Monday, May 10, 2021. I had to look for a while in the calendar but I found it. The day I had my first job interview at EHdK. How exciting it was to sit there in front of people who later became my colleagues. When asked what I wanted to learn, I summarily replied “being a good consultant. But what all fell in there, I didn’t know then.
In recent years the EHdK do-business office has grown into a thriving team of talents’ it says on the website; this is very true. Every day I am happy to work with so many fun, smart and driven colleagues and clients. I get to contribute to the health care of vulnerable people of tomorrow, together with everyone who goes for it. It is hard work, challenging yourself, daring to get to know yourself. That’s not always fun because it rubs you the wrong way sometimes, but you learn a lot from it. Besides, you don’t have to invent it on your own.
When you are just starting out you may think – at least I thought so – that you must already know everything. And that you have to show it. It’s not quite like that. Of course it helps enormously to read up, to talk with your colleagues and to keep up to date with the news about youth aid, for example. But what works even better is asking questions and listening well. Very good listening.
An example; for the past year I have been involved with a colleague in a large project in the juvenile justice chain. That is the chain a young person enters when he or she comes into contact with the criminal justice system. The so-called youth aid in the criminal law framework, is under great pressure. Supply is scarce, there are waiting lists, and the lack of information exchange between the parties involved often makes it difficult to reach good decisions. In our project, six partners and a number of municipalities have expressed their desire to work together to better understand each other’s perspective and to come to solutions together for the problems in this chain.
When we heard the major problems and issues they were facing, the EHdK consultants’ ambition arose to quickly come up with concrete improvement plans. A good intention, you might say. But each proposal received little support. As it turned out, we had started quickly but we still knew too little. To really properly understand the problems in their region, we needed everyone’s perspective. And they needed to speak to each other at length. When we decided to act in a more facilitating role and some representatives were appointed from within the group, everything loosened up. Idea after idea, everyone wanted to contribute.
We took a step back and began to listen more carefully. Then everything came to the table. If you ask me now what makes someone a “good advisor,” the answer is: learning to listen very well.
Want to read what it’s like when you first start working at EHdK from college? Mees tells all about it in his blog!