Adapting to Change
By Dona Sauerburger
Keynote, 2022 Conference
Orientation and Mobility Association of Australasia (OMAA)
September 22, 2021
Outline
Welcome / Highlights of OMAA ... Kay Daly, President
Introduction ... Kelly Prentice
Keynote - Adapting to Change ... Dona Sauerburger
Word Wall -- what comes to mind when you think of "Adapting to change"?
Story time -- innovators trying to make a change
Washing hands
Phacoemulsification
in the blindness field
1969 Skit to convince to leaders in blindness field to adopt the long cane
in orientation and mobility
Why is it so hard to adopt good / life-saving ideas?
Hard to admit what they've been doing is potentially wrong
hard to relinquish power of knowledge
Task sharing and task lifting
Innovations not shared
Resistance to or fear of change / cognitive dissonance
Fear that what they've invested in is devalued
Need to be cautious about ideas that weren't researched / evaluated
Bad ideas that were adopted that should have been researched
Street-crossing strategy with vehicles from stop sign
Using pole to provide safety monitoring with street crossings
Summary of reasons for resistance
Characteristics of innovations that make them difficult to adopt
Fear of making mistakes
Systems to study problems, evaluate solutions / innovations and disseminate the good ones
Centralized vs. Decentralized diffusion system
Which system does O&M use?
Advantages / disadvantages of that system
How do we evaluate / disseminate innovations
?
Discussion of how we move forward
Word wall - what comes to mind NOW when you think of "Adapting to change"?
Return to
home page