PatientProgress

The road to betterment is fraught with fits and starts. And that path toward improvement has way stations aplenty manned by the negative, the fearful, and the recalcitrant.

Some Dos and Don'ts for the journey toward betterment...

DOs:

• Stay focused
• Smile incessantly
• Listen a lot, to a lot 
• Ignore the negative
• Insist on improvement
• Monitor toward the desired outcomes
• Articulate the mantra, pound the drum of continuous improvement

DON'Ts:

• Appease
• Argue
• Settle
• Decelerate
• Tolerate the toxic

If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.

Getting better. Every day. On purpose. 

Bifocal

The people I admire most have a twofold view of the world; they pragmatically see it as it is while at the same time viewing it as it might be.

The optimistic side of their bifocal worldview compels them to ...

• Act instead of whine.
• Dream instead of wilt.
• Be bold instead of sissie.
• Build instead of tear down.
• Pull together instead of tear apart. 
• Make progress instead of excuses.
• Expect mistakes instead of steady wins.

While they have the bifocal view, they spend a lot more time looking through the "might be" lens.

QuestionMaestros

The most impactful people I know are intentional and voracious learners. They are extremely disciplined at pursuing and achieving the very best versions of themselves possible.

Almost all those folks whom I watch, read, and listen to have mentors.

The best of those mentors are not wizards with all the right answers. They're maestros of asking the right questions. 

Got mentor?

GoldenSilence

Careful thought. 

     Intense analysis. 

          Deep consideration.

               Vigilant forecasting.

                    Thorough reflection.

All pay premium dividends. All yield better understanding and decisions.

All are best done in silence -- especially our own. That's why it's golden.

CynicismBattle

When I have had opportunity to teach Graduate Research over the years, I admonish my students to be unashamedly skeptical. Question everything. Ask for evidence. Challenge assumptions. Accept nothing that includes a lot of handwaving, diversion, evasion, smoke, mirrors, unverifiable promises.

At the same time, I remind them to NOT let their skepticism bleed over into cynicism. We must fight the urge to become cynics with every fiber of our being. 

Why? Cynics have no hope. They can't (or won't) consider the prospects of a better future. 

And.....cynics aren't much fun to be around.

developMEnt

Development -- growth, learning, improvement -- starts with ME. Before I can ever ask others to do those things I must be the first to jump in feet first in the continuous improvement process. 

Making ME a better person, better employee, better follower, better leader is the first goal.

Some strategies that help in the continuous improvement of ME:

• Judge dimensions of improvement on continua rather than YES/NO scales.
• Invite someone to join me in the journey. Or several.
• Be willing to drop what's not working and add something new ad hoc (not on a time table).
• Make improvement efforts incremental, rather than whole hog.
• Calendar regularly time for assessments of progress, and revise as needed.

Team continuous improvement works the same, starting with ME.

MatteringMatters

The late Dr. Stephen Covey oft advised us that "the main thing is to keep the Main Thing the MAIN THING." One of the most impactful of my mentors over the years -- Gary Harrell -- reminded me regularly to remain focused first and foremost on the things of "eternal significance." 

Calendars fill. Schedules get busy. Urgent overtakes important. "Now" crowds out the consequential. UNLESS.......................we discipline ourselves to remain steady, to prioritize that which is important, to fashion our day in ways that keep the MAIN THING at the forefront of....

• Our effort.
• Our planning.
• Our attention.
• Our decisions. 
• Our engagements.
• Our conversations.
• Our hiring (or firing).
• Our allocation of resources.

We can't always ignore the "other stuff." What we can do is remember that it is "just stuff."

StResstriction

Stress jeopardizes. It threatens our health, our performance, our viability, our relationships. Learning how to reduce and restrict stress (aka StResstriction) is key to our ability to function optimally, as individuals and as organizations. 

Stress is typically the result of real or imagined urgencies, expectations, ambiguities, conflict, problems, and/or frustrations. 

The healthiest people, and the best leaders, I know effectively counter -- StResstrict -- stress by employing one or more of the following "therapies"...

• They focus their attention positively, avoiding negativity as if it were the plague. 
• They intentionally address stress points futuristically, refusing the backward-looking downers of blame, recrimination, regret, and lament.
• They stop trying to "fix" themselves and others, choosing rather to follow a daily and incremental regimen of continuous improvement.
• They deal with problems and challenges as if they were verbs rather than nouns, viewing them as malleable and addressing them with corrective measures and mitigation techniques rather than with hammers/blow torches/guillotines.
• They take purposeful steps toward healthy habits across the physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional-spiritual domains. For themselves and for their teams.

Stress is a natural emergent when we attempt to do important things and do impactful work.

Unless we take intentional steps to restrict stress, we'll experience more of it. Funny how that works.

PerfectionDereliction

Perfection...... isn't. Not possible. Can't get there. Pipe dream. Pure dereliction.

