About 12 years ago I did my Belbin Team Roles1 analysis. It came free with the purchase of a book and I duly...
Identity
Recognising those who inspired us to be who we are
I can’t believe that we are only a few days away from the first year anniversary of the first confirmed COVID-19 case...
Revolutionary: Spaces for Listening
What do you gift yourself when you have everything you can buy and are unable to have what you really want, for your...
Re-naming: who are we?
"What's in a name? That which we call a roseby any other name would smell as sweet." Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2) I don’t know about you, but nowadays I am rubbish at remembering names. My neurosis reaches a critical point when at social gatherings I am expected to...
Remembering examples of humility
Many years ago when I was new to working with doctors, I met a professor of cardiac surgery. He was approaching retirement, white hair, half moon spectacles, and was the most gentle, enquiring, curious participant on the courses we were running about Supervision. So...
Recognising leaders
There’s only room for one sun in the room, I thought, watching as my colleague held forth yet again. Only happy when at the centre of a group, talking, less good at listening and desperate to do anything to avoid being alone. You would think that the sun, as the...
Re-questioning: who am I?
Who am I? What am I here for? Where am I going? Is this it? These are just some of the existential questions that escape from their dungeon in the darkest recesses of my mind from time to time. Along with the crazy comparisons – she has a chair, he’s running a...
Reflecting humanity
It was raining heavily, rush hour, darkening skies despite the August date. With two teenagers in the back, excited by the film they had just seen, and the windscreen wipers on fast, I navigated the queueing cars in both lanes, sighing at the realisation that the...
Reconnecting: let’s have a good old chat
It was my first day of work. First day as a fully qualified but on probation teacher. It had taken four and a half years with no holidays – we did our teaching practices in the holidays, and I had worked very hard to achieve not just a degree but a diploma in...
Reconsidering who we are: unconscious bias
He appeared in the door of the room I was working in. My students (a group of consultant surgeons) were taking each other through various surgical skills teaching: anastomosing chicken legs; suturing banana skins, and having great fun. Only I noticed the man at the...
Re-positioning: Do our emotions have memories?
Sometimes I think my emotions run through my veins where everyone else’s run through their arteries. I don’t mean mine are limping back to the heart, oxygen delivered, pressure reduced; I mean that mine are there, visible just under the surface of the skin, not buried...
Re-visualising: Who am I?
I am a sponge. Some people are rocks. But I am a sponge. You can confide in rocks and whatever they do with you at the time of the confidence, it will slide off them soon after and they will carry on with their sturdy, often plodding ways. They are rocks because they...