Bonni [00:00:00] On today’s episode, I have the honor of talking with Dr. Jeff Wiese about how he used his coaching skills in his teaching of residence.

Production Credit [00:00:11] Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Bonni [00:00:21] Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. This is Bonni Stachowiak and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to increase our personal productivity approaches so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students.

Bonni [00:00:48] Hello and welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. This is episode 96 we’re getting close to the hundredth episode. I’m really excited. Today I am welcoming on this show Dr. Jeffrey Wiese. He is a Professor of Medicine at Tulane University Health Sciences Center and he’s the Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education also at Tulane University. He is the Associate Chairman of Medicine, the Chief of the Charity Medical Service and the Director of the Tulane Internal Medicine Residency Program which he’ll be sharing about with us today.

Bonni [00:01:29] He’s also served as the Course Director for the Clinical Diagnosis, Biostatistics, Advanced Internal Medicine and Medical Education courses. And I’ll be linking to his bio which is quite impressive written over 100 articles books and book chapters and has made over 300 presentations to national and international audiences.

Bonni [00:01:53] And how I first heard about him is through Doug McKee who’s been on Teaching in Higher Ed a few times in the past and he also has a podcast that he does with Edward O’Neill and back on their episode number 27 which was with Geoff Connors and he talked about teaching clinical reasoning.

Bonni [00:02:15] And Geoff Connors is with Yale’s School of Medicine and in his episode he talked about really how he has approached teaching. And he joked that he stole all his ideas from Dr. Jeff Wiese who he says was just so influential in his teaching a real master educator. And he said and I quote “This educator just grabs you” and as I was listening to him talk about Jeff I thought I want to talk to that guy. And I’m so happy to be welcoming him to the show today.

Jeff [00:02:51] Well thanks for having me Bonni. And you know you’ll have to remind me to send twenty dollars to Geoff Connors for throwing my name out there but very proud of him for filling that exponential component that I think is core to all of teaching right.

Bonni [00:03:05] Absolutely. One of the things I did as soon as I found out who you were was to go to your teaching portfolio and you really have put together a truly profound piece of work about your teaching philosophy and some of your approaches to teaching and that’s really what we’re going to talk about today. One of the things you start out with is this idea of four phases of physician development and would you talk a little bit about those phases that I know we’re going to spend a lot of time on the fourth one.

Jeff [00:03:36] Yeah I’m happy to. And you know so it doesn’t sound judgmental as it go through these stages and this has been sort of my own development and education. I think that most people start out sort of leaving that learning space and moving into the teaching space and think well I need to teach in the same way that I learned and that largely boils down to trying to collect every single piece of data that went into that topic and in some ways it’s put it this way it’s almost proving to yourself that you know the content that you’re capable enough to be able to teach it to somebody else.

Jeff [00:04:13] The problem is you gets so lost in the details and it becomes you know as I tell my students my residence you get so lost in the details and proving to yourself that you know that you skipped past whether this one knowledge was even retained by the people that are teaching into it will change anything in the way of making them better at the knowledge skill or attitude that you try and advance them.

Jeff [00:04:38] And somewhere along the line if you teach enough then you start to get some approbation for Hey thanks for teaching me and no lie that feels good but it has been in the teaching space loves that and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Jeff [00:04:50] The problem is that if that starts to take over as the full motivation of why you’re teaching then you quickly find yourself into well as an artist would put a you know once you start pandering to public opinion you’ve given away your art.

Jeff [00:05:04] You may be teaching what they want to hear to get more of less approbation but not necessarily what they need to hear in the way of being effective in changing the world around them.

Jeff [00:05:15] And Phase 3 You know it’s largely a form of.. Phase 2 it’s about trying to garner the teaching awards and recognitions and those social macro approbations is that for anybody in academics becomes important in the way of promotion et cetera et cetera.

Jeff [00:05:32] And again nothing wrong with recognitions it’s just it’s just a quick slope where you’re focusing on improving the performance of people that are my students. Is that sliding towards trying to gain those social approbations or is it actually improving them? And then phase four is where you ultimately land. And you know I’m going to talk about this but in the context to be in a physician, but I think anybody that’s teaching in any quarter can relate.

Jeff [00:06:00] That as I tell my residents and people that I teach. You know there’s going to be a day where you turn the corner on some lonely hospital ward and you look down that hallway and you see some paths and turn residence somebody that you got along the way doing right by a patient because of what you empower them to do.

