Thanks for sharing Nikki. 🙂 There are a lot of pros and cons to “badging” QI – it can help people understand a progression pathway in QI (e.g. dosing) and can provide a motivation (good or bad) for people to learn more about QI. However, similar to what you said in the blog – just because I have a badge (for example my driving license is a badge of sorts) doesn’t make me a confident and competent driver – even with lots of training and practice (e.g. through lessons). I don’t drive very often and when I hired a van last year to move I certainly felt very anxious and stressed! Not sure there’s an answer – recognition of learning is important and badges can be a blunt tool for that.

Thankyou for sharing your blog Nikki and love your driving example Sid resonates very well as someone who lets her husband drive long distances and now needs to build confidence again in motorway driving! I am a real believer that the opportunity for running your own QI is essential to for learning whether a personal improvement or a small work related one to start with. Also, the opportunity to develop a support network of people who are all trying to do the same thing at the same time to share feelings and learning. The other factor is feeling you have earnt the badge if it is eg the gold/top level. Most of us feel there is always more to learn and we are not the finished article, the more you know the more you know you dont know and a supportive network is key to this too. It can be an isolating place in organisations when you are improvement as others have said before.