Old Topic New Thoughts

Old Topic New Thoughts

John Paul Derryberry

I’m rather big on transparency, so this week’s Sunday Night With John might be for me than anyone else. I’m circling around a conversation I had over a decade ago with a couple of consultants. I have written about this conversation before. I’m looking at it from a different viewpoint this Sunday. This happens with cornerstone life moments. We keep circling back to them, and they somehow provide new meaning.  We will get to the meaningful conversations in due time, but let’s set the scene. I was a frustrated mid-level supervisor in my late 20s, attempting to decide whether I wanted to stay in a field I had grown highly passionate about.  There were two reasons that made me passionate about the field. The first one was that I was oddly skilled, from a personality standpoint and outlook on life, to thrive in high behavior intervention settings. The highly dangerous behaviors didn’t stick with me permanently, and I was good at figuring out how to convince clients to change course. It was challenging work. Even today, if someone were to give my agency enough money so that we no longer have to worry about finances, I would spend most of my time intervening with so-called difficult clients.

Second, and probably the more important reason I was frustrated in the field, was the lack of desire, will, and innovative thought to change the way we did things. I would have doubled my salary if I got a nickel for every time a staff member said, 'That’s not how we have ever done things,' or told 'no' to a new idea. Now, I would still have been rather poor with my salary doubled, but I would have had to skip fewer meals. There always seemed to be this idea that the only path forward was to march the same path we had walked in social work for decades. The idea is that a lack of characters causes the issues; the goal is to get out of the front-line work, progress can't really be made, and it’s everyone else’s fault. It just felt like a field filled with dead ends after dead ends, and a slow crawl to accepting you can’t really make a difference. No way to navigate your life.

Enter two talented consultants, as the executive decided he wanted to try one last push to modernize social work. I was lucky enough to be picked and volunteered to work with this group. My small program at this non-profit was doing some interesting things with interventions led by my favorite boss, my coworkers, and our clients. As conversations with them unfolded, it placed me in a professional incubator, as I realized how much useful information I could glean by just being in their presence. I found the courage to ask why innovation was so hard to achieve in this field. (Side note: after marrying my wife, I have learned education might be the toughest place to innovate.) After the usual conversation about the inherent risk of trying something new, the fear of failure, and staff always seeking comfort over results, the discussion ended. The one consultant looked at me and said, “You do not seem satisfied with those answers.” I replied that they make sense, but I truly believe people enter this field to make a difference.

He uttered the phrase The tip of a spear is a lonely place with tons of pressure and most people avoid loneliness and pressure.  I gave a puzzled look, and the consultant continued, explaining that changing a system, a tradition, or a field of work is like piercing a shield with the tip of a spear. That tip of the spear is exposed, fragile, and faces pressure from the front and the back. The tip of the spear has to keep pushing through the shield even after it’s made contact with it. That takes fortitude, resilience, and the ability to keep pushing when you think you've used up all your energy. And this explanation made sense, changing things is hard work, and you do end up feeling like. You are chipping away at a brick wall. The energy it takes to keep chipping away is not something everyone can muster for the months and years it takes to break on through to the other side (To borrow a famous music line from the Doors).

I’m still in touch with one of the consultants, and we frequently discuss the concept. Mostly because it recharges me for the next strike at the brick wall that is tradition, stubbornness, and inertia, that things should change in our field. I have found my place at the forefront of social work in my professional career. It needs to change, to modernize. Yet what I have found in my travels is that we all find ourselves in the tip of the spear's struggles. We are all attempting to change a habit, a relationship quirk, a personality trait, and we feel vulnerable, lonely, and pressured to make it all work. I have discovered no method to lessen the feelings to the point of giving up.

As you can see, I have not done that yet and don't plan to do so anytime soon. That doesn't mean it doesn’t cross my mind occasionally.  I do not know if my efforts will change my field, but I do know all these years later, the thought of giving up makes me more frustrated than the idea of continuing to attempt to break through. That fact has made the tip of the spear a comfortable place for me, and whatever battle you are facing at the tip of your spear. I hope you find a way to be comfortable there as well.