Sharks are Selfish

Most of you at Cadre know me as Doctor Carey, the director of coaching. But prior to joining Cadre, I used to work as an advanced practice nurse. And I was reflecting on that experience today and remembered a defining moment in my career that I'm going to share with you. And the reason that came up for me is because I actually had a very similar thing happen again recently. I was a brand new clinical nurse specialist in a hospital system that I hadn't worked in before. So I was meeting all new people.

Every leader that I met with was completely foreign to me. I had to learn what they do, I had to learn their team. It was an extremely broad role. I had ten managers that I worked with, which is very unheard of as a clinical nurse specialist. And so I spent a lot of time getting to know them and then was taking on leading projects and such. When about two months into my job, I had an idea for a solution to fix something, like a tech solution. And I'm not like a big idea brainstorming kind of person, so when I get ideas, they really excite me because they just don't flow.

I'm more of a logical, analytical strategy person, so I don't have, like, this just general idea bank that comes. So I had this really cool idea for a solution to fix a problem that we were having in the hospital, and I mentioned it to a couple of people. Then in a meeting a few days later, one of the people that I had mentioned it to said, I have this idea. She mentioned it in front of the entire group, took it as her own, didn't give me any credit for it, and everybody thought, wow, that's a fabulous idea.

Let's run with it. Let's execute that. And I remember walking out of there just kind of dumbfounded, like, what just happened? She knew that was my idea and she just stole it and took the credit for it and walked out of there just beaming like she was the star of the show. And I was a little butthurt, to be honest, and offended. So I did what any normal person would do, and I got resentful for a moment, and then I went to my mentor, because when you're in a new role, you always need a mentor. And I went to her and I just said, hey, this is what happened.

And that was my idea, and she just stole it. And she said, carrie, lesson number one, stay humble in this field and learn to let things roll off your back. And lesson number two, I want you to read this story. And it was a story about this person that they call the shark. And they're basically, there's somebody like this in every industry you work in, maybe even a few people, but they will do things like this because they want to make themselves look good and they will, you know, take someone's idea, all of that stuff.

And unfortunately, it does make your b*** hurt. Right? Like you don't feel good at the end of the day, but you have to decide what am I going to do with that now? Am I going to make a big deal out of it and confront this person or am I going to let this one go? And so she turned me to this story, which I tried to find, and I have all my textbooks and all my references and leadership books from this role that I used to work in, but I couldn't find the story. But she just said like, this is a common thing in our role.

Actually as a clinical nurse specialist, you're going to find this a lot because as a CN's you are a solution focused expert and you will bring things to execution. And oftentimes you're really behind the scenes doing a lot of the work. But the people that are on the front lines with the staff and all this stuff will be the ones that will get the credit for all of the work that you've done. And so you kind of have to almost get used to this because it's a very common thing in this field. So I thought, well, that sucks, to be honest.

I don't really like that. And I did. I had to swallow my pride and just move on. And then I've come to realize that is a thing in that industry and that does happen a lot. And there's a lot of things that happen behind the scenes that I worked on that I never got any credit for, that I never got any recognition for. And it just becomes kind of a recognitionless job. You just don't get a lot of exposure, especially if you're working on a project long term. And then it finally comes to fruition and then people just see the end result and want to just challenge everything you've worked on for the last three years.

So I had this happen to me recently, again, where somebody got the credit for an idea that I had and I was immediately brought back to that day where my mentor told me, you get to decide how you handle this. You get to decide if this is one of those things that you actually want to confront this person about or if you're going to let this one slide. And I immediately was a little offended. And then I thought, you know what? This one isn't that big a deal. This isn't a big deal to me. I don't need to have the recognition for this idea.

And it all works out in the end, usually. Right? And so I just want to encourage you today that if you're in any role in a company, whether it's in leadership or not in a leadership role, pick your battles. Pick your battles. Recognize that you are going to get hurt at times and that things aren't always going to be communicated effectively. But learn that you are going to work with sharks. There are sharks out there. There are people that are just going to want to come and bite your head off. They are just going to attack.

They are going to be looking out for only themselves because that's truly what a shark does in the ocean, right? It looks out for only itself. Unlike some of the other creatures that are a little bit more respectful of other things. Sharks are very selfish and they look out for themselves. So you're going to work with people like that. You can't escape it in whatever industry you work in and just decide at the end of the day, am I going to pick a battle with this shark or not? So I hope this was inspiring for you guys.

I hope you can learn from my lessons and have a great day.