Presenting your facility

When you present your facility and its people to the Board of Directors, your city council, or your state representatives remind yourself that they will remember the feeling you portray, not the content alone.

Your statistics need to have heart as well as head in them. Not only stories about patients but perhaps people telling the story - willing patients and families, doctors and housekeepers, nurses and maintenance. What would it be like to have them present? Interview them, bring the face and feeling of your place to the meeting.

This is what they will remember long after the meeting is over. This brings excitement about your place to your audience’s understanding.

Take a risk

Let's kick of 2023 with a question - when was the last time you took a risk? A calculated risk perhaps, but none the less, a risk. A leap of faith maybe. A time you spoke up first at a meeting. A time when you silenced your usual meeting speech or even a time when you realized you didn’t need to be at that meeting at all!

It’s fun and sometimes amazing to look back over our lives and notice the risks we did take, the ones that worked and the ones that didn’t, and to then ask ourselves what we now know even more about ourselves. Richard Rohr wrote, “It is never a straight line, but always three steps forward and two backward—and the backward creates much of the knowledge and impetus for the forward.”

As 2023 unfolds, think about the risks you take and what you learn from the experience?

Orientation and mobility

In July I was at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville for the National Speakers Association Convention. True to the Gaylord name, it is a maze of trails and connecting ramps encompassing you in vegetation, people, music, and ‘something else’ just around the next corner.

At first, especially in search for coffee, it reminds you just how addicted you have become to a ‘normal hotel’...as well as to coffee! It is a delight however and over time I was able to feel fairly confident that I could get from here to there!

It reminded me of the times I was with my son, Corbb, who is blind, as he would accompany me to these conventions. Our first order to business was “O&M” - orientation and mobility. For those who are blind, O&M is not only a course to learn how to independently get around, it is also an ongoing task of seeing their way to and through the ”Gaylords” of the world.

Once properly oriented the mobility comes more naturally. It is a discovery process and I notice it among my sighted friends as well. New airport? Where am I? New neighborhood? Who am I? New role? What am I? For those who are blind O&M is a necessity…for those of us sighted, we do the same thing whether through the jungles of the Gaylord or the traffic before us.

I wonder too if there is a metaphor here for us as leaders. Perhaps our next meeting could use some O&M to help explain what is it really that we are all about. Perhaps we could use some O&M to speak to our history of our family. Or we could remind ourselves that what we know the other might not yet know. O&M!

Lead, don't manage

There is an important difference between ‘managing the talk’ and ‘leading the discussion.’ Managing, to me, seems to be about controlling who says what and when and in effect, corralling all the voices. It does not often lead to a conclusion so…”we better meet again next week!”

Leading the discussion has to do with finding the common element, the issue at hand, the ‘one thing’ that is vital to the effort. While data points are presented and debated, the leader, regardless of their position or status, is the one who can go beneath and beyond the data and relate the ‘story’ that points the way.

2+2 might be 4, or in some cases 22, or in others the entirely wrong equation to be considering. It is the manager who allows the debate to rage (respectfully) among the experts. It is also the manager who suggests the next meeting! It is the leader, however, who tells the story of the equation, has a uniting example, speaks to the overriding issue.

Dr. Frank Dono worked at OhioHealth well into his 80’s as a teacher and physician executive and concluded EVERY meeting with a short, impassioned speech to remind us, “Today we talked about finances, but we are really talking about patients, the quality of their care, the safety we provide, the mercy we show.” EVERY meeting. (I have heard that as he was being wheeled on a gurney during a heart attack, he was calmly instructing the new resident what to do, giving her the confidence to do her best for her teacher! Till the end! Wow!)

Social Equality

A teaching of Adlerian psychology (Alfred Adler 1870-1937) is that we are ‘social equals’ worthy of respect. This is different of course from being the ‘same.’ Social equality means we are certainly different, but we share a common humanity, dignity, and down not-so-deep we are quite like one another.

One of my graduate students used to come late to class each week, just a few minutes late, but late, nonetheless. I asked him about it and he said, “Oh, Mr. O’Connor, I get stuck talking to a homeless guy down the street.” I said (and now deeply regret) “You talk to homeless people?” He kindly responded, “You know I think you and I are maybe one life event away from the spot he is in.” I then began a journey to look into the eyes of the other, not to their circumstances. Quite similar indeed though quite different too.

Char Wenc had a class game teaching physician leaders for the American Association for Physician Leadership®. She asked them to break up into groups of two randomly and then said to alternate with “I’ll bet we have _____ in common” or “I like ______, how about you?” Telling them to see how many things they had in common. Always at least seven often into the double digits within minutes. We are quite like one another if only we look and ask and listen and respond.

The Courage to be Happy

Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, authors of the book “The Courage to be Happy”, speak of a three-dimensional triangle with words written on each of the three sides. One side says, “poor me” another says, “that bad person” and the final side “what should I do from now on?” As a therapist all one has to do is at every session hand over the triangular object and simply say, “So what are we going to talk about today?” For those of us without a therapist, we get to hand it over to ourselves at every fork in the road. Of course, during our lives we encounter many a bad person and have plenty to complain about that was unfair. We could (and sometimes do) repeatedly speak of each…plenty bad happened and plenty of those bad people too. However, ultimately we need to face that third side…“what should I do from now on?”

Your job is not to please the audience; your job is to engage the audience

My dental hygienist was telling me about her goal to finish her degree and enter a graduate program. I asked how it was going. “Well, I was going to enroll in one class…but I heard from other students that it was all lecture. All lecture doesn’t work for me.”

