Introverts in the workplace

Article: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/work/15-things-introverts-dont-work-that-makes-them-excel.html

While researching for a topic to reflect upon in my blog, I found an interesting article describing Introverts and how some of the qualities they possess that are viewed as negative are actually positive in the long run. This article really stood out to me because I was listed as an introvert in the first day of class after taking the sixteen personality test and the big five survey. I was eager to find out some of the qualities and surprisingly there were many more than I originally thought there were going to be. I'll describe a few in detail due to the fact that there were fifteen different qualities mentioned in the article. The first trait that I found interesting was that introverts don't speak before they think. This is a positive attribute because an introverted individual would take their time and listen in order to reflect on the person their communicating with. In the health care field this attribute is significant because managers don't like to get interrupted and want to see that your interpreting the information. First impressions and communication skills are key to becoming an effective manager and interrupting people ahead of you in the organization might not the be the smartest idea. Another crucial quality I discovered was that introverts don't patronize those who they lead or are below them. In class we have discussed the importance of effective managers walking around the whole organization and talking to all of the individuals about aspects in the workplace or even factors in their outside lives. One of the quotes from the article that summed up this idea was," it is second nature for introverted bosses to listen, appreciate and validate great ideas, and highly unlikely for them to treat those they lead condescendingly." When I thought about this quote, it finally clicked to me that introverted managers can be just as effective as extroverted managers. The last quality that I found really interesting was that introverts tend not to care if they work long or extended hours in the workplace. This might not sound that impressive but in reality it can be very useful. This attribute means that introverted individuals can focus on one activity for an extended period of time without losing focus. Focus is a key for an effective manager because no one wants to work for an individual that constantly lacks attention to detail. Overall this article did an excellent job summing up how introverted managers can potentially be as effective or more effective than extroverted managers.

Emotional Intelligence

During our last class we discussed the topic of emotional intelligence, which most of the class seemed to really enjoy, including myself.  We started off by taking a quiz that rates an individual on different traits related to emotional intelligence and I scored very well on the emotional self control but fairly low on empathy. Having high emotional self control means that I'm able to control my emotions very well, which includes scenarios when temptations are thrown my way. On the other hand, having low empathy means that I have a hard time sharing emotions with another individual or knowing how that individual feels based on the feelings their expressing. Personally, I believe this was more revolved around the fact that I tend to be to laid back and sometimes have difficulty expressing emotions with other people. Overall, I thought this quiz was very effective in calculating the strengths and weaknesses of individual's emotional intelligence.

The second part of the class was intriguing because the group presenting had us do a charades activity which had eight different people acting out different emotions with the rest of the class guessing what their trying to express. Some of the emotions, like happiness and sadness, were easy to distinguish because the feeling is common in every single individual. Emotions such as stressed out and confidence were harder to distinguish because different people show different signs when their experiencing these feelings. I thought this exercise fit the overall presentation really well because it represented that emotional intelligence is key in the work force and future managers need to be able to read peoples emotions based on the signs their showing. Also I thought this exercise showed how people judge each other all the time depending on the emotions and feelings their expressing. This relates directly to me because I had an interview with the New Hampshire Hospital Association and they probably judged me within seconds depending on how I presented myself and the emotions I showed.

A big bulk of the rest of the class was focused on a TED talk talking about emotional intelligence in the workforce. One of the biggest statements that I took out of this video was the fact that the presenter,  Brene Brown, said that vulnerability could be a strength of an individual in the workforce rather than a downfall. At first, I was skeptical about this being true bus as she continued through the lecture I started to believe her more and more. Every single person on the earth hates to feel vulnerable, but these types of situations really makes an individual learn from the experience and improve on it. Also, one of my classmates shared an interesting statement that one of her professors had made in the past and it stated that individuals that are scared to feel vulnerable usually don't want to ruin their pride and reputation. I believe this is spot on and I had never thought of it that way which really made me see stressful situations in a different way. The biggest takeaway from this video was that vulnerability will make an individual grow in positive ways by giving them confidence and takeaway skills that will help them improve down the road.

