political
David Whyte’s poetic words are beautiful and alluring, something to aspire in our professional lives. But for some, the words of Dr Robert Sutton may ring more true::
‘All this talk about passion, commitment, and identification with an organization is absolutely correct if you are in a good job and are treated with dignity and respect. But it is hypocritical nonsense to the millions of people who are trapped in jobs and companies where they feel oppressed and humiliated – where their goal is to survive with their health and self-esteem intact and provide for their families, not to do great things for a company that treats them like dirt. ‘
Are we putting more and more pressure on ourselves and on others to be great leaders, to solve great problems, to be more resilient, to be agile, to perform? to stay well, to be our best selves. And when things don't work out what do we do?
We move to the next great inspirational or transformational leader, or the next policy, plan, strategy, programme, or change process; continuously smitten by the modern story of the great leader, or the next self help cult, wellness training, ‘brain’ theory or our as yet unexcavated unconscious biases – encouraged to adopt newly constructed identities or find our true selves - seduced to look more and more inward, to submit to acknowledging that our personal imperfections and limitations are indeed the problem. The modern secularised religion of the human.
Can one human, team, organisation, or culture be all that? All the time? Can one human (even the most superhuman among us) solve the challenges of our current communities, or our organisations? Of our globe? What about the effects of mass changes in democracy, natural and human disasters, and virtual realities?
Often our organisations and workplaces, just keep doing the same things over and over again, avoiding the real causes of what are big complex sociological issues – wicked problems - with very real and immediate personal and professional consequences.
While we continue to isolate the causes, focusing on an evermore ahistorical, and uncritical gaze on the ‘self’, the problems continue to grow – binaries become more and more prevalent and extreme. In a world where we are seeing public words and actions are met less with listening and more with further entrenched positions.
Communication and self reflection are often held up as the solution to all problems, however, it will take much more than a love for talk to move past entrenched inequalities, structures and worldviews in our organisations, communities and nations. The general situation then remains untouched by our efforts. We deal with consequences but not with causes, and the consequences are eternal while the causes endure.
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Wicked problems need Wicked solutions
Simultaneously, our personal sense of precariousness and the language of our professional and organisational solutions are actually situated in a more nuanced history, a genealogy of politics, policy, economics, issues of social justice, health and wellbeing.
While these are wicked global issues, how we experience these can be simply in the unspecifiable feelings of isolation, frustration, uncertainty, restlessness, resentment, precariousness. We do not always see the connection between the personal and the political, the historical, the global. In light of this context, it is no wonder we may easily and regularly feel we have lost our Poise.
So…. What are you going to do about it?
Professional Poise
Professional Poise is a real and practical package tailored to you to ensure you are strong and poised to lead your practice.
You will learn to apply a wider lens, for perspective – tirohanga – to see what is really going on in your immediate frame of reference in your work and professional world. Ultimately you will develop evidence based plans, strategies and tools that are easily accessible, manageable and measurable, building a deep critical awareness of yourself, your team, your identity, your profession, other professions; equipped to engage with the bigger forces at play in your professional environment.
We build professionals, teams, organisations and communities by providing critical sensemaking and analysis.
With customised tools, strategies and access to ongoing support, you will feel ready and sustained to plan, change, lead and embrace professional challenges with calm, cunning, and critical awareness.
Poised for Practice, even in precarity.
Services
Professional Poise is sociologically informed.
Professional supervision
For managers and interprofessional practitioners
Workplace oppression
and bullying strategies, solutions guidance, risk ratings
For managers and interprofessional practitioners
Leadership training
and development
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Organisational, for managers, practitioners, community, and diverse settings.
Organisational and community ethnography and life history
Strategic planning
Identity, diversity, racism and anti racism training
Policy and governance development
Training solutions
What are you going to do about it?
Together, we will develop a tailored sociological package of potent Professional Poise, designed to see you, support you, sustain you. You will feel ready to understand, frame, anticipate, respond, plan, challenge, and practise – all with calm, confidence, and flexibility.
Poised to sustain yourself and those around you even in Precarity.