Does “all lecture” work for you…as the learner? How many times have all of us sat in a classroom, workshop, even a “lecture hall” (!) only to emerge wondering if we would ever get that hour back again in our life. Yet it continues to be the coin of the realm at professional meetings, classrooms, and even ‘motivational’ programs that we actually pay for!

The American philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, cautioned that education ought to help us know more and do more… “this intimate union of theory and practice aids both” he concluded. That was years ago and yet for many professionals, the lecture, to know more, overshadows the do more, again and again.

When Nora Dunn of the early Saturday Night Live show attended one of my classes at Columbia College Chicago she advised our acting students, “Your job is not to please the audience; your job is to engage the audience” and then she added that it is in the engagement that we are pleased. Many teaching Kindergarten through University know very well how important it is to stop the lecture only method…our students don’t tolerate it very well…and they tell us so!

But at our professional meetings, how many times do you really get to meet those at your table? Or those at the next table? Or on Zoom how many emails are you able to get through when the lecture begins?

So I invite you to reflect on your experience of learning. Are you like my dental hygienist? Or are you like the tens of thousands this week who will sit and listen and then hear the common statement, “Looks like we don’t have time for Q&A.” Make this a key consideration next time you are the one doing the teaching!

Share with Some Intended Hesitancy

Bob Powers, one of my now deceased professors from the Adler University in Chicago recommended to us aspiring counselors to play the “dumb nut” to get others to think more deeply.

As I reflect on this advice many years later, I notice that when others ask the obvious question it stimulates thinking on both parties. “Can you tell me more about that?” or “I’ve not heard it put that way before, tell me more about it.”

On a Los Angeles bound plane one day a man was telling me about his son who played on an east coast college football team. “My wife and I attend every game so we will be there when he gets hurt!” I asked, “You expect him to get hurt?” He replied, “Football is a very violent sport, Kevin.” I went on to ask what position he played knowing very, very little about football. “Quarterback” he said. Without thinking about my professor’s advice but perhaps following it I asked, “Is that they one who throws the ball?” He looked at me incredulously and said, “You have no idea about the game do you?” My response was “Nope!” He pulled out his iPhone and together for the next hour we watched his son’s game as he taught me more than I ever had known about the sport. It occurred to me later we were not watching a football game…he was showing me baby pictures…his baby all grown up!

Think Adjective, Noun, Adverb

A top tip for thought leadership from Business Speaker Mark LeBlanc, CSP: Divide a piece of paper into columns and simply brainstorm many (many!) words randomly. The columns can be labeled anything you want…I use adjective, noun, and adverb but you could use colors, towns, countries, etc. Then start circling combinations of those words. This could be used for a book title, a new concept, a vacation experience you never considered before…thought leadership doesn't have to be confined to the office! Try it and notice what is better or different about your thinking, your creativity, even that next vacation!

Comment when you see brilliance

My friend Derek Arden Negotiation Expert, AUTHOR, YouTuber, podcaster in the UK has a phrase that he uses on occasion: “That’s quite brilliant, isn’t it!” Whenever he says it, I feel a bit smarter...even when he's saying it about someone else! Perhaps he is on to something by commenting on ‘brilliance’, the illumined light that helps see into the shadows.

Recently I was speaking to a group of physician leaders and I commented on being a “responsive” leader. David Dull came up with a better word, “How about ‘responding’ leader?” His contribution made me think. 'Responsive' describes, whereas 'responding' is an action. Nice! Brilliant, actually! If we look for it perhaps, we too can see it. Quite brilliant, yes?

Collaborate Instead of Author

Although you may be the expert, the teacher, the author, the parent or the partner, work to be collaborative instead of authoritative. Yes, you and I have expertise, we all do at one level or another. Economists, physicians, historians, and philosophers know much more about their field than I will ever know. But so does the window washer at O’Hare Airport as she effortlessly glides the tools of her trade over an expansive window.

When I meet and talk to anyone, I try to ask a question that hits at the heart of the full understanding they have. “What insight from your study of economics (or medicine etc.) excites you the most?” or “What is the secret to getting this window so clean and so fast?” (Apparently wrist action and the secret formula in the bucket!)

Even if I knew the essence of any of these endeavors it is better to allow the other person to be my teacher than for me to “know it all.” And when you or I really are the expert in the room, refuse to act as if you are. Instead combine, collaborate, cooperate, and connect with their expertise. Imagine the result then!

Listen a bit more deeply!

A Catholic bishop friend of mine told me that he was with the Pope Benedict many years ago shortly after he was elected. I asked my friend what he was like. He said: "A few of us were sitting around asking him questions. One of the bishops asked him a question which he answered. Then, Kevin, he leaned forward looking at that same bishop and said, “But bishop I heard another question you didn’t ask me, would you like to ask me that question now?” I can only imagine the bishops looking at one another and saying, “That is so cool!” (Only in Latin!)

What is the question beneath the question that you hear…or want to ask?

Think Beyond the Normal

Think beyond the normal! Nido Qubein, President of High Point University is a master of the language that cuts through complexity to clarity. To help us focus he uses word pairing to teach. The difference between training and education for example. Or the difference between success and significance, fortune or fame. What are two words that have special meaning for you? Surviving or thriving? Work or career? Managing or leading? Self or other? Funeral or celebration of a life well lived?

One of my favorites comes from the famous Chicago psychiatrist, Dr. Rudolf Dreikurs (1897-1972): “I listen to the tongue in the shoe not the tongue in the mouth. Feet only point in one direction; words can go anywhere!”

The best word pairings don't from Nido or Dr. Drekurs or me…but from your own thoughts, which may lead to action. Be a thought leader in your community and encourage others to stop and think in a new way.