Jeff [00:06:21] And on that day there is no one there to pat you on the back. No one there to give you the accolades or the awards that nobody will even know it but you’ll know it and you’ll know in that moment that in small part you change the world in a better way.

Jeff [00:06:37] And that face for consciousness of it’s not about me. It’s about what will be the manifestation in this life that I’m touching and how how will they be better and able to change the world around them because of the time that we spent together.

Jeff [00:06:52] And if he can hold that image in the back of your mind then I think that all the rest that we talk about in the way of teaching sort of falls into place.

Bonni [00:07:01] To me the system of higher ed really rewards that third phase. It’s all shaped around that. I mean you’re in fact talking about at many institutions that have tenure. You start on day one and you’re going to lose your job in seven years unless you do something to keep it.

Bonni [00:07:18] It’s a very strange thing do you. Do you think that everyone eventually gets to the fourth phase of seeing it more from a distance the impact you have in it being less about ego. Or do you think some people get stuck along the way.

Jeff [00:07:33] Well you know I think that and hopefully in our time together I have time to bring out the book that my family hates. But I love they’re just tired of me talking about it.

Jeff [00:07:43] James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games.

Bonni [00:07:45] Yeah. Well let’s talk about that now. Yeah sure about it .

Jeff [00:07:49] Good. John Carse was a religion professor at NYU and I believe this book was published in mid to late 70s. I could be wrong on that and I say just an interesting side story that I found this book at a beach condo on vacation and it’s just that it rained all week so I had ran out of the books that I had brought to read.

Jeff [00:08:12] That’s what I like to do at the beach. So I picked up this book and we had one more week of being at the beach and you know by the end of that week and this is my –  proviso to anybody listening you know should you decide to read this book. You are to make no major life decisions while doing so.

Jeff [00:08:30] This book will screw you up and it certainly did for me. And you know to be specific about that point is it really alerted me to who I had become and the way that I had been socialized to think and it wasn’t my fault and it wasn’t anybody’s fault it just as you go through education you transcend where you go through multiple of what course calls the finite games. Right?

Jeff [00:08:57] And largely you know his theory is that whenever we get multiple people together that that we see each other in one of these two ways. Right?

Jeff [00:09:07] And the finite game he defined as maybe an easy way to understand it to think of a sports contest or a Broadway play. Right?. That there is a defined beginning and defined and that the goal of that game is to win the game.

Jeff [00:09:23] So at that point and tangible to our discussion you know the goal of the higher ed promotion is to get promoted and you could argue that in college the goal of winning that finite game of a semester class was to get that right.

Jeff [00:09:38] But implicit in the finite game is that the value of any action is measured solely by its utility in winning the game and for people that have been in education for a while that they still cringe when I say these words.

Jeff [00:09:50] But it is a harbinger that you’re talking to somebody that is mentally full in a fun game and the words are. Is this going to be on the exam I. Is implicit in that is if it’s not going to be on the exam then there’s no utility in learning it right. The goal of that course was to get the A.

Jeff [00:10:09] And a couple other elements to it that I think were you know frankly disturbing to me because what he was describing was me I had become a master of playing on games and the number of courses I took and the number of days that I got etc. etc. But implicit in that final game is that you are an abstraction of yourself.

Jeff [00:10:31] You’re not. You’re playing a role like an actor in a play. Right. And really all optics on how you choose to do what you do and what you devote yourself to are defined by Hey how does this help me win that game. In contrast he also describes Anthony games which you know the example I use is as I try to teach people this was that space when you were a kid right.

Jeff [00:10:57] I mean after school you’d be playing out on the playground with your buddies and maybe it’s Kikan or dodgeball it’s like football or whatever. And in that space one of the teams starts to win and really win. Right. And the question becomes what do kids do when one team starts to really win. And the answer is they change the rules right.

Jeff [00:11:21] So they’ll switch quarterbacks or hey you throw the ball off the garage and bounce it into the hoop then your team gets 36 points. Right. They try to reset the game for the sole purpose just to keep play just to push the sun back up in the sky for one hour before mom culture the goal of the infinite game is just to play for no other reason than to play and in education you might balance that by saying this. It’s learning for learning say it’s not learning for the exam.

Jeff [00:11:57] It’s about seeing each other as people. Right. That we were friends out on that on that playground we weren’t. I’m on my team playing this role and you’re on that team playing that role. So you sum it all up and say well you know am I suggesting that we should just all check out and go to Walden Pond and pick daisies.

