To be More Effective Now, Notice Everything Takes Longer
Dr. Banda has been an infectious disease physician for over twenty years. He’s risen through the ranks as an effective, energetic, thoughtful, well-respected leader. He leads a team at a large academic medical center in the US South. Before the pandemic, he had weathered tough times in his career dealing with Ebola, SARS, etc.
Recently he noticed feeling more lethargy. He had himself tested for COVID-19. Negative. Anemia? Negative. Flu? Negative. Diet? Still iron-rich and healthy.
He explained this to his coach, who asked, “Well what has changed in your life?”
Dr. Banda joked, “Well, aside from the world being upside down, everything is the same.”
His coach smiled along and asked, “Tell me more about the upside-down world.”
“Yes, our schedules have changed – work, home, social life for kids, family and friends.”
“What else?”
Dr. Banda’s mood became heavier as he slowly listed more changes: “…change in routine, change in mobility, income, future vision.”
“That’s a lot. What else have you noticed?”
“Even though the pace at work is more frenetic, I feel like I’m moving slower. There’s definitely more chronic and acute psychological pressure than before. Yes, the donning and doffing of PPE takes longer. I’m noticing that as I’ve been bracing for my shift, I have been subconsciously tensing my muscles as I do that. Then at the end of the day, when I finally take everything off, it feels like I’ve been doing isometrics on every muscle group all day long. My neck, back, arms, face, legs are super fatigued.”
He reflected and added, “AND I’m pissed off that my supervisor asked me to deliver a message to my teams that I was not consulted about and not on board with.”
Coach: “What message?”
“We’ve been discussing how to resume elective procedures. I’m a senior physician executive here and I was not asked my opinion. It’s too soon for us to resume other procedures because our C19 caseload is still too high. It’s not safe. I’m worried about things getting worse in our community now that summer is here and people are bashing social-distancing practices.”
Coach: “That’s a lot of loss. Loss of routine, mobility, freedom, certainty…control? Is it possible that there is grief associated with these changes? Maybe grieving loss?”
Dr. Banda was pensive. He looked down, away from the camera on our zoom call.
“When I was cooking dinner last night, I was listening to the news and heard our national COVID mortality numbers. I suddenly got overwhelmed with emotion and had to sit down. I turned off the burner. I got teary. Maybe you’re right – I need to grieve some of this.”
Dr. Banda added, “We go from meeting to meeting and patient to patient and don’t have time to process all of this. I need more time to process all that’s going on.”
That’s exactly what Dr. Banda began building into his own care plan for himself. With the support of his coach, he started by proactively carving out more quiet time for self. Grieving time. Reflective time. The coaching dialogues next focused on how to communicate differently with senior executives in terms of using his authentic voice to push back more effectively when he was feeling unsafe – for himself, his colleagues and for his patients.
This didn’t happen overnight. These changes took time, awareness and practice. Dr. Banda continues to monitor and utilize more communications tools at his disposal.
Also, the organization facilitated public and private vigils for the caregivers to grieve some of the loss they were experiencing. This “slowing down” helped them move forward.
Overall, Dr. Banda noticed that things just take longer these days, for so many reasons – logistical challenges, new safety requirements, constantly changing protocols, uncertainty and fatigue from more pressures. Once Dr. Banda internalized this, he felt the tension begin to subside modestly. He understood more. He blamed himself less. He could begin to communicate more of this to his team, to empathize with them and lead them differently.
He continues to paint a clear vision forward with the team AND he continues to check-in with them (and himself) to monitor caregiver wellness.
“Maybe we have to slow down to go faster.”