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JEAN’S CASE(*)

Jean had been a full-time community relations worker for six years, focusing on race relations projects.  One of the projects to which she had given a great deal of time was a proposal to set up a new race relations centre.  A few years ago she had moved out of her community relations role into a job which was less stressful but also less challenging.  Recently she had agreed to become involved in the race relations centre but was very concerned about burning herself out again. Another new demand on Jean’s time was that she had entered a very serious long-term personal relationship.

Jean’s background problem was to decide just how much of herself to commit to the new race relations centre.  She saw in front of her too many demands upon her time and energy and feared that she might not be able to live up to the commitment she had made to the centre.  One pressing problem became clear as the situation was probed - a deadline ten days ahead for a funding application which was crucial to the future of the project.  How was Jean to deal with this pressure?

STAGE 1: UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION AND DECISION

Jean told her story:

The immediate decision facing Jean was how to play her part in making the funding application.  Her thoughts were dominated by how exhausting this was, and what her future commitments would be if the application succeeded.  She was almost as worried about success as about failure – success would mean more demands upon her.  She felt a strong sense of duty to the others.

Perhaps because of intense pressures in her life in the days leading up to the workshop, Jean hadn’t done much to consider the options before trying the PROGRESS model.  She thought that a couple of sessions with Femi would bring her up to speed on the finances and then she could guide Phillipa in preparing the application. This would ensure that the application was competently presented, but would place a considerable strain on her time and energy. 

When Jean was asked what emotions she had about working on the project, she identified excitement, fulfilment, exhaustion and fear of burnout.  The project fitted the pattern of her life and ‘grounded’ her in the area where she lived.  She cared about the new race relations centre, the people and the opportunity to use her skills.   Against these positive feelings she also felt anxiety about the time and energy needed to fulfil her responsibilities.  She did not have the financial knowledge to complete the current funding application, and finding time to meet with Femi would be difficult.

While talking, Jean also raised the following issues that were troubling her:

STAGE 2: WHAT MATTERS MOST

Drawing upon her description of her work in relation to the project and her feelings about it Jean identified the following values that she held, rating them out of 10 for strength:

One of the things that became clear from this was that Jean valued working on the project very highly, in particular for the sense of belonging, purpose and friendship that it gave her. By comparison to the high scores for these, she gave a score of 5 to the explicit purpose of the new study centre: overcoming mistrust between local communities. Jean explained that while the centre’s philosophical goals were very important, she had come to take these for granted – there was no sense of conflict about them in her mind.

A sense of belonging was a more powerful and challenging aspect of the project for her.  Her involvement allowed her to maintain contacts she had developed during her years in race relations.  She also appreciated the responsibility given to her in the project, because her current paid employment was not very challenging.

STAGE 3 AND 4: GENERATING AND ASSESSING OPTIONS

With these values in view, it was obvious that one option that Jean was not interested in, certainly at this crucial stage in the search for funds, was to give up working on the project.  To do this would be to cut herself off from a place where she felt she  belonged, and to let down her friends and colleagues. Given this, the group investigated how Jean could take part in the funding application while also satisfying her values of preserving her health and time.

As luck would have it there were two people in the group who had sat on charity boards considering applications and they both emphasised that the boards were much less concerned with the financial details of the application than with the project in general. This area of threat to Jean’s time, energy and feeling of competence was reduced.
 
We often fail to notice things about our own problem that can be obvious to someone else. The group noticed two factors that Jean had missed.  Firstly, she was anxious about having a clean form for the final application.  Therefore she was keeping her own copy of the form blank, while advising Phillipa – the person new to the charity - on filling in another draft copy.  This meant that Jean was reluctant to make her own draft of the application, and hence spoil her clean form, instead wanting to get everything right in joint sessions with Phillipa. Clearly though the form could be photocopied or more could be obtained from the funder.

Secondly, Jean had been anxious about the amount of time needed for her to supervise Phillipa’s work on the application.  Jean had seen Phillipa as new to the project and not quite fitting in with the general mood  - Phillipa was full of beans, while the other members were exhausted.  Rather than thinking that Phillipa's mood was a disadvantage, as Jean  unconsciously had framed it, the group suggested that Phillipa’s enthusiasm and energy could be used to advantage. Phillipa could be given her head and get on with making a draft of the application.

Jean recognised that Phillipa had worked well so far on the project, and agreed that she should do the first draft of the application.  With energy, enthusiasm and free time, Phillipa could put in the hard graft for the first draft  – on a duplicate form.  This would cut down the amount of work for Jean, both in writing of the application and in the number of meetings needed to hash out finances etc.  Once Phillipa had done the first draft then Jean and Femi could meet with her to fine tune the application. The financial details, rather than being overwhelming, were simply to be an appendix to the application.

This option captured the important values that Jean had recognised – she would fulfil her sense of belonging, be loyal to her friends, and preserve her own health as far as possible through this busy period. She would also be developing the competence of Phillipa, who over time would develop further as a useful member of the team. 

Commentary

Jean had come with a large problem, how to fulfil her role while avoiding a recurrence of the burnout she had experienced in her race relations job.  As is often the case this issue was framed by Jean in terms of two polarised options – either she could give up being involved in the project or she could continue but risk burnout.  While the group problem solving did not entirely sort out a path for the future, rather concentrating on one small part of the problem, it did suggest an alternative to the two polarised possibilities.

When we investigated what Jean valued, the sense of belonging and purpose that she got from the project was rated very highly. Given this, it would not seem wise for her to give up her involvement without good reason.  The task was to find a way for her to continue and to preserve her health through finding imaginative ways of fulfilling her role.   We made a start by offering alternative methods of preparing the funding application.

* Jean took part in a group workshop. She presented her problem and she and the other participants, led by a PROGRESS facilitator, used PROGRESS to work through her problem. The session took a little under one and a half hours. Details have been changed to preserve the privacy of 'Jean'.