Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

The video Jason and Erin showed in their presentation on Monday is one that I have seen many times, in my HMP classes and is one of my favorite TED talks. It draws attention to a lot of points of improvement for our current healthcare system. Although it outlines how far we have come, it also shows the weaknesses. One of the biggest faults we have as a healthcare system is that it is not a system at all. Gawande explains that American healthcare workers have been trained and think as cowboys, not pit crews. We lack the skills to work together to prevent errors and reduce costs. 

In my job the past couple summers, the phrase "teamwork makes the dream work" was thrown around on an hourly basis. Although it sounds corny, I think it was one of the most important take aways I got from my job, and it can be applied to many different fields. I feel that a lot of emphasis is put on solo work, especially in medicine. I strongly agree with Gawande's idea to implement checklists, and to make sure that doctors rely on each other to catch mistakes. You can see that these two tactics have proven to be effective in preventing errors by the data presented in the video. I believe that the concept of a "pitcrew" can be used in many different areas in healthcare and a high value should be placed on team work. 

The Color Pink

In the movie "Legally Blonde" Elle Woods enters the court room headed to her first big case. She struts in confidently, but theres one thing that is catching the eye of those in the courtroom: She is wearing an all pink suit, complete with a Jackie Kennedy style pill-box hat. She stood out aggressively in the all black and grey wearing crowd. Those viewing the trial doubted her simply based on her appearance. However she showed us that maybe pink is a power color, and won the case.

I don't think this comes as a surprise, but pink is my favorite color.

In society today, the color pink is seen as a symbol of femininity. It is used by marketing companies and brands alike to exude "girly-ness". It hasn't always been this way. Pink, a muted version of Red was considered to be a mans color up until around World War II. Blue was associated with females, being the color of the sky, water, and bringing about a feeling of calmness.

 The color psychology of pink is described as a color that is soft, nurturing, calming, and youthful. Also, it can carry a connotation of immaturity, or over-sensitivity. I have been told multiple times to not wear pink to a professional setting , even in the most appropriate styles of clothing. My freshman year, I took a course called "Fashion This", and we discussed the topic of color psychology often. I always wondered: what deemed grey and black as the colors of our professional world? Why do certain colors act as an outward symbol of your personality?
With my research, I found this list of colors associated with different desired qualities in an employee:

Black – Leadership· Blue - Team Player· Gray - Logical/Analytical· White – Organized· Brown – Dependable· Red – Power· Green, Yellow, Orange or Purple – all four colors were associated with creativity 

As someone who has been working in fashion retail for the past four years, associating color with personality did not surprise me, as I see clothing as an outward expression of who you are. Its hard to say if every person that puts on a white shirt is organized, but its a good thought to hold on to as a future manager. 

I was thinking after looking at this list, if pink is derived from red, shouldn't it be a power color too? I don't think I will be walking into my first day on the job in an all pink suit, but I hope that the unprofessional connotation that the color pink holds will change with time, and it will sit with the rest of the strong colors on that list. 

Reflection on "One"

Now that we are starting on the section "Two", I wanted to reflect on the first part of this course. At first, I was slightly hesitant about creating a course, and unsure about how well we would go about it. I felt comfortable around my classmates at the beginning of the semester, but now I feel like we really work together as a team. I really enjoy going to class because it is something that we created, and something to be proud of.

I also have really enjoyed the topics that we are choosing. They have really forced me to take a step back and look at my soft skills, something that I feel like other classes don't really require, but is so necessary. Topics like Resilience, Motivation, and Identity have brought some clarity to parts of myself that I had been unsure of before.

I know that I will be able to use the skills that we have been working to build in this course(also really enjoying The Office references 😀) I am excited to see what the rest of the semester brings.

Bossy Week 6 post 2

With International Women's Day just happening, (and being a girl who grew up on princess movies) I found this Ted Talk and thought it was very relevant. I loved the use of Frozen's Queen Elsa as an example. Its a great movie and was written by a University of New Hampshire alum!

 Personally, I remember an instance in elementary school so vividly where I was called bossy. It was in second grade and I was in a group with 4 boys doing a project. I noticed one of the boys had spelt "Mississippi" wrong and I politely corrected him. He was so angry that I noticed his mistake, he retreated to a corner of the classroom and muttered "bossy pants" and carried on with his work. I felt so guilty for the rest of the day, and the project, and will never forget being called that name.

