Angie writes ...
We're all nice people at Nuneaton Moviemakers and we don't take kindly to unpleasant comments, but a training project I'm preparing at work shows that it actually goes much further than personal umbrage. A concept called ‘non-technical skills’ is being looked at increasingly in workplaces that rely on us humans working as a team and responding to situations as they evolve, whether that's faulting a railway, driving a lorry, controlling a plane or undertaking surgery. One area of research that's still very young is the effect of kindness to other people. We're all familiar with the phrase, "in a world where you can be anything, be kind", and perhaps lockdown has jaded us to this expression and mentally consigned it to pithy epitaphs - best suited to fridge magnets, but next time you go and see the doctor, it might be worth your health to bear it in mind.
This is not a thinly veiled threat that the doctor will resort to fisticuffs; any person who has been treated rudely immediately loses some of their ability to think straight. This is why you think of the perfect riposte to that catty remark on the way home, L'esprit de l'escalier if you will, because your brain wasn't up to full capacity at the time. Research reveals that if someone is rude to you in a mild or moderate way, your 'bandwidth', your ability to cope, is reduced by 61%, which you drag round with you until you get a moment to sit and calm down. In a test they did with surgeons they were deliberately rude in a simulated surgery environment; incivility had a really significant influence on the surgical outcome. The whole team was less able to react to changing medical circumstances, and it gets worse, because everyone who saw it happen, also takes collateral damage, their bandwidth is reduced by 20% and are 50% less likely to help. They lose time thinking about it, telling others about it and consuming emotional energy, when they could be using it for better things. People take less care with their work, enjoy their work less, and pass on their bad mood to others, like a virus!
Fortunately, you can train people to cope with people being rude to them, but for those who haven't had the benefit of the training, you can give people a hand to help you, so by being nice, you could be saving someone's life. If you want to find out more go and have a look at www.civilitysaveslives.com And whilst I'm talking about the training project, a special media agency has been engaged to make and film training scenario films. It's the first time I've been able to use my NM skills to get my work done. I've had to document real life scenarios, and then work with a production team and a script writer to capture all the continuity things, manage the casting and edit the script. We have six films that we're making, and the director wants to film two in a day, so re-use the cast on both films. This also means the script has to be lean, with minimal scene changes. They said each scene setup would take half an hour, so some of the action is already on the cutting room floor, being said in exposition instead. They've promised I can go to the filming in May, (assuming we all still have a job by then and are allowed out of lockdown) so I'll keep you posted. The script writers really know their stuff - in terms of what's dead wood and how to make it more interesting for the viewer. I'm finding it really interesting
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