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etween nurses while talking away any political action thus keeping a
habitus of powerlessness (i.e. a lack of agency and autonomy) and an Us
and Them field intact (e.g. between nurses and managers, and nurses
and doctors). I have suggested Whinging is a quasi-form of reflecting in
the moment of practice which can be paradoxically destructive to
collaborative team working because it feeds into the aspect of the field of
talking behind your back. Nevertheless, Whinging because it is usually
gendered as women‘s talk, is dismissed as having no legitimacy in the
field so that if it did contain any organisational wisdom it would be lost to
the system because the complaints are personalised to the individual.
Even with sensitive facilitation as Nina found, there was scepticism about
reflective processes possibly due to a fear of reflecting. This could be
because reflecting can generate uncomfortable feelings evoking past
experiences, or could be due to a fear of revealing oneself to ones
managers, or it may result from experiencing weak facilitation of such
processes. As, Nightingale said: ―how little can be done under the spirit of
fear‖ 65 . Consequently, if nurses are fearful of reflecting they are more likely
to dismiss the value of the process. While there is also a paradox here,
because managers don‘t always support their staff. They hold a tension
between the strategic and financial aspects of their role and the
relationships with their staff so that Treating People Well can be easily lost
in this process. The potential for a relational reflexive inquiry into aspects
of nursing care can therefore be lost. After all, these processes take time
and managers are extremely busy people, being also prone to the busy
syndrome, while staff may be unavailable due to reduced overlaps and
unfilled vacancies.
Another sub-plot highlighted the paradox of the busy syndrome arguing it
is based on historical hierarchical attributes and dispositions in the ward. It
may be evident in other bureaucratic organisations. I suggest it
discourages organisational learning creating a potential managerial
65 From wikiquote http//www.en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale
264