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Clinical Café by Tina Radichel, M.S., CCC-SLP

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Excellence in Chaotic Times

May 2003 Clinical Café by Tina Radichel, M.S., CCC-SLP

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Is the School Year Over Yet?!

You're flying through your e-mail inbox right now. You're late, you're swamped, you're feeling stressed. Take a moment—no, really do it—to literally sit down, sit back, take a deep breath, and read. Your work will not suffer by waiting five minutes, and it will still be there when you're done. This month's Clinical Café acknowledges the end-of- the-school-year craziness with an article about surviving and thriving in the chaos. Whether you work in the schools or work with/know people who do, May is always a time of busy schedules and tight deadlines. And if you're thinking, "It must be nice to have all this time to write these monthly articles," I don't. I'm swamped too. A special thanks to my Wisconsin Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology Association (WSHA) member colleagues who will have to forgive this adaptation of a similar (but shorter) article for the state newsletter.

Excellence Pondered

Have you ever been called excellent because of something in your character/personality or one of your actions? I'm sure you have. Conversely, have you ever been criticized—constructively or otherwise—for making a "mistake," missing the mark, or performing below someone else's expectations? "Certainly," you say. All of us have had both of these happen at some point. Although excellence is a wonderful thing to pursue, being excellent seems to fluctuate. [Gasp!] We're not perfect?! Well, since the answer is no, now what?

The whole concept of excellence seems to indicate a "positive standard"—a mark of performance that individuals and groups are compared to on a particular topic or in a specific area. For us as professionals, I think the notion of excellence exists on two levels: a personal excellence and a clinical excellence.

Two Kinds of Excellence

Personal excellence includes things such as a performance that exceeds expectations, integrity, vision, follow-through, dependability, a "can-do" attitude, selflessness, initiative, care, and compassion. Personal excellence seems to be about who we are and how we approach our work. Conversely, clinical excellence indicates effectiveness, a research base, validity, client-centeredness, authenticity, and efficaciousness. These two types of service excellence are related but certainly not identical. We've all met "excellent" people who are still working on mastering some clinical skills. We've also met "excellent" professionals with very poor bedside manner.

Keys to Success

One of the most difficult things about excellence is that it's often ill-defined. You can't be excellent until you have or know the standard and criteria that define a mark of excellence. If you don't define it in detail, you can't meet it. Personal excellence often has a "feeling" about it; unfortunately, that feeling is sometimes difficult to make tangible in, say, a performance review. Skillful people work hard at thinking about and defining what they believe and value to be "excellent" about themselves and others around them. Character traits and qualities can be listed as strengths or weaknesses, and that will begin to shape the standard to match. Clinical excellence might appear a bit more tangible, but it too can be an enigma. We have research studies and data that we can evaluate and then apply to clinical practice in order to define "what works" as clinically excellent, but even these standards lack clarity at times.

So how do we grow in both types of excellence? Here are a couple of thoughts:

Personal Excellence

1. Get up each morning, and focus on breathing in and out. Rarely is any of this life-threatening, so give it a try.
2. Take 10 minutes to prioritize your day and get organized. Truly, the time it will save you later is measurable!
3. Smile when you are talking on the phone, and every so often consciously smile in a meeting or while you're working. Note the effects. (By the way, following this tip might create some good stories for the SLP Forum's "The Lighter Side of Speech and Language.")

Clinical Excellence

1. Develop standards that are process driven. (Often a process approach is somehow universally applicable.)
2. Define excellent behaviors and valued outcomes for yourself and with your team.
3. Take time to plan and to debrief on both intra- and interpersonal levels (e.g., "How was my performance on that project? What should I do differently next time?" or "What went well for us as a team? What isn't working right yet?").

Bottom line?

The pursuit of excellence (whether personal, clinical, or both) is a lifelong endeavor, which is full of stories—some fun, some heart-warming, some difficult to experience. Hang in there—you WILL survive the month!

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As always, we'd like to thank you for your ongoing service to people with communication needs and to remind you that we are here to support you with that effort. If you'd like to discuss this topic further, please feel free to use the SLP Discussion Center as the vehicle for an ongoing discussion with your colleagues. Should you have questions regarding these or other Pearson Speech and Language products, we welcome your phone calls at 800-627-7271 or use our web site at http://ags.pearsonassessments.com. Best wishes on the end of your school year!