Jeff [00:12:16] No. The reality is there’s nothing wrong with finite games. I mean educational lectures precleared that you know grades in some way do inspire and high stakes tests are somewhere on that spectrum inspire people to study harder line harder perform better and in educational you know for those of us in the profession of education.

Jeff [00:12:36] And for sure you don’t win your final games meaning getting the awards for getting the grants or whatever then you don’t get to keep playing absolutely nothing wrong with where it is a problem is where final game starts.

Jeff [00:12:49] Compromise. Infinite games where we’re so focused on getting a promotion so focused on getting the ward that we lose sight of why we were while we were playing the sport to begin with. Right. And I think that’s the balance that you.

Jeff [00:13:03] You do what you get to do in the way of getting the appropriate recognition and getting the grants etc. but never at the expense of that art that we have in the way of improving performance independent of whether we’re recognized or not which gets to the whole coaching philosophy of you know how you make people better.

Bonni [00:13:24] Do you find yourself now still being tempted toward the finance games. Do you have to constantly be working and reflecting to focus on the the infinite play or is this something that now just comes completely naturally to you.

Jeff [00:13:40] No I’m still Jeff Wiese. I’m not Yoda anything so be clear that I’m not judging anybody that has been. And I also want to be real clear listen I was a Jedi Master of finite games. I mean that just you gave me a game you set the rules.

Jeff [00:13:55] I’d figure out a way to win that game. I think that’s that’s what it sort of messed me up so much when I’ve read that book and lead to my life. And to answer your question the temptation is still there and it does require a lot of reflection a lot of reassessment.

Jeff [00:14:12] Wow. Still on course for you know my mission and purpose which is to change the world and make it a better place. Or am I just responding to a game that’s been put in front of me. And it can be become really really tempting.

Jeff [00:14:26] Now I had the luxury of I guess winning enough that enough of those games that you know eventually get promoted myself and attend your space. But you know once I was there that was the point that I said All right.

Jeff [00:14:38] You know the awards were just too tempting. And in 2008 I just stopped accepting them across the board just will not accept so I’ll nominated and don’t offer. And the great part. Maybe that’s what tenure was for no.

Jeff [00:14:53] The great part is once I’d made that transition one there was a period of withdrawal where wow. Am I still comfortable who I am without that external validation. But the quality of my coaching and the way of making people better went through the roof I could focus just on just on them and not on me. Right.

Jeff [00:15:13] So again you know I’ll make the point. Nothing wrong with finite games. It just you got to guard and protect against the fine against getting in the way of of what you’re really about. You know as early teachers stop me hey you never let education get in the way of learning with my being. Another way of just saying what I had. Took me 10 minutes to say.

Bonni [00:15:36] How does your view of teacher as coach make for better physicians.

Jeff [00:15:43] Well you know and again it may not be unique to medicine the more I reflected on our conversation before we had it because things may be true and that any profession. But you know at the end of the day what somebody knows is not as important to me as what they can do.

Jeff [00:15:59] Can they take what is in their in their head and put it in the back for us for our profession for the benefit of the patient. Right. But I could easily flip it around and say well you know for a professional you know high school grade school teacher you know what that teacher knows is that as important as the ability to take what they do not want to make for better learners to advance their students.

Jeff [00:16:24] And in medicine it’s just very tangible. Right. And you meet us all. All along the pathway to becoming a physician that there are some people that just have hand every piece of knowledge that’s out there they know but they just can’t do anything with it.

Jeff [00:16:41] And on the flip side there are people that maybe don’t know as much but are really good at applying what they do now. And in today’s day and day and age it becomes even more salient I think because you know back when I was training as a physician.

Jeff [00:16:56] Yeah it kind of was what was in your brain and then you had a little book that you get up in your lab coat that you kept notes and stuff to help remind you what to do. But now you know my my students residents they all have a smartphone.

Jeff [00:17:10] They’re a click away from uptodate or the Internet to work. You know some other researchers that getting that knowledge is easy for them. You know the question is do they know where to look for it which is its own skill.

Jeff [00:17:24] And once they have that knowledge they know how to apply them. Right. Early on I think this is a core for all of education. But Bloom’s Taxonomy right knowledge skills and attitudes.

Jeff [00:17:37] And I think years ago we were so focused on knowledge because our students didn’t have access to good knowledge elsewhere. Now getting the knowledge is pretty easy for them. And the shift of becoming a great coach is much more moving towards. OK some of the schools showing you how to do it how to apply it.

