{"id":180,"date":"2016-04-08T10:09:30","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T10:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/brennanpincardiff\/?p=180"},"modified":"2022-04-13T15:08:21","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T15:08:21","slug":"one-of-my-best-days-in-the-school-of-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/brennanpincardiff\/one-of-my-best-days-in-the-school-of-medicine\/","title":{"rendered":"One of my best days in the School of Medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, I attended the first\u00a0Cardiff University\u00a0School of Medicine<\/a> Away Day and I\u2019m happy to say that I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed seeing my colleagues. I enjoyed talking to people that have helped, advised and supported me over 16 years. I enjoyed the smiles, the hellos and the hope. From Professional Services to Professors and from innovators to educators, I was impressed.<\/p>\n

Professor John Bligh<\/a> formally launched MEDIC21, a project to change the School, with the strapline: \u201ccollaboration, commitment and culture\u201d. Next was the inspirational speaker, Damian Hughes<\/a>. Damian advises about elite performance and change management. Damian\u00a0made us laugh. Laughing together is a great way to build relationships.<\/p>\n

Inspiration<\/strong><\/p>\n

From Damian, I took away these key messages:<\/p>\n

Control the controllables<\/em><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. What we think<\/li>\n
  2. What we say (positive or negative language)<\/li>\n
  3. What we do. (positive or negative behavior)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Failure is not failure but an opportunity to learn<\/em><\/p>\n

    Richard Branson refuses to admin that he has failed. Damain talked\u00a0about a mindset that is not \u201cwin or lose\u201d but rather \u201cwin and learn\u201d. The skill of learning from our so called failures is a good survival strategy. In research, we ‘fail’ a lot. We ‘fail’ because we try to do difficult things. But we learn and we try to solve the difficult problems. We learn by ‘failing’. Using this approach more broadly across the School and the University seems worthwhile.<\/p>\n

    Change isn\u2019t easy<\/em><\/p>\n

    Those who try to change things face:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Ridicule<\/li>\n
    2. Violent opposition<\/li>\n
    3. Before the new ideas are accepted as self evident.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Damian\u00a0urged each of us to shape the future that we want to be part of\u2026<\/p>\n

      Setting the priorities<\/strong><\/p>\n

      We broke into groups to discuss the kind of School we wanted. The tables were a mixture of professional services, teachers and researchers. Our table came up with this for our vision of the the School we wanted:\u00a0\"ourSchool\"<\/a><\/p>\n

      Hat tip to Ruth Coomber<\/a> and Rosemary Granger.<\/p>\n

      We discussed priorities which included:<\/p>\n