One of the things I learned from my mentors when I began to take my journey as an academic was to focus. "Know what you are passionate about and channel your energies there" a mentor once told me. To some extent, I have taken that advice and for the past decades, much of my work both as a teacher, researcher and practitioner has been in organization psychology and organization development. I've tended to be fascinated by the impact of technology especially on workers. I have focused on enabling change and transformation in organizations - whether it is to fulfill their goals, become more innovative or more recently, enable integrity. My focus on this area of specialization, has allowed me to harness my skills and establish my expertise.
Yet when the disasters struck last year, I found myself pulled into disaster response. Initially, as an individual helping others as we done in the past. Then finding out how little information and resources we have on disaster interventions, I found myself bringing people to design and test a resilience intervention that we eventually called "Katatagan."
The opportunities to enage in both research and practice in both fields of organization development and disaster response are wide open and the demands are numerous. So much so that I have asked myself, do I continue doing what I am good at in helping organizations? Or do i allow myself to be drawn deeper into disaster response work because there is not enough of us in this area?
Time and energy is finite. And perhaps the most difficult struggle is when you are faced with needs that are all important. Then again, perhaps I just need to choose to let go of the concept of focus and just follow where the spirit moves me - even when the path is not always single nor linear.
Yet when the disasters struck last year, I found myself pulled into disaster response. Initially, as an individual helping others as we done in the past. Then finding out how little information and resources we have on disaster interventions, I found myself bringing people to design and test a resilience intervention that we eventually called "Katatagan."
The opportunities to enage in both research and practice in both fields of organization development and disaster response are wide open and the demands are numerous. So much so that I have asked myself, do I continue doing what I am good at in helping organizations? Or do i allow myself to be drawn deeper into disaster response work because there is not enough of us in this area?
Time and energy is finite. And perhaps the most difficult struggle is when you are faced with needs that are all important. Then again, perhaps I just need to choose to let go of the concept of focus and just follow where the spirit moves me - even when the path is not always single nor linear.