Jeff [00:17:56] But a big part of what I find myself doing as an educator now is in large part socialization that is to say the attitudes of getting not telling people what to think but teaching people how to think and how to see the world with different paradigms and different attitudes which makes for better perform better performance.

Bonni [00:18:17] When you talk about socialization. I was actually going to ask this earlier on when you were talking about the infinite games. If you’re if you’re going to attempt to shape your learning culture to be one where students enjoy learning for learning’s sake you’re definitely going to have to socialize for kids and their case much of their whole world.

Bonni [00:18:40] I’m guessing medical school is all toward the finite games just like it was for you and I know that you’re very influential at Tulane but you probably maybe haven’t changed the entire medical school I don’t know what is or is there is there still for I mean if you’re still tempted by it I suspect it’s still ingrained in a culture like that. How how do you socialize your students to back away from it. Being about book the book knowledged into doing.

Jeff [00:19:11] Right. Well you know what you can’t do and see people that are on the cusp of having this realization whether they read Kurtz’s books or not but early on that on the cusp of hey this has got to be more than just how well they score on the exam my place and teaching these people is to improve their lot in life down the road and the admonishment they’ll use which does not work in fact it makes it even worse.

Jeff [00:19:36] Right. They say oh the grades don’t matter and you know learn from learning say don’t worry about the grades. And when they say that they lose ultimate credibility because the the the students in my case residents think they know you know that without winning those games yeah this whole thing doesn’t go the way that I wanted it to go.

Jeff [00:19:57] And so you can’t do that. I think what I what I try to do is acknowledge hey listen here’s what a fine game is and you got to win this game right. So focus on that.

Jeff [00:20:07] But the two things that try to balance with that is want to help you win that game. OK. It’ll be up to you whether you gain the knowledge and you can apply it. You score well on that exam. But here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to help you get that aid that you’re after.

Jeff [00:20:22] OK. Implicit in that as Stephen Covey would say well need satisfied no longer motivates. Right. So once I can put their mind at rest that I will help you win that finite game. But as a quid pro quo I want you just to visualize. Which is one of the core components of clinical coaching.

Jeff [00:20:40] Visualize yourself after this is all done right because this finite game will end and we will both transcend this and in five years where are you going to be and what will you need to know what will you need to be able to do to really succeed in that space.

Jeff [00:20:58] And as a quid pro quo for helping you know do well on that exam or in this course you give me that time to write to help me help you. Be the person you want to be five 10 years from now when all this stuff is done.

Jeff [00:21:13] That’s part of it. And then there’s the added This will be the psychology part of me as a coach of getting people to act their way into a new belief with that central tenet that it is easier to act your way into a new belief than it is to believe your way into new actions.

Jeff [00:21:33] And some of the actions that you can get people to engage in start moving on from that finite space to the infinite space begins with how you design your education to begin with. Right.

Jeff [00:21:46] So as an example and you know again once I had it disappear and this is how it started to change the curriculum or at least for what I do for a resident physician here we moved away from the one person at the podium doing a didactic session and we moved towards a group based teaching.

Jeff [00:22:03] Right. So people at their individual tables or you know groups around five tables still with some like Schloredt where there’s instruction but moving towards. Okay let’s go through our case discussion let’s identify things that as a group we don’t know.

Jeff [00:22:22] And then each person is assigned to do some research on that topic and come back and teach it to the group. Pragmatically it’s just easier less faculty time but importantly that philosophical hidden curriculum lesson that I’m trying to teach them is that they are their brothers and sisters keeper right which is very much an infinite way of seeing each other that by taking your time to make other people better.

Jeff [00:22:50] Now we’re transcending the. Are you going to get an A and more focus getting them to focus on each other. That makes sense.

Bonni [00:22:58] Yeah. And as part of this also one of your approaches you used to teach people how to think versus teaching them what to think.

Jeff [00:23:07] Yeah and you know I do a lot of you know grand rounds of visiting professorships these days around the country and that’s that’s really been the central tenet that again you know the more I do this I think it’s less about teaching people what to think and and and teaching them how to play how to see each other and how to view the world around.

Jeff [00:23:29] You know I’ll give you another example that you know make may not come up for everybody in the teaching space. But for us in Madison it becomes very very important when we get into feedback and evaluation.

