Clip 1: Reflecting on practice
Gillian:
I’m sort of interested to know what you were hoping to achieve. What was your purpose in having that conversation after your workshop with her?
Barbara:
I was certainly hoping to challenge Fran in regards to where she found herself – the conflict she found herself in – in relation to her role as an RT:LB and that whole idea of her wanting to maintain the relationship with the principal. So yes, that was probably the area that I was wanting to focus on.
Gillian:
So tell me about challenging. Why did you want to challenge her? What was the significance of that?
Barbara:
In my role as an adviser, I think it’s really important to look at being that critical friend, to actually help them to consider where they might need to look to their actions and help them to move forward in their thinking.
Gillian:
So what does challenge actually do?
Barbara:
By challenging, or creating that dissonance, you can allow for thinking to happen, certainly allow for building on that thinking and into unpacking some new learning – and leading into hopefully some action which will be useful for a particular situation, whether it’s a problem or a concern/issue of practice.
Gillian:
So I guess what you’re saying here, then, is that challenge creates dissonance, that sort of thing where people start asking themselves questions about their behaviour. And that that’s when the new learning actually occurs. And hopefully that shift in thinking will lead to a change in practice – that’s basically what you’re on about there?
Barbara:
Absolutely. And I think for me, that’s been a real light bulb moment since the beginning of last year. I didn’t realise just how important that creating of dissonance was and how powerful it could be to actually create those shifts.
Gillian:
That’s wonderful. And, I just, I suppose when we think back to the video and you were wanting to challenge Fran, what did you actually see was happening in terms of your practice?
Barbara:
I gave her solutions. I actually did the problem solving.
Gillian:
OK. That’s what I observed too actually. And I just wondered what you were thinking when you, when you made that decision to problem solve. Because I know that you’ve got a deep understanding of the whole issue around challenging. So what were the thoughts that were going through your mind when you decided to problem solve for her?
Barbara:
I suspect it was definitely my emotions coming in there. It was very much around me not wanting to rock the boat on the professional relationship, certainly not wanting to put any fear into Fran about what she did do. So, yeah, I was compromising my beliefs.
Gillian:
Right. So there was a real conflict there between your beliefs and your actual …
Barbara:
Practice.
Gillian:
… practice …
Barbara:
Absolutely.
Gillian:
… in that instance.
Barbara:
Yes.
Gillian:
Yeah. I’m wondering whether perhaps you might be making a few assumptions about Fran, in terms of how she might react if she was challenged?
Barbara:
Yes. Yes, I can see that too. And probably I need to go back to Fran to actually talk through that … and maybe even try and identify with her what my role as a critical friend is about, and perhaps negotiate that role …
Gillian:
Yeah, yeah.
Barbara:
… unpack my beliefs about what I think is important …
Gillian:
Right.
Barbara:
… and allowing me to perhaps move forward and to actually carry out that practice the way I think it should be carried out.
Gillian:
OK. That sounds like a really good strategy to me and some really good thinking about how you can overcome that sort of emotional fear that I think everybody feels. Certainly, I know personally, and from lots of advisers and RT:LBs I’ve talked to, that conflict between wanting to have the supportive relationship, the good relationship, and how do you challenge without creating tension? It’s a real dilemma and conflict for people. So that sounds like a good strategy: to negotiate the relationship right at the beginning. I guess that one of the other things that’s quite interesting to think in that situation where you shifted into that problem solving mode instead of doing what you really wanted to was thinking about who actually benefits in that situation.
Barbara:
And I think that was yet again another “aha” moment on the video. I looked and I thought, “Neither of us benefited”. And I doubt whether the people that Fran was serving would have benefited either. And that I problem, or tried to problem solve for Fran, and how do I know that’s going to meet her needs? And certainly I didn’t benefit because I compromised my beliefs. And it was really clear on the video – what I did. And I probably put myself sort of more into that expert role, instead of the collaborative role that I really believe is important.
Gillian:
Right.
