What MATURE Care Providers Do That Others Don’t

Allow me to start with a quote from leadership expert, John C. Maxwell: “The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes.  That’s the day we truly grow up.”

Provocative, eh?  How many people would look upon their greatest day in this fashion?  I know I didn’t when a corporate facilitator suggested the same notion almost 20 years ago.  Yes to a wedding or birth or other happy occasion.  Not so much for developing true personal accountability, right?  Prepare to be challenged.

What is a MATURE Care Provider?

Reminder: We’re elaborating the COMPLETE SUPPORT acronym as a standard to which consumer service providers and organizations must be held accountable if they claim to support elderly populations.  The Oxford Reference Dictionary defines mature as adult, sensible and wise.  As our facilitator pointed out, each person in an interaction is 100% responsible for their part.  Yes, this does include the caregiver ‘child’ striving to advocate for aging parents.

What Are the Contrasting Behaviors to MATURITY?

To me, Maturity is the converse of game-playing.  When an error occurs, instead of quick recovery, you’re met with stone-walling and defensiveness.  If anything, you risk to be made ‘wrong’ throughout the back-peddling.  At its worst, a juvenile provider attempts to exact revenge for you pointing out the service failure.  And, if you (legitimately) lose your temper, the immaturity escalates to a whole new level of retaliation.

Questions for Reflection

On that note, are you ready for some thoughtful questions?  Here we go:

1. What is your definition of a service failure?
2. Think back to a time you received unforgivable service. What (mature) things did the provider say or do to regain your trust?
3. Remember the ‘formula’ in Item #2 that has worked for you in the past. What is the bottom-line treatment you now expect?

Next Steps

Next time around, we’ll look at Partnership – a spirit of give-and-receive collaboration between everyone involved in supporting aging populations.  It’s a true two-way street.

Indeed, my ultimate aim with this series of posts is to move the bar on how each individual ‘touching’ the eldercare system can work TOGETHER (rather than at odds) to make a positive difference for families as well as societally (government, agencies and companies) within this worthy field.  Let us not lose sight of the goal while urging everyone to rise up.

Toward that end, you might want to grab a copy of Coping with Un-cope-able Systems: ADVOCACY for Eldercare at www.copingwithuncopeableparents.com.  While you’re there, I invite you to book a Readiness Session to see how I can help in your caregiving situation.

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Carol-Ann Hamilton

Carol-Ann Hamilton has taken her 25 years of corporate experience and turned it into an issue of personal importance. She is a pioneer-activist on the leading-edge of the exploding aging crisis and seeks to save fellow Sandwich Generation caregivers a fraction of her anguish.

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