Jeff [00:23:41] And how do we coach people based upon their performance and improve ostensibly improve their subsequent performance. So at the middle of every rotation which you know in medicine is usually about a month long middle of the rotation are going to be some time with the people that you’re coaching or teaching to say hey this is what you’ve done right and here’s how you improve.

Jeff [00:24:04] And then at the end of it is more about summative evaluation of you know here’s how the month went. And here were the strengths and weaknesses. Well you know classically that feedback and evaluation has been sort of the feedback sandwich right. Here’s what you did right. Right.

Jeff [00:24:19] But here’s what you could do better and then just emotionally confuse them. Here’s some more stuff that I like about you. What I try to coach our folks on is what’s called feedback pizza.

Bonni [00:24:33] I’ve never heard that before.

Jeff [00:24:33] Yeah I think I made that possible subconsciously adsorbed from somebody smarter than me. The sandwich is great. I mean it’s great until it’s you being sandwiched right where. And I think I get it.

Jeff [00:24:47] I go home and my wife starts telling me, “Oh thanks for calling in the yard and picking up your clothes.” And then I think wow who is this person and what did you do with my wife. My wife didn’t compliment me and then it dawned on me that I’m getting sandwiched, right. I’m like, “Aww, man.”

Jeff [00:25:04] And then everything just turns to Charlie Brown teacher voice. I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. But and then comes the right of all the things they need to be doing better. Nothing wrong with it. It’s just psychologically the word but which is requisite for the sandwich.

Jeff [00:25:22] The word but signals a finite game signals the end of a finite game. Here’s all the stuff you did well. But here’s where he came up short. And if you just make one word substitution which moves the sandwich to the pizza right just two letters instead of three here’s all the things that you did right.

Jeff [00:25:42] And next time here’s how you can do better. But the word and resentful it means that something’s coming after it. Not that the game was closed and it seems like a trivial sort of fame but psychologically it changes everything for the person receiving the feedback and evaluation.

Jeff [00:25:59] Psychologically and metaphorically what you’re communicating that person is hey congratulations you won the gold medal the next time if he did this this is how you set the world record it signals success and motivation to do even better as opposed to you know where you came up on the measure of winning or losing. Right.

Jeff [00:26:24] But it’s so small sort of words that are small sort of tactics that I think start to move people from the finite game to the to the infinite game. You know quickly I’ll give you another example. We’re in the middle of a rotation I used to sit down and go through you know all the skills that we’re assessing them on and you did well on this and you did you know poorly all that.

Jeff [00:26:45] Now I don’t I write out 10 things that I think are really core for what I wanted somebody to learn knowledge skills and attitudes and that rotation and I sit down with them and I give them a penny and I have a penny.

Jeff [00:26:58] And I say I say hey listen put your penny on your weakest area and I’m going to put my penny on what I think you would hysterias. And now let’s spend some time talking about how we improve those weakest areas. No commentary on how they did.

Jeff [00:27:11] Right. It’s not saying that you won or you didn’t win and implicitly what it is saying is that wherever you are in life however smart you are top of the class middle class bottom class you could always be better and the way that you go from good to great is by finding your weakest area and improving it.

Jeff [00:27:27] But a very forward think very forward looking mentality which is that infinite game always improve always improve. I don’t get so caught in just how well you did in this particular rotation or this particular particular class.

Bonni [00:27:41] How do you coach students to be effective in an environment where there are absolutely no absolutes?

Jeff [00:27:50] This is tough and I’ll tell you. In medicine it’s really really tough and it’s not unique to medicine. The higher you go in education you know mature people in Ph.D. courses would say the same thing but you start dealing with the population of people that have always won right.

Jeff [00:28:06] They’ve always but they were the smartest people in their high school and the smartest people in their college and then med school and eventually you get to a level that regardless of how smart they are now just what they’re up against in the world. For us it’s medicine. It’s just really really hard.

Jeff [00:28:26] I mean you’re dealing with disease you’re dealing with lives and personalities and the complexities of life and that can be shocking for them. We see this a lot as students move out of the classroom and the second year medical school moved to the third year medical school where it’s really life.

Jeff [00:28:43] Now we’re dealing not with simulated patients but real patients with life stories and for a lot of them it shakes them to make some real good. But getting back to Carse is one of my favorite lines in that book because he talks about the role of education in finite infinite games.

Jeff [00:29:00] And he he makes the point that training is to prevent surprise. Right. Education is to prepare for a surprise which I love because a big part of what I’m doing in the way of educating is prepare preparing them for a day when everything is going according to Hoyle right.