Overall, I thought this was an excellent presentation that really integrated the class and allowed everyone to participate. One of the biggest factors I learned was that individuals judge each other every day depending on the emotions and body language they are witnessing. Also, being put in stressful situations is really good for an individual, especially me, because it allows them to improve on their skills in the workforce. This topic was really interesting because I related extensively to most of the topics that were discussed.

Motivation

Our first real class that is run by the students is revolved around the topic of motivation, specifically self motivation and what factors influence it in a negative and positive way. We did a short quiz that asked a few questions about self motivation and asked us to rank them from a 1-5 scale on how applicable it is to our everyday lives. The score I received on the quiz was a 39, which was right in the middle of the pack. This score reflects that I'm self motivated during some scenarios, but less motivated when it comes down to other situations. I think this a pretty accurate reflection on how I motivate myself to perform in situations because I always have a strong drive when it comes down to getting school work done compared to the drive I have when there is a situation that doesn't directly affect me as much. Also, the first group asked us to write down the five things that motivated us the most and the five biggest distractions that cause us to lose that drive. My top five motivators are family, friends, future jobs, personal goals, and overall success. I remind myself everyday that these are the factors that keep me going in life and that I have to follow them in order to have a successful life. My top five biggest distractions are the weekends, friends, work, TV/Computer/Xbox, and sporting events. These are events that have consistently challenged my motivation to complete tasks because these are my outside factors that also play a critical role in my life. Learning how to balance the distractions in my life are key to increasing self motivation and I need to realize that these factors could potentially affect my life in a negative way. Motivation is a critical aspect of individual performance in organizational management due to the fact that a good working team starts with well prepared, hard working, and self driven individuals. A good working team cannot have individuals that have an issue with motivating themselves to perform at the highest level that they possibly can.  If  individuals in the work force aren't motivated, than mistakes could possibly happen due to the lack of focus and drive to complete the task in a quality manner. An organization doesn't want problems associated with their work force because it could cause the patients they serve to switch health care providers, leading to less overall profit gained. Also, if the problems come down to one certain individual that wasn't self motivated to deliver the highest quality of  care, than the organization is most likely to take some form of action in delivering an appropriate punishment. A health care worker does not want to have the reputation hanging over them as being lazy because it could affect future job offers by different organizations or promotions to new job titles. I believe that the topic of motivation is an excellent choice for the first class run by the students because that is the first step in having a quality and high functioning health care team. Overall I've learned that I need to work on balancing some of the distractions in my life to become more self motivated, no matter what the situation is. Motivation is the key to becoming successful in the work force at an individual level as well as a team level. Individuals without motivation will drag the team down and affect the overall quality of healthcare being delivered. Motivation is the engine on the team and needs to be consistently fueled with individuals that have the drive to be successful.

Individuals in Different Health Care Settings (week 2, post1)

