Reflection on Past Performance

Assignment One: Reflection on Past Performance

In 2004, just prior to a diagnosis of PTSD entering my life, I worked under contract for a non-profit agency, assisting the agency with completing an accreditation process they were required to adopt.  Going into the project, I was totally unfamiliar with the accrediting organization.  It took much preparation to familiarize myself with the accrediting body; with the standards they held, relative to the non-profit service delivery agency I was assisting; and with the overall business model that was currently employed within the non-profit agency itself.

To prepare for the project, I first got to know the accreditation body.  I established a relationship with a mentor at the agency; acquired the written guides to achieving the accreditation; along with the standards of accreditation that would be applied to the non-profit I was representing.

I next spent considerable time reviewing the standards and the accreditation process to familiarize myself with what would be before us in terms of work over the coming months. To perform the functions of a facilitator in the process, I needed to become as fully informed of the material as I possibly could, prior to engaging with the supervisory staff. 

The goal of this process was personal.  I needed this preparation time to  ensure credibility with the management team I would be working with, as they were in a slight bit of crisis to ensure the accreditation was achieved. Without the accreditation, the agency would lose it's funding.  They had procrastinated in achieving this.  Having left things to the last minute, prior to seeking my assistance, along with the stress of the management teams heavy workload, the entire process was already somewhat overwhelming to the team.  The people I was working with were very defensive of the entire process.  

They needed clear advice as to the value of the standards of accreditation to their organization, moving forward from where they found themselves.  Therefore, I needed to be comfortable in selling the concepts and standards. I needed to believe in the value the accreditation process proposed.  To prepare, I needed to educate myself, in order to meet these objectives. Educating myself, became the first order of business I tackled, as I walked into the responsibility of facilitating the process.

This initial work required considerable skill in organizing myself for the work.  I needed to be conscious of time, implementing the best of my own time-management and organizational skills proved productive.  We were under a direct deadline.  I couldn't waste time.  We needed to get to the work at hand.  

This education process was completed over a two week period.  I felt confident with presenting the information once I had completed the tasks my education required.  I did see considerable value in the process, not only for the agency to receive accreditation, but also as a team-building exercise for the management team.  The business structure that accompanied the accreditation standards, provided for the agency a consistent and constructive model for them to apply to the day-to-day operation of the organization.  I also learned, through my own process of self-education, how valuable the standards would be to the agency in terms of service delivery and overall care to their clients.  In other words, in two weeks of engagement, I was personally convinced that the process we were facing would provide incredible direction and would improve the standards of care within the non-profit, adding value to their contribution to the people they served in our community.

Moving into the contract, I held strong communication skills.  In spite of my already developing emotional problems, I was able to keep my personal issues, somewhat, at bay. After researching the accreditation process and establishing my own strong position on the value of the process, I used my strong communication skills to pitch the importance and value of the process to the management team.

Together, we developed workable time-lines for completion of each stage of the process. Because I knew most of the individuals on the team personally, I was able to draw on their individual strengths and provide means for utilization of the teams skills, collectively, by negotiating portions of the project assignment to individuals based upon their individual gifts, talents, and interests.

Again, good time-management skill and organizational ability, kept me focused upon my own duties as a facilitator of the process.  We all accepted that I would only be there to get them through the leg-work.  It would be up to them, individually and collectively, to achieve their organization's goals.  I was to act as a guide, filling the role of educator, while using my own preference for writing, to assist directly with policy development and standard of care implementation.  It became my specific role to complete the puzzle, by writing the policy and procedure framework for the agency.  The work, overall, was their work to do, however the management team felt weak in this area.  Due to limits of time, we chose to use my skills to this end, rather than engage in the time it would take to re-educate someone on the team and assign this task to a team member directly.  We all agreed, that we could learn together, the ways and means of policy development as we worked.  Their education, therefore, would be through osmosis.

For the purpose of this assignment, I would say that the key skills I held coming into the project were:

• Strong communication skills, verbal, written and social, including productive active listening talents.
• Good organizational abilities.
• Average time-management skills.
• Good skills in terms of self-discipline for self-directed learning of a new process.
• Commitment, loyalty, and salesmanship were, thankfully, additional emotional and practical skills I used, that I did not know I possessed at the time.
• Research skill to learn the material required to be successful.
• Experience as an educator of sorts, having taught numerous first-aid classes over the years and led martial arts teams.
• Familiarity with management concepts, having worked for this non-profit in the past as a supervisor.
• Leadership ability.  This gift was first identified in my life as a young person-in elementary school.  
• Though I'd always not "cared for" leadership roles, I did demonstrate to myself and others strong skills in leadership and facilitation.

I used these skills to the best of my ability, minimizing the negative, emotional feelings that were developing due to my condition showing up in my life.  As yet, my experience of PTSD was undiagnosed.

This is where I struggled most, throughout the project: emotional self-regulation.  I struggled with difficult people in  conversation.  Time-pressure was very stressful to me.  In spite of my ability to manage the time, the deadlines imposed made things difficult. Though I was able to hide this well, I felt uncomfortable needing to hide this; needing to pretend to be in emotional control, when I actually was not feeling this way.  There were outbursts of frustration that I would have rather avoided.  I could attack a difficult staff member, verbally, if I felt her negativity would jeopardize the process.

Preparation, prior to engaging with the management team, proved invaluable to the overall success of this project.  Maintaining organization of the presentation of the material, from start to finish, helped us all to remain focused on our goal.  Though the timeline and deadlines imposed created personal additional hardship for me at the time, we needed this pressure to complete what needed to be done.  After all, the organization would lose it's place, completely, in the system should we fail.  

With persuasion and solid preparation to inform and educate myself, I was able, then, to use the best of my leadership capabilities to direct the management to accept, at an individual level, ownership of the process and tasks at hand.  There was value present in achieving accreditation for this agency.  I was able to convince them of this value with strong communication skills and we were able to build a strengths-based team concept, together.

How this translates into credit?  This is why I'm here: to invest time and reflection towards understanding the value of such life-experiences; to advance my education goals; and to ultimately re-establish a career in trauma care.