Jeff [00:29:21] That it’s this disease doesn’t look exactly the way that it should or that this person has you know multiple conditions and or maybe rare symptoms were common disease. And how do you think your way through that.

Jeff [00:29:34] And you know for us it’s very much you know right back to that m.o. of understanding becoming more important than factual acquisition. I mean how do you understand the world working around you and and teaching people that you understand that getting into that teaching people how to understand the disease etc.

Jeff [00:29:59] Again I think in other domains they’d have similar similar analogies. Frequently is not on a multiple choice test multiple choice test just not designed for that. Right.

Jeff [00:30:08] And so if you’re really trying to educate which is much more about learning and understanding and getting people to see the world in different way then in some ways that competes against what will be rewarded on that finite game exam.

Jeff [00:30:21] But I think at the end of the day that’s what has made people like Jeff Connors so very very proud of very very successful. The ability to get into foreign situations that he’s never seen before and then work his way through it and still succeed.

Bonni [00:30:37] Now one of the other things that certainly he exemplifies is professionalism. So before we move on to the recommendations part of the show I’m just curious how do you instill professionalism in your students.

Jeff [00:30:51] Well yeah man I could spend an hour talking about that because we’ve come so important. But you know they give back the Reformation. I mean that was sort of the point of the Reformation. Right. I mean there were 99 theses.

Jeff [00:31:04] But really at its core as Martin Luther put it was that now and I’m gonna use this religious part that’s what it was. But I’m using that more as a metaphor for where I’m going and teaching professionalism.

Jeff [00:31:15] You know Martin Luther put it that you up to that point you could only profess your love of God by being in the clergy but you didn’t necessarily have to be in the clergy you could profess your love of God by what you did.

Jeff [00:31:26] And whatever you did right now I’m going to skip the God part and just go to school. Where were abstract from that that I think professionalism at its core is professing who you are and what you do. Right.

Jeff [00:31:42] Stephen Covey puts it that everybody has three lives. You have your public life your private life and then your true core life that you may or may not be in touch with.

Jeff [00:31:53] But the true professional has all three of those lives aligned heat you profess who you are and in accord it in your private and your public. But there is no inconsistency.

Jeff [00:32:07] Put another way that professionalism is the ability to subordinate feelings and conditions to values based upon your principles principles being your core life and that should be synonymous with your private life.

Jeff [00:32:20] But when you go public now it’s you know even if I don’t want to do something if it is synonymous with my values and principles that is to say I believe I know this to be the right thing to do that you still do it right.

Jeff [00:32:33] And in Madison it may be Hey can I get some time to get a hamburger at the cafeteria. Sit down your pouter and let’s just pretend that the cafeteria hamburger is going to be tasty but you’re about to eat it and you get the call. This patient needs you. What do you do.

Jeff [00:32:50] You put the hamburger down. Leave it go take care of the patient already and your burger and then see the patient when it’s convenient. And the definition of a professional to me is that again that ability to subordinate those feelings for what I know to be true and right.

Jeff [00:33:05] And in teaching people professionalism two things One I think it’s. And I will do this with my students and residents just say the words that I just said to you. That’s what I see a professional to be not somebody that makes money. That’s not why they are professional and not somebody that’s following a script.

Jeff [00:33:25] Right. And just a circle quickly back again to that finite infinite game thing that if you’re in the final game and you’ve been socialized to think fine financially then again in the final game you’re playing a role.

Jeff [00:33:37] You’re an abstraction of yourself right. The role of doctor today will be played by the state and you’re given a costume you’re given a script and you’re told This is what you should say which in some ways is antithetical to teaching true professionalism which is it’s not about the script it’s not about the role. It’s about you what you believe your values principles.

Jeff [00:33:58] Do you manifest those and what you do for your patients and if you can get people to see that and then add to the second piece which is one of my favorite books by by Victor Frankl and search for meaning where he talks about the last of the human freedoms between stimulus and response.

Jeff [00:34:18] Everybody has a choice per minute choose the stimulus you may have no say in what happens to you but everybody still has that freedom to respond to that stimulus and how will you respond to it. Right. Something bad happens.

Jeff [00:34:36] A professional is somebody that’s going to do the right thing again. Concordant with their values and beliefs even if it’s uncomfortable right. And getting people to see that you’re not locked in. Peter Berger it’s bad faith but you have no choice. We’ll always have a choice.

