Search myapha.org

Search

The 2017 Advocates’ Challenges

This post was published at, and has been shared by the APHA Blog.

It is provided so you can find it in a search here at myAPHA.org, but you’ll need to link to the original post to read it in its entirety.

Find the link to the entire post at the end of this excerpt.


The 2017 Advocates’ Challenges

Since I started this blog, and as each new year begins, I try to think of ways to challenge advocate-readers (and advocate-wannabe-readers) with ways they can improve their work, their results for clients, and their businesses, too. This year, that task is so very simple.  Unfortunately, that’s not the good news. Sadly, it’s more like the bad news. Bad news – because this year’s challenges all come from complaints and problems I’ve been asked to respond to – or even fix – in just the past few months. Oh how I dislike this part of my work!  I hate dealing with complaints – hearing them from people who feel they have been wronged, attempting to be reassuring, defending some of the actions they think were wrong….  And I hate fixing problems, no matter whether I caused them myself, or they have to be fixed for someone else. I suspect you feel exactly the same way. My biggest concern, which you’ll understand as you read this post, is that not attending to these problems may invite even bigger ones. So today I’m going to address three of them, all of which YOU can pay attention to, and make sure you’re doing them right yourself. They set the stage for this year’s challenges, turning negatives into positives. There are lessons – and challenges – here for us all. One regards the manners your mama taught you. Manners are important in a profession with integrity. One is about damaging relationships with other professionals. Collaboration and cooperation are key components of our profession.   The third is a major communication problem – the nexus between competency and communication. One of those situations has turned into a lawsuit waiting to happen – a situation you must avoid. So – that’s the crux of this post: turning these complaints and problems into lessons we can all learn from and act upon to improve our service to others, our support of our profession, and the business of being in practice for ourselves. Here they are in no particular order. Please assess for yourself where you stand, and…


Link to the original full length post.

Scroll to Top