Editorial
Curiosity: Asking questions and listening
for answers
We are writing this editorial in autumn; the leaves changing colour on the trees outside
often put one into a refl ective frame of mind. It so often looks like an ending, and the
new season feels a long time away. Yet the nee...
Practice Development in Health Care 181
Pract. Dev. Health Care 8(4) 181–184, 2009
Published online 10 November 2009 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/pdh.296
Editorial
Curiosity: Asking questions and listening
for answers
We are writing this editorial in autumn; the leaves changing colour on the trees outside
often put one into a reflective frame of mind. It so often looks like an ending, and the
new season feels a long time away. Yet the need to have a time of low-visibility activity
to deal with harsh conditions, to store energy and decide on where to grow next is as
relevant to organizations (and, indeed, this Journal) as it is to nature. This will be the
last issue of Practice Development in Health Care in its current form, and the need to
move and change is ever present for us too. It is, however, only human to look at change
and feel a certain fatigue. As leaders in the health care environment, we are not exempt,
as we look around we see:
•
•
Many health care teams who have been running at top speed for too long
A work force which is more characterized by menopause than maternity and
all the associated life transition challenges it poses
• Established leaders being asked to mentor not one or two but three generations
of health care workers, each generation being characterized by its own set of
beliefs and needs
• A political environment which adds a level of complexity not always informed
and supportive in its actions.
So how do we stay engaged, how do we as leaders continue to be curious about the
system in which we operate so that we stay open to other possibilities – to other possible
avenues of development? How do we continue to share our knowledge with generations
we do not really understand?
Well, perhaps part of the answer lies in how we reinvigorate our own response
to complex and difficult situations. This starts by understanding the nature of the
problem and our likely responses to it. In an adaptation of Grint’s (2005) work,
Benington and Hartley 2009 (see Table 1) suggest that different types of problems
need very different behavioural responses.
Equally, at times of stress and without time to think, we can easily get locked
into a view that the world is all about tame problems. This can rapidly lead to high
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