INNOVATION AND HOLISTIC CARE Innovation An Open Access, Equal Opportunity Invitation for Diversity ■ Jean S. MacFadyen, PhD, RN Holist Nurs Pract 2015;29(1):3–5 Have you ever thought about the fact that not well, but they survive. This is an imaginative feat innovation is an open access, equal opportunity? If in and of itself! The movie Slumdog Millionaire not, think about it now. Is there anything about the (2009).1 will help you visually understand some of innovation process that personally prevents you from these survival skills. These people wander the streets coming up with a new idea? Whether you or anyone and the land seeking whatever to enable them to eat. else takes action on the ideas might be another They pick the trash outside the walls of homes and question, but to dream up new ideas is a totally open businesses for any morsel to fill their stomachs. They access venue in which anyone can participate! This is travel from place to place, looking for handouts, by an equal opportunity invitation for diversity at its best. hanging off the sides or tops of the various trains that No ideas can be barred. How many other venues do traverse the tracks. They can see a traffic jam, assume you know that can make this claim? We often fight so the role of a policeman, direct traffic, and then ask for hard to make sure we do not create artificial barriers a handout. They are willing to guard your car in a busy that limited access to various situations that it is hard marketplace where there are no parking lots . and to comprehend that there is a venue where charge you a fee. They use stopped traffic to solicit participation is not restricted by one’s personal cash from the occupants of motionless vehicles. They characteristics. One’s race, sex, religion, financial scurry under the bleachers of sports arenas, looking status, etc, make no difference. All one needs is the for the change that falls out of the pockets or hands of desire to create something new, the imagination to spectators. They search drainage pipes for stray coins. create it, and then the determination to make it They will exchange your money for the local currency happen. The simplicity of that concept is outstanding! without a service charge on sidewalks, but they might Having extensively traveled throughout the Third not have all the “exact” change—their service fee that World, I always marvel at the ingenuity of whose bed you pay for the convenience of the transaction, may be the ground, whose “house” may be a crude especially after banking hours. The bottom line is platform, perhaps a foot off the ground, with a “roof” that they have a need, can identify opportunity, of tattered cloth, plastic, or tin, and whose diet may exercise personal initiative to take advantage of the only be rice or corn. Yet, these people survive, maybe opportunity, and are willing to take risks to achieve their objectives. They are entrepreneurial! Many times those in these destitute, and some in Author Affiliation: College of Nursing and Health Professions, Drexel not so destitute states, revert to less than legal University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. mechanisms to meet their needs. Some of the older The author has disclosed that she has no significant relationships with, or financial interest in, any commercial companies pertaining to this article. movies classically portray this. The Sting (1973), starring Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, Correspondence: Jean S. MacFadyen, PhD, RN, College of Nursing and 2 Health Professions, Drexel University, 1601 Cherry Street, MS 91046 et al, is a good example of this, as well as Ocean’s Philadelphia, PA 19102 ([email protected]). Eleven (2001),3 with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, DOI: 10.1097/HNP.0000000000000069 Julia Roberts, and Matt Damon. Both of these movies 3 Copyright © 2015 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. 4 HOLISTIC NURSING PRACTICE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015 revolve around the gambling scene and the nondiscriminatory, equal opportunity process? This is extraordinary and clever efforts that are taken to fulfill a good question for which there are many complex the thieves’ objectives. For example, how many people responses. Let’s only examine one that can impact the would think of using a nimble acrobat to vault the health care arena, and more specifically, holistic laser alarm beams in a casino, money storage area? nursing, the need for personal initiative. These clever strategies do open up new solutions, but The innovative process requires personal initiative.7 thankfully most of us do no use such strategies toward Having a leader who is supportive of an innovative illegal ends. But if you could put aside the legal issue environment is helpful, but the bottom-line principle is for a moment and recognize the ingenuous nature of that the responsibility for creating new ideas comes some of the schemes that are portrayed in these from within each individual. Some people may have movies, you will appreciate that innovation is a the ability to create change but are lazy and do not fundamental ability that is accessible to all. How well want to do the work. Some people can be in less than one takes advantage of that accessibility is up to the advantageous situations and lack the stamina to individual. Understanding the principle of personal intervene. They have other “fires” to fight and so responsibility to use the innovative process to solve modulate there participation in a solution by giving problems will begin to unlock a treasure of higher priority to the demands for their time to other nondiscriminatory opportunity . to be pursued areas of their life. Some people need more time to within the law and applied to health care! process situations. They intrinsically do not have the To have all your needs met is not a stimulus for ability to work quickly, so do not even recognize the innovation. Such situations do not precipitate the fact that they can be a part of the solution. Some questioning that is so fundamental to the innovation people get so beaten down by never having their ideas process. Need and curiosity make one search and recognized or are so severely criticized for articulating “think outside the box.”4 There is a quest for new their ideas that they become discouraged and defeated; solutions, and one is pushed beyond one’s comfort they lose the motivation to even try. Have you ever zone to think in new dimensions. Thomas Jefferson, seen any of these situations in your place of workplace President of the United States of America (United that block the execution of personal initiative? How is States) between 1801 and 1809,5 commissioned the it that in the day and age when we forcefully promote Lewis and Clark Expedition because he was curious. the concept of equal opportunity that the innovation Jefferson was keenly interested in finding a water process still is not being fully exploited on every level route linking the Columbia and Missouri rivers; he to create a more effective health care system? What is was curious about the territory that lay beyond what your role, as a holistic nurse, in supporting the was known during his presidency and he had a strong innovation process in your respective area of work? interest in botany and agriculture.6 He was looking for Solutions that promote personal initiative are as answers to his questions. So he sent out an exploration complex as the reasons people give for not taking party to gather information. The gathered information advantage of the innovation process. Space precludes became a new “lens” in terms of understanding the an elaborate answer to the posed question. But the potential for the United States. The new knowledge concept of positioning/marketing the innovation created a fertile environment for the development of process as an equal opportunity venue within health never before conceived ideas. Horizons expanded, care will help people to see their responsibility to literally and organizationally, disrupting paradigms identify needs and to be curious about the environment that, heretofore, had been considered indestructible. in which they work. Not taking advantage of an equal There was new land to colonize, water routes to opportunity venue that one strives so hard to create explore, unknown plants and countless natural reminds people of the freedoms they have, regardless resources to exploit, and there were many concepts of circumstances. It also strikes at a guilty chord of from the Indians that needed to be learned and complacency within the hearts of those who only see understood. problems through the lens of circumstances that If anyone can participate in the innovative process, inhibit creative problem solving. A free land is not for instance, the Lewis and Clark Expedition free because one does not fight for the principles in showcased the value of an uneducated Indian which one believes. Government officials will not woman called Pocahontas, why is it that more people change unless one exercises one’s voting privilege. A do not take advantage of such an unparalleled, work environment will never improve unless one Copyright © 2015 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. Innovation 5 fights for the ideas in which one believes and takes REFERENCES personal initiative to effect a change. 1. Slumdog Millionaire. http://twomovies.us/watch_movie/Slumdog_ What is the lens through which you see Millionaire. Accessed September 30, 2014. change? Are you really stymied in terms of not being 2. The Sting. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070735. Accessed September 30, 2014. able to create/imagine new solutions? Or have you 3.