PRussell

Fish Sticks!  Pp.1-37

Rhonda, a newly promoted nursing supervisor, is struggling with problem of morale and service quality at work.  It seems that she and her former boss helped start a new initiative to improve the quality of care and employee morale on her floor.  Now that she is the boss, Rhonda sees that support for the new way is eroding, and old habits and attitudes are returning.  Her friend Margo takes her to a sushi restaurant to meet the owner/chef and learn how to sustain the changes.

I am really going to have to wait to see how this book affects my teaching.  It seems that Rhonda and Madeleine saw real problems with the nurses’ performance and morale that needed to be changed, and they set out to change the climate and service.  The sentence at the top of page 24 is quotable.  “Eventually the new way of being will live or die according to the degree an internal source of energy and direction can be established.” (Italics mine) According to my past experience and my observations of my peers this sentence is true, especially if the “new” comes from an external source.  We will sometimes discard the new totally, sometimes keep parts of the new and internalize them, but we will often cast aside changes that do not fit.  Perhaps as we experiment we will create an even newer way. Making those kinds of decisions is the essence of being a professional.