Arrakis

Ok, we are back. Yesterday’s entry was not the most engaging, but I do think very important for me. Upon re-reading it, there was a slight feel of begging people to read, which is not my intention. My intent was to justify continuing to write daily on these topics, even if no one was reading. Even when I feel like not doing it, I need to keep doing it. That is because, there will always be an excuse to skip it. Going through the motions with a poorly written entry is better than no entry at all for me at this point. OK, I will be busy again this week. I think it is the right amount of busy. The final faculty development workshop of the year is this week. It is on Trust. I am very excited 

Today we are going to discuss the organization of the Faculty Development workshops and the importance of Trust in improv and healthcare education. I had a previous entry about how the workshops have come to be. This will be more about the rationale for the current structure of the curriculum and hopefully will be beneficial to anyone thinking of exploring the use of improv to develop specific skills. Each workshop is part of a two series unit. The first workshop deals with an aspect of individual communication and the second workshop deals with how we interact with larger groups of people. The first probably falls under communication skills, the second probably falls under leadership skills. The four units are Decoding Emotional Intelligence (Empathy and Adaptability), Excelling at Non-Verbal Communication (Listening and Body Language), Cultivating a Positive Mindset (Wellness and Growth Mindset), and Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges (Emotion and Trust). The first two units are mostly skill based in my mind, whereas the second two units are more towards moving in the direction of your goals. Each two-hour workshop is designed to stand on its own. However, the workshops do build upon each other and compliment how each workshop is understood, especially at this time of year. For instance, the Emotion workshop we did two weeks ago requires that the participants use Yes, and… that was introduced and practiced extensively in the previous workshops. The idea was again discussed briefly in the Emotion workshop, but the idea of using Yes, and… during emotional conversations can be more challenging. The participants will have to use active listening and body language to match their partners emotional energy as well. The transition from Emotion to Trust relies on the idea that participants accept the idea that our Emotions come from our predicting brain based on a lifetime of learning and experiences. Trust comes when groups of people have shared predictions and emotional concepts. On a basic level for a group of people, if x event is good, and y event is bad, then Trust is developed when each member of the group to responds appropriately to x and y. My children are age 9, 6, 4, and 1 and I explain to them that they need to earn my wife and I’s trust by doing what is right even when we are not present. So, trust develops when our concept of “what is right” behavior comes in sync. Trust develops in the same way on my team in the hospital. This is why I spend over an hour with each new team I work with going over expectations. I am communicating my concepts to them so we can get on the same page more quickly, which enhances the trust that I have for them and hopefully they feel that they can trust me because we have shared concepts of what the day will look like. That is why practicing with a new improv team is so important. My team that I have performed with the longest has not had a rehearsal in a long time. However, we have trust in each other from hundreds of past shows and rehearsals. We share concepts and it makes it easier to predict actions on stage, even in novel situations. I read the book Dune last summer in preparation for the movie that recently came out. I felt that Paul was essentially learning improv in his Bene Gesserit training. It also matches up with my belief that improv is practicing tiny changes in communication that lead to greater results. I am not deep into Dune mythology but practicing the ability to predict the actions in new scenarios felt like some of the skills I gained from improv, without the gom jabbar and black box part of the training. Also, the famous quote from the book reminds me of being on stage,

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

Every time I don’t trust myself to make a move on stage makes the show a little worse than it otherwise would have been. I am forced to trust myself or I will feel that little-death. I really came to understand the concept of Trust in improv when I coached the level 1 and level 2 classes this past year. It was essential that everyone in the class trust themselves so that trust could develop between the teammates to take care of each other on stage. I feel the same way working with a team of people in the hospital. I must trust myself to put the concepts out to the group, I must encourage the team members to trust themselves to put their concepts out to the group, and I must set up the environment where these concepts are shared for the benefit of the patients’ health and everyone’s learning for the benefit of future patients’ health.