Jeff [00:34:53] As my residents will tell you Central M0 the training program is all you have to do in life is that everything else is a choice and once you’re in that space. Now our professionalism is going to be measured by the choices that you make.

Jeff [00:35:07] Responsible is to be responsible knowing that you have the ability to respond to the stimuli that happen to you.

Bonni [00:35:17] This is the point in the show where we each give a recommendation and when I had the opportunity to go back and look at your teaching portfolio again and just think and reflect and read more about your coaching philosophy and how that manifests itself in your teaching it reminded me of a book that I finished recently called Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream.

Bonni [00:35:44] And it’s just this wonderful story it’s the classic David and Goliath story. It’s a it’s a nonfiction book and chronicles a couple of science teachers in Arizona who inspire these young men to get together and apply for and then go compete in an underwater robot competition.

Bonni [00:36:08] And it’s one of those things where there are I think something like nine or 10 different challenges that they want the robots to be able to do to measure things to float and to be able to move around with a certain level of speed.

Bonni [00:36:23] And they’re competing against teams from very prestigious universities such as MIT. And in this case MIT was backed by Exon Mobile with a grant of ten thousand dollars. And these guys don’t have any money their families don’t have any money they cobbled together through some donations of parts and things like that. Less than a thousand dollars and they build this robot that they named stinky and I’m not going to give anything away other than to say I was so inspired especially by these teachers.

Bonni [00:36:53] I mean these men have just given their lives in so many ways to these students and stood back sometimes when the students were challenged and let them troubleshoot and figure it out and let them pick up the phone and call companies they’d never called companies before in their lives and talked to them.

Bonni [00:37:09] In fact some of the companies they called really liked them so much because they were just curious little learners about how do these things work and how do you use this part in your business and how do you think it might work. In our robot and it’s just a really great read. It’s a quick read and super inspiring. I would recommend it. So what is your recommendation for people listening today.

Jeff [00:37:31] Well first thanks for that description because while you were describing that I was ordering it on Amazon. Looking forward to that.

Bonni [00:37:39] Oh it’s great. It’s great.

Jeff [00:37:40] Well my recommendation it’s already loaded to a few of the books during our discussion here. But one of the books that is still one of my all time favorites is called Strangers to Ourselves which is about the adaptive unconscious written by Timothy Wilson.

Jeff [00:37:56] Unlike your recommendation Bonni, it’s probably not a quick read but it’s worth having on the shelf just to read and think about over the course of you know four or five months. But what I love about it is you know that Timothy Wilson talks about how well put it this way. Practice doesn’t make perfect which in some ways has been sort of a truism underlying all education all the way through.

Jeff [00:38:21] He makes the corrected piece that it’s perfect practice makes perfect and perfect practice. You could define as reflection that is due do the skill to try it but then always to be looking back and reflect hey how could have been done better and talks a lot about the adaptive unconscious how seeps into us how changes are world and power of reflection and get us to see the world in a different way. It’s at the end of the day a fantastic read.

Bonni [00:38:52] Well Jeff I just appreciate your truly do you accepted my email and getting back to me quick and being bullied to invest your time I know you have a really busy career there as you are coaching your students and I just really appreciate it and I think that it will mean a lot to your former student to that you’re willing to just come on and share with even a broader audience. Thank you so much.

Jeff [00:39:14] You’re welcome. It’s been my pleasure.

Bonni [00:39:17] Thank you again to you Dr. Jeff Wiese for investing your time in the teaching and higher ed community. It was such an honor to get to speak to you and hear about how you use coaching to teach your residents.

Bonni [00:39:31] Those of you who are listening name who want to follow up on the episode and leave comments feedback you can do so at teachinginghighered.com/96 and if you have yet to subscribe to the weekly updates you can get the show notes in your inbox every week automatically.

Bonni [00:39:50] Just a single e-mail a week with those show notes and oftentimes an article about teaching or productivity written by me. You can subscribe at teachinginhighered.com/subscribe.

Bonni [00:40:01] Thanks to all of you who have been leaving reviews on iTunes or whatever service it is you use to listen to the show. It really helps other people discover the show and build our community even further.

Bonni [00:40:13] So I hope you’ll continue to do that so that we can attract even more wonderful guests such as Dr. Jeff Wiese and send your suggestions to me as well. You can do that at teachinginhighered.com/feedback. Thanks for listening. And I’ll see you next time.

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