“Actually, I haven’t felt this flat about work since my burnout episode in 2002…” I found myself responding to a kind colleague who asked me during a break how I was. “Thank you for saying that”, he responded, “I’m sorry you’re feeling that way. But it’s kind of nice of know that it’s not just I who’s finding it tough at the moment”.
My work-mood decline had started about two weeks prior. I was feeling viremic and should have just called in sick to my evening/on-call shift, but one of my most paradoxical deficits is that I seem incapable of being absent. Instead, in a tedious and needy act, I phoned work hoping to broker a two-hour delay to the start of my shift. In short, the interaction was completely mismanaged by me, and left me feeling resentful.
After I hung up, in my mind, I went from: “I should just call in sick” to “I should just resign” in 4.7 seconds. A Porsche 911 had nothing on my self-righteous sanctimony. However, I worked my shift as rostered that evening and subsequently, and steadily started to detach myself somewhat.
In hindsight, I was likely simply feeling physiologically ordinary, but because that was tricky to fix, I searched for a psychosocial cause that I could potentially reverse more easily. There is no doubt that it has been a ferocious winter season in healthcare, with significant increases in ED presentations, compounded by staff being either absent on sick leave, or present but not well. I figured that what I was feeling was largely a symptom of this circumstance – and it was clear that we were all feeling it.
Enter the dance challenge.
My workmate (and soul sister), Christa Bell declared on social media that our ED would respond to a gauntlet thrown down by a nearby ED: The Git Up Challenge. “Except”, said Christa, in a typical act of defiance “that song’s a bit slow, so we’ll do another one. How about Stayin’ Alive?” From Christa’s viewpoint, the song would represent our commitment to look out for each other, to keep ourselves alive, so we could look after our patients.
What ensured was a whirlwind seven days whereby we choreographed the dance moves, even filmed ourselves dancing for the purpose of an instructional video for staff – because we knew we were short on time – and corralled/coerced our teams into short practices at handover. I thought that perhaps our colleagues were fantastic learners (most likely) or we were phenomenal teachers (less likely), but our team seemed to pick up the moves almost effortlessly.
It occurs to me now that the rapid acquisition of the team dance was not about learning the moves, but it was about engagement and buy-in, and the need and willingness to connect.
It continues to amaze me that I can show up at medical or nursing handover and say “We’re doing this today for four minutes” and, with no question and little hesitation, the group just stands up and participates. Late in the afternoon after we did the Push-Up challenge in July, a nurse came up and said to me “Oh, I didn’t know the push-ups were for a challenge – I thought we were just doing something random for fun!”
Last week, a physician from another hospital asked me about how she might get a wellness movement off the ground where she works. I found myself suggesting, ironically, that she makes it about her. Individual personalities and team dynamics vary hugely between workplaces and no one approach will work everywhere. But I think starting off by proclaiming how you, yourself, are feeling is a safe approach.
So, for instance, you could say “I noticed you’ve all been struggling this week, so I brought you cake”.
Or, you could say “You know, I’ve been struggling a little this week, and I thought I could do with some cake – would you like some too?”.
The difference is clear: the non-intrusive declaration that I’m here; I’m vulnerable; I thought this may help me; perhaps it may help you too.
As I was slipping into detachment at work this last month, the dance challenge threw me a life-line. It triggered the motivation to make the first move to reconnect – and my workmates were equally hungry for that connection.
It didn’t matter that we were not entirely okay to start with – the dance wasn’t intended to be a showcase of how fabulous we were. It mattered that we were committed to sticking together and being a community for each other – to remind each other of our sense of belonging and of connection – and of the importance of staying alive.
So, whatever you think you may need right now – whether that be cake, or a silly dance at work, or posting up a flyer or an affirmation – work up the courage to do it and gently out it. You never know the kinds of conversations it may start, and the bridges of connection it may start to form.
Watch our dance challenge response below.
