Living Well Journal

Employed but not Engaged

A recent Gallup poll, The State of the American Workplace, reveals an important insight for leaders.

Employed, but not Engaged on the Job

Only 30% of workers are truly engaged in their work - - they are excited and invested in their work and the enterprise they work for.  Another 18%, however, are “actively disengaged” to the point they are undermining the work of others.

Here’s the insight for leaders:  geography, gender and job title have little effect on engagement, but the size of the work group does.  Smaller teams engender higher engagement.

Think of a nurse on an inpatient unit.  If she is assigned to a shift team that is not subject to being pulled to another unit, she will be more averse to calling-out:  she knows the individuals who are depending upon her and who will be carrying extra patients in her absence.  The personal sense of accountability and responsibility to real people makes a huge difference in one’s engagement on the job.

Empowering small, cohesive teams within a larger organization or department creates purpose and engagement.  People need the personal relationships of team mates to feel invested in their work.  Treating people as interchangeable cogs in a larger wheel, conversely, robs them of purpose and engagement.

Happiness is a Serious Problem for Leaders

One of my favorite thinkers is Dennis Prager, author of a compelling book: Happiness is a Serious Problem.  (See side bar Recommended Reading).  It came to mind today as I was reading a column by Chuck Lauer, long-time observer of leadership in healthcare.  Both authors zero-in on the same conclusion, but from different angles.

Prager concludes that happy people are grateful people.  His rationale is fascinating and convincing.

Gratitude

Lauer likewise offers examples of the power of gratitude expressed by leaders.  

If leaders want happy customers, they can't get it without happy, engaged employees.  And happy, engaged employees are the product of demonstrably grateful leaders.  You can't get it any other way.

Healthcare institutions are living through unprecedented change and upheaval, and the people of healthcare are laboing under the weight and uncertainty it entails.  It takes everyone pulling in the same direction to survive and thrive.  One of the most powerful tools available to a leader is to Be Grateful and express it... you can't go wrong saying thank you too much!

The Quiet Healthcare Revolution

I wrote a few days ago about insights leading to innovation, and the need to challenge sacred cows in healthcare in order to generate innovations.

Here is a remarkable example of what is possible in healthcare.

CareMore started 20 years ago as a dream by a physician who would not settle for "because we've always done it that way."  He chose instead to "tip" the sacred cow of "only physicians can 'doctor.'"  The results are truly impressive.

If you want to be encouraged that coordinated, team-based healthcare can actually produce better outcomes and happier patients at lower costs, read this.

The Quiet Healthcare Revolution

Sacred Cow-Tipping

An insight comes in that moment when two or more concepts, lingering in the back of the mind, suddenly connect to form a new, powerful idea.  And insights are the fuel for innovation.

You may have heard about "cow tipping".... some teenagers sneak into a field and tip a sleeping cow over for laughs!  Well, once again, science has robbed all the fun of another urban legend.  Turns out it would take 4.43 people -- fueled by sufficient alcohol -- to tip a cow.

Cow-tipping myth hasn't a leg to stand on

I'm involved with a lot of very smart people across the healthcare spectrum and I'm fascinated by the conventional wisdom that says, "It takes 12-15 years for a clinical innovation to become mainstream in healthcare."  My experience validates it and yet I wonder why?  It could be due to Sacred Cows.

That's why the article linked below caught my attention.  Innovative thinking requires tipping over some sacred cows.

"We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them” is insightful advice from the great Albert Einstein. Or, as Dee Houck, the creator of the Visa Network, put it – “The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out.”

Dissing Healthcare's Sacred Cows

The authors' list of “sacred cows” that are thwarting innovation in healthcare quickly grew to over 50, of which the following were their highest ranking “sacred cows”:

• EMRs fix everything

• Bigger is more efficient and cost effective

• Consumers cannot make their own healthcare decisions

• Quality measures measure quality

• The best care is delivered in the hospital

• More data leads to better decision making

• You can’t deliver quality care if you are focused on the bottom line

• Medicare is the only disruptive force in healthcare

• Only physicians can “doctor”

• Problems in our healthcare system derive from fee for service

• Physicians are best at managing patient care

• People at the end of life want life at any cost

• US healthcare is the best in the world

My point is this: any one of these, if tipped, could be the start of a new, innovative way of thinking about the problems we face.  If we continue to think that US healthcare is the best in the world, we automatically disregard any innovative ideas from elsewhere.  If we continue to think that only physicians can "doctor" we will ignore innovative ways to bring new players to the team to make it better for everyone.

I highly recommend the daily practice of looking for a sacred cow to nudge ... and see what insights emerge!

Power Corrupts, But Power Also Reveals

“Nothing discloses real character like the use of power,” wrote Robert Green Ingersoll, reflecting on the legacy of Abraham Lincoln. “Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power.”

See Yes, Power Corrupts, But Power Also Reveals by Wharton professor and author, Adam Grant.

The Happy Secret to Better Work

We know this is true:  Happy people are more productive people.

There's a wealth of research into how we can consistently experience that in our life and work.  It turns out that, "how we "digest" our life experiences, both negative and positive, can be instrumental in influencing levels of happiness."

Here's a link to an excellent TED Talk that was shared in a blog by Dr. Marla Gottschalk.

The Happy Secret to Better Work

"Fair" is just "Old School"

I've been thinking about the phrase "Old School."  New ideas and new ways of living are often the default assumption for what's best, as if what we learn in our few decades of life automatically trumps the accumulated wisdom of those who went before us.  

