“It was a great process to go through. It can be quite a confronting experience to make constructive change. Hopefully Polykala remains engaged with the College. It was really engaging and thought-provoking.”

Program participant 2021-22

Paramedics are some of the most respected and most stressed professions in our country. When the opportunity came to deliver a leadership development experience for the Australiasian College of Paramedicine we were thrilled. That excitement also came with a sense of weight – these are some of the busiest and most critically in-demand people in Australia/Aotearoa. Our program would have to hit the ground running while the latter waves of COVID crashed all around us. We’re proud to say we’ve been invited back by the Australasian College of Paramedicine to deliver this year’s expanded year-long program. 

In 2021-22, we designed a year-long program made up of six online modules focussing on Adaptive Leadership and key communication skills to support the 25 participants to tackle the challenges facing their frontline teams. These frameworks and principles were always pressure tested by the realities of paramedic’s volatile shifts, COVID surges and the daily acuity of their work. We recognised early on that this cohort would be each others’ best resource but they needed a shared language and process to tackle their adaptive challenges. We used the Harvard peer consultation process to help each other find new ways of seeing and effecting change in their context. 

It was a treat to work with emergency medicine practitioners apply the Adaptive Leadership framework (which owes a lot to the medical field) to non-technical, non-clinical challenges ie. organisational culture, values, relationships and ways of diversifying the profession. 

Alongside the leadership development aspect of the program, participants were also matched with an industry mentor to work with them throughout the program. We worked with mentors to improve their coaching skills so they could draw the best out in program participants. Adaptive challenges require not just expertise they require sustained curiosity and accountable relationships. Despite the turbulence of COVID and the exclusively online delivery of the program it was a success. But then again we would say that, so we’ll leave you in the hands of a few graduates of the 2021-22 program:

“It was a great process to go through. It can be quite a confronting experience to make constructive change. Hopefully Polykala remains engaged with the College. It was really engaging and thought-provoking.” – Program participant 2021-22