Last week I got in contact with my mentor that our professor assigned to us on the first day of class and the experience went really well. We began our discussion by reviewing our backgrounds of one another. I went on to explain a short background of myself, where I grew up, my interests and so forth. My mentor started describing his career and the different opportunities that have presented themselves to him over his thirty year experience in the health care field. One of the things that stood out to me was the fact that he delivered health care for the navy and the setting was pre dominantly on a boat rather than a hospital. This was very intriguing to me because I've learned, for the most part, health care delivery in a hospital setting and I was curious on the similarities and differences compared to the navy. My mentor described how he was in charge of one hundred people on the naval boat, and how he moved up in the system to become the overseer of all those individuals. This made me think about all of the challenges that could come possibly come up, especially when the navy is in the middle of the ocean. When I presented the question to my mentor, he had a very interesting answer and he made it seem like it was the most important/frequent challenge that occurs in the delivery of naval health care. The problem he described was the difficulty of communicating with all of the different health care individuals when he was out at sea with the navy. This man knew how to deliver health care, but he obviously had to acquire the supplies from some health care professional on land in the United States. He described the difficulties of communicating with different health care individuals, and it revolved around the fact that he could never tell them an exact time on when he would be back to receive the goods based on the ever changing schedule of the navy. He went on to describe that having good relationships with these health care individuals was key to having a good delivery of care, especially when the navy has to cancel due to a schedule infraction. I was very intrigued that my mentor was involved in navel health care rather than traditional, hospital care because I learned all of the difficulties/problems associated with it. This made me think about communication between all kinds of health care settings and how crucial it is for individuals to have good relationships with one another. For example, a primary physician who administers a prescription medication to a patient must have a good relationship with the pharmacy in order to make sure that the drug is ready and on time. This comes down to effective relationships between the doctors, patients, and pharmaceutical workers in order for the quality of care to be as high as it could be. Ineffective communication between different health care individuals could really hurt people, whether it is a patient who wasn't given the correct care or a health care professional who makes a mistake prescribing a drug or diagnosing a sickness. These thoughts bring me back to my sophomore year when I took Health Management Systems because we learned how different health care settings communicate and transform information to one another through things like electronic health records. We went over people trying to breach the information and how these settings offer authentication protocols in order to keep the information safe, which keeps the relationships between everyone at a quality and healthy level. Overall my mentor did an excellent job describing his health care system and it really made me open my mind on how challenging it is for different health care systems to effectively communicate with one another.

Communicating with individuals

While in class, my professor had an exercise where he split us into four different groups and asked us to list things that would make a spring break vacation special to us. After the four groups finished jotting down their examples, he went on to explain that he split the four groups up based on how they scored in the 16 results test. Two of the groups where extroverts and based their decisions off either emotions or senses. The other two groups were introverts who also based their decisions on the same criteria listed before. Personally, I was in the introverted group that based most of their decision off their emotions or the spur of the moment. This exercise, for some reason, really made me think about how I've communicated with other individuals in the past, especially ones that are extroverted or have completely different personalities than me. Also, this exercise made me think of a possible discussion topic for this class in the future. Communication is a crucial part of management, and an effective manager needs to have the tools to be able to communicate with all types of people, no matter what types of personality they have. Personally, I live with six other roommates, and before I did this exercise I didn't even notice that I communicate with each of them in different ways. There are two people in my apartment that stick out to me the most that have completely different personalities and qualities from one another but still are able to communicate. The first individual has an extroverted, and aggressive type of behavior. Being in the marines might have helped in the shaping of his personality over the past couple of years, but communicating with him can become difficult. This exercise made me realize that I don't get as fired up when talking to him because I realize that he will become angry due to the emotions he frequently shows. Shouting back at a person with an aggressive behavior will get you no where because it will cause the situation to escalate quickly. Communicating in a calm and laid back style seems to be more effective due to the fact that this individual notices that the situation isn't as extreme as he foresees it. On the other hand, my other roommate is very introverted and doesn't seem to voice his opinion when people ask him questions or a situation comes up that causes him to make a radical decision. Communicating with this individual is just as hard, but in a completely different way. I try to communicate with this individual by being more stern and persuading him to tell me how he feels in certain situations, otherwise I would never know what is running through his mind. This group exercise made me realize how effective communication styles with different types of people are effective, and the lack of these skills can become detrimental in a work place.

The Health Management and Policy Field doesn't revolve around individual work. This field is driven by teamwork and ideas thrown out by multiple people in order to find the right solution to a health problem. I think the topic of effective communication skills/management techniques with individuals or groups of people could be an interesting future topic for my HMP 722 class. I believe fifteen out of the sixteen people in the class are HMP majors and management is crucial to the field. Learning about these different skills and communication techniques could really help us out in the long run if our goal is to one day become a manager of a department or hospital. Personally, I have had a manager who was terrible at communicating with her employees. This made the job unbearable and forced me to put my two weeks in after just seven months of being on the job. The manager is the engine of the team and the role model to their employees. If the employees don't feel like they can effectively communicate with their manager, than the quality of work will go down as well as their overall respect. Overall, I believe that this would be a very interesting topic to discuss in this class due to the fact that the majority of the people want to be future managers and learn the most effective communication skills that would be effective for individuals with different personality types.