Work

In the end, it was a three-day leadership workshop.  It was very much in line with work I'd done before - leadership development and adult education, but I'd never been the one responsible for the whole show. It went quite well, if I do say so myself.

I developed about half the content, the Adventist Health Services leadership did the other half.  In the end, Florence, the CEO, said it was just what they needed.  After my two months of interviews, clinic visits, and meetings at the secretariat, she said it was perfectly customized.  

From a development standpoint, I feel good about what we did together.  I brought the organizational energy, and in a few cases, expertise.  They are all health professionals turned administrators with more than enough things competing for their time.  I could call the meetings, design the schedule, slot them in for sessions, and suggest ways to involve the participants.  They could give me information about their organizational culture and what issues they hoped to address.  It reaffirmed to me that I like working on teams.  

Having now spent a total of four months of my life in sub-Saharan Africa, and knowing enough about anthropology to realize we do not all operate the same, I didn't know what would hit and what would miss.  The miss seemed to be any sort of worksheet.  English is everyone's second language at best, and everyone's reading comprehension was quite low.  They would spend ten minutes reading a sheet, and then say, "What are we supposed to do?"  So I would tell them.

Our third day took real-life scenarios, issues identified by the secretariat that they wanted to address.  All the participants were put into teams of two or three and told to dramatize the scenario, which was given to them as a paragraph.  The following is an example:

A project officer is visiting a clinic for monitoring and supervision.  He has brought with him the monthly drug and medical supply order from the AHS pharmacy.  During his visit, he realizes Fansidar is out of stock.  When he inquires why the clinic manager did not order Fansidar with this order, the clinic manager says he ordered it two months ago.  He assumed the order was out of stock at the pharmacy and would be delivered when available.  When they call the pharmacy staff at the secretariat, he says there is no record of that order. 

I thought we might limp along, people not quite understanding what to do, taking a few scenarios before the idea caught on.  I was delightfully wrong!  Every single "play," with the possible exception of the one I was in, was wildly imaginative and funny.  The most unassuming fellow did a brilliant monologue - completely improvised - musing why his cashier hadn't come to work.  

From there, we spent 30 minutes debriefing the portrayal and defining actionable steps to change problems.  There were 12 scenarios.  

The visiting officer who is too busy to meet with his staff

The whole thing refreshed my professional confidence, given I haven't done anything for the CV since visiting Paris last October.  I'm thankful to have had this opportunity.  

This morning I started a nine-day run of 14-sessions of training with the nurses at the national hospital.  The course this morning was, ironically, about time management.  Thirty-nine minutes after the hour, the computer still hadn't come, they one they knew I needed to do a PowerPoint, the one I used two weeks ago in the same room to do a PowerPoint, the one I'd requested 70 minutes earlier.  

I remembered Habit #1 of Highly Effective People, Be Proactive.  So with my worksheets and content from memory, I led the group of 11 nurses, or the 22 I'd been told would come, through the course.  At the end, one lady said, "Are there more notes?"  To which I said, no.  "You're not prepared," she replied.  I said she got the 20-minute presentation instead of the 60-minute version.  I'm lucky enough to get eight more chances to get it right in the next eight days.  We'll see how tomorrow goes.