Category: Concept of Change

People often struggle for change because humans are drawn to search and find better things and possibilities. People are always searching for advantages and reasons to have a better life. There are two types of people: those who don’t leave their comfort zone, and those who always try to find a new way of getting better at what they do. People give up when the situation is difficult, but also often they fight for what they think and deserve. I certainly believe people always struggle for what they think is better, and I base my argument on three stories.

The first one is about Linda Brown, a girl who had to walk half a mile and take three buses to go to a black school, even though she had a white school nearby. Her parents realized it was insane to make their daughter walk so much to go to school, and they decided to go to court and fight for Linda’s education. Linda’s parents explained that kids should be integrated, citing the 14th Amendment, which provides for “equal protection and opportunities to every citizen”. Her father stated that by segregating kids they are minimizing the number of opportunities they might have of having a better life.

My second example is about Sojourner Truth. She was an African-American abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Her best-known speech was delivered in 1851, at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. The speech became widely known during the Civil War by the title ‘Ain’t I a Woman’. Sojourner Truth said: “That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?”. She struggled for her rights and showed what she felt. She didn’t think about the consequences it might have, she just wanted to have a better life.

And my third example is when women fought for the right to vote. Women knew they were capable of making important decisions, and they also knew they were as capable as men to do everything. They knew they were being treated differently, and they knew they had to do something about it. They fought knowing they would be treated badly for fighting, but they didn’t care because they knew they were doing the right thing. The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote and was ratified on August 18, 1920, ending almost a century of protest.

To conclude, people struggle for what they think is the right thing to do and are not afraid to fight for what they want. People want to have equality and the best things they can get, they struggle for that, people often want to make their voices sound, people want to be heard. It also requires an understanding and agreement that the change will truly make things better for all involved. And that is needed so cautious people can assess whether the pain of change is worth it or not.

People often struggle for change because humans are drawn to search and find better things and possibilities. People are always searching for advantages and reasons to have a better life. There are two types of people: those who don’t leave their comfort zone, and those who always try to find a new way of getting better at what they do. People give up when the situation is difficult, but also often they fight for what they think and deserve. I certainly believe people always struggle for what they think is better, and I base my argument on three stories.

The first one is about Linda Brown, a girl who had to walk half a mile and take three buses to go to a black school, even though she had a white school nearby. Her parents realized it was insane to make their daughter walk so much to go to school, and they decided to go to court and fight for Linda’s education. Linda’s parents explained that kids should be integrated, citing the 14th Amendment, which provides for “equal protection and opportunities to every citizen”. Her father stated that by segregating kids they are minimizing the number of opportunities they might have of having a better life.

My second example is about Sojourner Truth. She was an African-American abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Her best-known speech was delivered in 1851, at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. The speech became widely known during the Civil War by the title ‘Ain’t I a Woman’. Sojourner Truth said: “That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?”. She struggled for her rights and showed what she felt. She didn’t think about the consequences it might have, she just wanted to have a better life.

And my third example is when women fought for the right to vote. Women knew they were capable of making important decisions, and they also knew they were as capable as men to do everything. They knew they were being treated differently, and they knew they had to do something about it. They fought knowing they would be treated badly for fighting, but they didn’t care because they knew they were doing the right thing. The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote and was ratified on August 18, 1920, ending almost a century of protest.

To conclude, people struggle for what they think is the right thing to do and are not afraid to fight for what they want. People want to have equality and the best things they can get, they struggle for that, people often want to make their voices sound, people want to be heard. It also requires an understanding and agreement that the change will truly make things better for all involved. And that is needed so cautious people can assess whether the pain of change is worth it or not.

To make something different happen you need to implement a change. Whether planned or unplanned to achieve and establish goals, you need for first bring it fourth. In the nursing field, a change agent can be a leader or staff nurse who works in nursing. Change theories are used to bring planned/unplanned changes in nursing. Kurt Lewin, who is known to be the father of social psychology, uses three theory stages: moving, unfreezing and refreezing stage.

Unfreezing stage is an important stage to understand. Unfreezing is all about getting ready to change. It’s about getting to a point of understanding that change is needed within an environment and getting away from the comfort zone we are so use to. In the freeze stage, one begins to prep and get ready to implement something new. As a new we see this happening all the time in the hospital. A new change that’s being made at my job is nursing staff silencing telemetry alarms. Sometimes on the monitor an artifact could be showing which could set off an alarm, and it’s a natural instinct to silence it. But there was an incident where a patient was in distress and due to someone silencing the alarm, that patient was put in harm’s way. So, from now on if an alarm goes it, it will continue to ring until the patient’s heart rate goes back to sinus rhythm.

The second change is known as moving or transition stage. This stage isn’t an event but rather a process which is why it’s considered a transitional change. This is often the hardest stage for most individuals because people are fearful to get out of comfort zone and move towards something new. This change requires support, training and coaching to guide people. Going back to silencing telemetry alarms; a lot of staff had hard problems because they would be charting and couldn’t concentrate due to the noise. Instead of checking on the patient and making sure they were alright, staff would complain about shutting the noise out.

Stage three, freezing is sometimes referred to as refreezing. This stage is all about establishing stability once a change has been made. At this final stage, it’s been accepted and considered normal. Now at my job when an alarm goes off, someone goes into the patients’ room and sometimes the patient has taken their leads off their tele or has dis-connected themselves to go to the bathroom, or maybe sleeping wild. Once the problem has been solved the noise stops. Our staff quickly learned that this change was implemented to make sure the patient remains safe at all times and if there is an arrhythmia going on, us as nurses are able to catch it, asses the patient properly and treat appropriately.

Conflict happens when there is a disagreement resulting from individuals or group that differ in attitudes, beliefs, values or needs (Porter-O’Grady, T, 2016). Organizational conflict can occur due to tight budgets, staffing issues, management, and disagreements among staff member. Other type of conflict is interpersonal, which basically means a disagreement amongst individuals (Porter-O’Grady, T 2016). There are five steps in managing a conflict: analyze the conflict, determine management strategy, pre-negotiation, negotiation and post-negotiation. No matter what job you do, there will always be some form of conflict. The most important thing to do is to analyze point of views from both sides and find a conclusion to come to.

As stated previously, a change agent implements plans to achieve a new and better goal. As a change agent you need to be able to identify problems and resolve the issue. As nurses we constantly play a role as a change agent whether it comes to our patient’s safety or medication administration. We as nurses have to know that there will always be some form of conflict, but we must remember to handle the conflicts properly and resolve all issues thoroughly.