Take the concept of what is Fair.  

I heard a winsomely provocative speech by Dr. Ben Carson, the world-renowned chief of pediatric neurosurgery from Johns Hopkins.  He rose from utter poverty to the highest level of achievement in his profession. As a black youth raised in poverty by a single illiterate mother, if anyone could claim he'd been dealt an "unfair" hand in life, it's Ben Carson.  

Yet there he stood, in front of the president of the United States and other national leaders, testifying to plain truths that led him to success.  

Two points stood out to me:  

1. His mother refused to accept the label of a victim in life.  She saw no limits to what her sons could become.  She exercised tough love and set high expectations for them.  As one commentator said, "She understood that your children will hate you anyway while they are growing up, so you may as well do the right things today so they will love you tomorrow!"
    
2. He offered a brilliant insight for solving the financial crisis we face, one based on an Old School idea.  "Proportionality is a principle laid down by God in the Bible through the concept of the tithe. God told everyone to give a tithe ... 10% ...The man with $10 billion would give a billion and the man with $10 would give a dollar. Someone says, ‘That’s not fair, it doesn’t hurt the billionaire as much as the other guy.’  But who said we were trying to hurt anyone?  He put a billion dollars in the pot, so we should be happy and want him to be able to continue doing that!”
   

Dr. Carson’s talk was remarkable for its clarity, candor and good will.  For some, his words came like a fresh, cool breeze.  For others, sadly, his words offended the conventional wisdom. 

When it comes to Living Well, the difference to me is, "What Works?"  The reason why biblical wisdom prevails as the most influential ideology in history is because it produces better, kinder, more successful people.  The highest ideals of humanity have flourished under it. Of course there are those who have falsely professed it, producing unthinkable evil and no good fruit to validate their profession. Yet, when genuinely embraced, it works better than any other way.

Ben Carson's talk was provocative because it espoused biblical wisdom, not the kind of conventional wisdom that changes easily at the whim of the heart.  "Political correctness is a terrible thing," he said, "because it muffles people from speaking freely.”  That is, after all, a constitutionally-protected right. 

Hmm ...come to think of it, there’s another Old School source of wisdom:  The US Constitution!

"Got Peace?"

I've been thinking about something everyone says they want:  Peace.

I am seeing a broader way to experience peace, one that goes beyond the absence of conflict.  It has to do with a marvelous Hebrew word - - Shalom.

In his interesting little book, Thriving in Exile, Steve Elliott recounts the historical significance of this wonderfully rich word.

When we hear the word peace we usually associate this to mean an absence of war or strife, but the Hebrew meaning of the word shalom has a very different meaning.  The verb form of the root word is shalam and is usually used in the context of making restitution.  When a person has caused another to become deficient in some way, such as a loss of livestock, it is the responsibility of the person who created the deficiency to restore what has been taken, lost or stolen.  The verb shalam literally means to make whole or complete.  The noun shalom has the more literal meaning of being in a state of wholeness or with no deficiency.

Another writer, Alvin Plantiga, takes it even deeper:

Shalom has a much deeper definition than peace as in absence of conflict.  It refers to a perfect state of union with God's original plan for man -- "universal flourishing, wholeness and delight - - a rich state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creater and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures he delights in.  Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be."

I am struck by the symmetry between the notions of Wellness and Peace in this context.  Wellness is more than the absence of disease just as Shalom is more than the absence of conflict.  Both offer the promise of a deep, profoundly satisfying relationship with the world around us.  And the same God who extended Shalom to his people, Israel, offers me the same reconciling promise:  "Abide in my love... that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full."  

What a wonderful way to live - - well!

Disruptive Innovations for a Disruptive Transformation

The healthcare industry is entering the most disruptive transformation in our lifetimes, calling for equally Disruptive Innovations.

Leaders in healthcare - - both physicians and non-clinicians - - must grow their capacity for leading in uncharted territory.

This article spotlights 3 health systems whose leaders are not waiting to follow others.

Disruptive Innovations in Healthcare

"Catholic Health Initiatives, Intermountain Healthcare and ThedaCare's disruptive innovations uproot existing systems in favor of new approaches that simplify processes and reach new markets. These organizations recognized the need for a complete overhaul of healthcare delivery models instead of tweaks to the current system due to the rising cost of care. These health systems have become models of what can be accomplished through disruptive innovation."

Reclaim Your Brain

Science is revealing how you can increase the performance of your brain -- and it's fun!

I recently discovered Lumosity, a fascinating brain training website, developed by an international collaborative of neuroscience researchers, that builds brain performance through a set of computer games. 

"We now understand that, with the right kind of stimulation and activity, the brain can dramatically change and remodel itself to become more efficient and effective in processing information, paying attention, remembering, thinking creatively, and solving novel problems." 

"Lumos Labs has used this cutting edge science to create a set of web-based software tools that empower people to exercise their brains and achieve their maximum performance. The assessments, games, and training courses on the Lumosity website (www.lumosity.com) are based on real science and are presented in an appealing, engaging form that make it fun to exercise the brain."

"Lumosity is uncovering the secrets of brain performance — with a little help from our friends. The Human Cognition Project is a groundbreaking research effort to bring together a network of scientists from 25 of the top neuroscience programs in the world, including Stanford, Berkeley and Harvard. Our goal is to use Lumosity as a platform for learning about cognitive enhancement and brain performance. With the help of these researchers, we are conducting over 3 dozen research projects — both in the lab and virtually — to make the most effective cognitive training programs in the world."