Make the world a better place and start with a sausage roll
Richard Engelfriet is an advisor to the Walk of Walk of Wisdom foundation. Below is a column written by him.’
About three years ago, I chaired an inspiring meeting of the GGzE (an institution for mental health care). All kinds of employees presented their ideas about improving care. The undisputed winner was the idea of John Swaneveld, an employee of the emergency psychiatry department. He works with very confused and often aggressive clients. It happens that as many as six employees are needed to keep 1 patient under control. Sometimes there is no other option than to put someone in a segregation cell.
It didn’t sit well with John. His organization pretends to be people-oriented, but putting the six of them on top of someone and then locking them up in a bare cage has little to do with that. And so John, together with a colleague, came up with a brilliant plan.
Imagine the situation: an aggressive patient whose fuses have blown out. Tough employees literally on top of it. And then John comes in. He looks the patient in the eye and asks the question in an unadulterated Brabant accent: ‘Did you make a sausage roll?’. And believe it or not, the vast majority of patients melt away. Remember that some may not have eaten for days, and so far they have only encountered aggression. And then, all of a sudden, someone offers something to eat in a friendly way. The result is astounding: the use of the isolation cell has decreased drastically – sometimes it is even empty for weeks.
I’m looking for more Johns!
I regularly provide sessions in which I challenge people to come up with a ‘sausage roll’ for their own work. A simple plan with amazing results. However, that turns out to be very difficult for many people. Strangely enough, it takes us no effort at all to write pages full of structural visions, visions of the future, bottlenecks and possible solutions. But ask people to come up with a simple plan that we can work on tomorrow and they’ll clam up. Apparently, being difficult is very simple, while doing simple is very difficult.
And that’s why I want to make an appeal with this column. I’m looking for all Johns of the Netherlands. People who are not in the spotlight every day, but who make a difference in a simple way. I want to offer them a platform to tell their story. And that’s how we make the Netherlands a little bit simpler together. I’m ready for it ;-)
Richard Engelfriet
Photo: Velp Monastery (NB) by Els Groffen. More about the route of the Walk of Wisdom
