Jack highlights the challenge of being higher up, and less connected/in touch with the people on the ground. Being far removed from the actual experiences of peoples day to day mental health and wellbeing. Jack talks about his own personl, lived, exposed to and endured experience which is way more than any CV. Jack openly says he doesnt know how effective he would be in a senior leader role, but that he would treat people more humanly.

“We need more people in these positions who are at least affected, maybe not themselves, indirectly through people who are close to them or people who are in their lives”.

Transcript:

 The decision makers. What has to happen to shift their mentality from where they currently are?

That’s a very big question, but it’s an important one. It always will be. It’s very difficult to, it’s obviously very difficult because nobody knows, and I guess nobody should expect to, because obviously, that’s, it doesn’t matter what you do or the way you do it, everyone’s entitled to confidentiality. But it feels as in so many environments or spaces in life or cultures even, that the higher up the chain perhaps. People who make decisions are, the less connected and in touch with people on the ground they appear to be or feel. If I could use my myself as an example, I’m obviously not a CEO, I’m not a chief executive, I’m not a big decision making chief of anywhere, but the life experiences and the consistent levels of living with both mental health problems and being an autistic adult now, which has been the case since I was essentially born, that gives me more experience than I could ever put on a cv.

You know that is personal lived exposed to and endured. And I never stopped with just my own experience because I always wanted to grow and learn from others and support others, which is what I do now. Now I support other autistic people, not in some grand kind of thing that makes lots of money or but it’s started from nothing and growing because it needs to fill gaps where people who could help, don’t.

And so it, if you put me in charge of one of these big positions, I don’t necessarily know how effective I’d be as a CEO but I know for sure that, I have always, and would always treat people as people and individuals and do your damnedest to understand that they’re not whether it’s true or not, they’re not profit, they’re not figures, they’re not statistics because to them their life means something much more it’s much more intimate and often will be quite much more intense than anything as trivial as kind of those sorts of other things.

And I think if you lose sight of that and if you get. Actually that you are dealing with individual human beings, then you’ve already lost the battle. So it is a mentality shift in a large part. You need more people in these positions who are at least affected, if not themselves, indirectly through people who were close to them or people who were in their lives.

I think it’s one of those things a lot of people say a lot of people say about nurses, you have to really like people to do this job. Yeah, essentially you do because if you’re not there to help people during difficult, scary, potentially lonely points in their life, and if you can’t do that with compassion, empathy, understanding and a willingness to communicate and listen effectively with that person, then you’re not gonna give them what they need. It seems quite common sense, but it doesn’t happen that way, as perhaps it should.

No. You just talked about your passion and compassion and empathy, and I dunno if those are the qualities that Translate to people who are in the position of CEO or people who make the decisions?

I don’t think  they do because, like you said, it’s almost a prerequisite but it almost doesn’t actually need to either because they’re not directly involved usually at ground level with the people that are using the services or needing the support. And there are so many layers or barriers between them and the work or the support that is being carried out, that there is a disconnect and it’s a disconnect that I suppose, if not initially, after a period of time, you just get used to. It’s not your job to think about it, feel guilty or to feel things could be better or think this isn’t acceptable because you’re so far disconnected, if not immediately, then after a short period of time that you forget, and it’s not your responsibility.

But, again, when you’ve forgotten that there are people at the ground level, you disconnect from those people as well, again, you’ve lost the battle.

The minute you disconnect from human beings and the reason you are there to work with them and  supporting you’ve lost. Unless you can grow, adapt, and change your mentality in that respect, then while you stay in that job, nothing will change. So it’s, yeah, it’s not great.