How do you respond when you are held to a higher standard than your colleagues? Reflect on your
responses in the areas of cognition, emotional, behavioral and physical. Before one can respond
appropriately to the higher standard, one must identify what are your normal responses in each of the
categories? You may wonder, or ask, “why is this important?” It is an important part of the process
before change can occur. Another important part of the process is the desire to change. You may ask,
what is being held to a higher standard? Examples include having to go beyond the published
expectations of tenure; not being taken seriously in your role as a Registered Nurse; being ignored by
colleagues from other health disciplines; and worst of all, being ignored by students.
When evaluating the components of change theorists such as Lewin who looks at unfreezing, moving
and refreezing; Rogers who looks at awareness, interest, evaluation, trial and adoption and Lippitt who
looks at seven phases in the area of diagnosing the problem, assessing motivation, assessing resources,
selecting change objective, choosing role of change agent and termination of the helping relationship,
the one most closely identified with the nursing process is Lippitt’s theory of change. For those readers
who are not nurses, the nursing process consists of ADPIE which refers to nurses assessing the data,
formulating a nursing diagnostic statement, formulating a plan which includes goal creation for the
client, implementation which includes the nursing interventions and evaluation which includes
evaluating the effectiveness of the process at each stage. For an in-depth discussion on change, stay tuned for the next discussion on making a change in the area of cognition, emotional, behavioral and physical manifestations.