I think this ties well into the thought of : "is it better to be feared or loved?" Kelly Parisi uses the example of Queen Elsa, being so worried that her powers will scare people, that she runs away to isolation, builds herself an ice castle, and hides from the world. Rather than facing her fears and learning to lead. I feel like this is an important lesson to hold on to. As a woman or a man, we should not be afraid to use our strengths to lead for the fear of being disliked, or being called bossy.

Emotionally Unintelligent-The Office Week 6 Post 1

 My favorite show ever is NBCs The Office, I could watch it for hours. If you haven't seen it, the show follows the daily antics of a fictional paper company, head by regional manager Michael Scott. If you have not seen it, you really should start watching! Since taking management, I have noticed patterns of Emotional Unintelligence in the shows characters. Although this is hysterical for Netflix, I couldn't help but wonder what would happen in a real workplace in these scenarios. I found a few of my favorite clips and broke down some Emotional Unintelligence!

Toby vs Michael
Michael is definitely unable to craft appropriate behavior based on his surroundings. Especially when it comes to his least favorite HR man Toby, who returns to the office after some time away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfNReBBUk_w

Dwight Does Healthcare
Dwight is probably one of the least empathetic characters in the office. He is desperate for a position of management, and fails any time he is given responsibility, like this time when he tries to take away health benefits.

                                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifFzxiSQsCE


Michael Scott Fake Fires Pam
Michael's management styles are definitely questionable, especially here when he entertains himself by pretending to fire Pam, at the expense of her feelings. He is totally unaware of the emotions of others here.

                                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAxtVMuDYD8

First Aid Training 
Someone comes to the office to teach the team how to administer first aid, you can see by the dancing, emotions are contagious!

                                     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OolIRm0MI6I

Personality Week 5 Post 2

1.     Have someone who knew you during your childhood (preferably a parent or relative) and someone who knows you now (college friend, significant other, etc) take the MBTI test and answer the questions as if they were you. Reflect on these. Are they the same or different? Were you surprised by the results? Rank the personalities from most to least accurate.

2.     Look up your horoscope. Are the traits of your sign similar to the traits of the personality you were given when you took the MBTI? 

3.     Which statement do you relate to the most?

I feel that I can control my own destiny and what happens to me is my own doing.

I feel that things happen to me because of fate, luck, or a powerful being.

1.I had my dad take the MBTI test as if he was me and these were the results he got. 

When I took the MBTI, I received ENFJ, which is pretty similar! I feel like my personality traits have stayed pretty consistent since I was young, especially my extrovert and feeling traits. 

2. As for my Zodiac, I am born under the Cancer sign. 

"Strengths: Tenacious, highly imaginative, loyal, emotional, sympathetic, persuasive

Weaknesses: Moody, pessimistic, suspicious, manipulative, insecure

Cancer likes: Art, home-based hobbies, relaxing near or in water, helping loved ones, a good meal with friends" 

In most of the research I have done on my zodiac sign, I have found that Cancers are highly emotional people, with the ability to mask their emotions with their "shell". I feel like this definitely lines up with the Feeler aspect of my personality results. 

3. Growing up, I went to a Catholic school and we were always taught that God had a plan for us and that was that. As I have gotten older, and moved away from that mindset, I really do think that we are in charge of our own destinies. I am a firm believer that you get out what you put in.

A Team of Extroverts Week 5 Post 1

This week has been extremely busy for me. Caroline, Shayna, and I have a 12 page Policy paper due on Monday and we have been working on it constantly. Normally I dread papers like this. They stress me out like no other. I noticed something different about this group though, we share most of the same traits from the 16 Personalities test, and its pretty obvious because of how well we work together. (Shayna is a ENFP and Caroline and I are ENFJ)

I noticed first when we started working on the paper and we brainstormed out loud about all of the ideas we had for our topic. We didn't talk over each other, and everyone got their voice in. Even the way we wrote was vocal. Before writing, we would say the sentence out loud and verbally edit it. I thought this was interesting because extroverts have a tendency to process information out loud, and thats exactly what we did. Also, the work didn't seem so hard because of our high energy levels and enthusiasm we had in a team setting.

Caroline 

I realized that we are a great team and I definitely think that our personalities have a role in that.

Shayna 

Regan