What we can do is get better. Every day. On purpose. 

That better state, however, is not the result of wishing. It happens only when we think carefully about... 

• WHAT we're doing, 
• WHY we're doing it, and 
• HOW we might do it better (if the doing is worthy).

Almost always, that "think carefully" part is done best in teams.

We can start today.

StrengthAcceleration

Everybody and their dog can spot weaknesses. It's not rocket science to identify problems. More difficult is the ability to identify strengths. Harder still is the craft of building a fire under those strengths.

The wisest leaders I know are skillful at identifying the strengths in those around them. Beyond that identification, those leaders also find ways to bolster, leverage, and accelerate those strengths. Here are some of the practices they deploy in Strength Acceleration:

• They purposefully identify, acknowledge, highlight, and prioritize strengths (as opposed to doing so with weaknesses). They seem masters at paying attention. 
• They view strength development as a process, not an event. As verb rather than noun.
• They engage team members with probing questions that cause reflection about those strengths. 
• They freely praise those who have used their strengths to advance the goals of the team.
• They offer support and collaboration toward the development of those strengths.  

Focusing on the "good" rather than the "bad" seems to be the SOP of these wise leaders. 

We can start today...

OfficeAllergy

The wisest leaders I have observed somehow manage to be in their office minimally. Instead, they continually move about the various work spaces of the organization. It's almost as if they're allergic to the office.

There is method to that madness, it seems. Some of the benefits of "the boss" going on relentless walkabouts instead of being caged up in the office is that they...

• Interface with a LOT of their internal customers (and even some of the external ones).
• LEARN a great deal about processes, procedures, workflow, customer service, etc.
• Ask questions of the troops, giving all of them "voice," and listen carefully to the answers.
• Model what authentic engagement looks like.
• Acknowledge and praise good work, in person.
• Get a firsthand view of the bottlenecks and pain points. 

Those that hole up in their offices often learn that they become prisoners of their offices.

OwnershipAmbiguity

Finger pointing, dodging, evasion, blaming... All are behaviors that happen -- A LOT -- on teams for which taking "ownership" is problematic. 

Some of the best teams I've observed (led by the wisest leaders I've observed) put into place some consistent practices/habits to make the "ownership" problem less of a problem:

• Leadership provides crystal clear clarity around who's responsible for what. 
• Monitoring conversations (not scorecards) among and between team members, both vertically and horizontally, happens as part of the daily routines.
• Team member are allowed much autonomy in the processes they use to achieve the outcomes they own.
• The team codifies shared goals, with some kind of metrics applied, so there is some reasonable way by which progress (or its lack) can be assessed.

Sounds easy, but it's certainly not. Otherwise, every team would be doing it.

RichVsWealthy

Being rich is grounded in materialism. Having money, having expensive stuff, and extravagantly displaying both seems both goal and evidence of being rich. Having much, and showing it off. 

Juxtapose that existence with one of wealth. Wealth implies being blessed far beyond material things. In fact, a person can be wealthy with very little in the way of material possessions.

Wealth is grounded in assets more than resources. Those assets can include the tangible, yet more often than not, wealth is made up of the intangible: relationships, peace, accomplishment, contentment, servanthood, wisdom.

The pursuit of either richness or wealth is a conscious decision on our part. 

Wealth for me, please. 

BUY(ing)IN

We often refer to the gaining of support as BUY-IN. Too often that phrase is thought of in the past tense, as if it's already in the books, a done deal, a ship sailed.

Not so. The work of gaining and maintaining BUY-IN is an ongoing process, not an event.

Masters at the craft of garnering BUY-IN consistently engage in the following behaviors. They...

• Start always with the WHY, before getting into the weeds of the WHAT and HOW.
• Assume all voices matter, and should have opportunity to participate.
• Create an environment of equality, in which rank doesn't matter as consensus is sought.
• Value, invite, and highlight different perspectives. 
• Gather and engage both data and people.
• Understand that contexts are fluid/dynamic, thus structures/processes/decisions must be also. 
• Calendar "re-visitation" conversations for months/years to come. 

Sounds messy, huh? However, the messiness is nothing compared to trying to proceed without BUY-IN.

Distraction

We have limited time, limited energy, limited resources, limited bandwidth, and limited attention.

There are a bazillion things and many people (10s? 100s? 1000s?) that compete for our time, energy, resources, bandwidth, and attention.

We get to decide what's important. Once we do, it's the important things that deserve our time, energy, resources, bandwidth, and attention. It's regarding the important stuff that we're trying to gain traction.

Everything else is.......DIS-traction.

TrustPropellant

Trust is a fragile and precious thing. Anything and everything we can do that engenders trust is a good thing. 

Some of the most trustworthy folks I know persistently engage in the following behaviors:

• They help others achieve and succeed as a matter of practice.
• They relentlessly seek from others information and expertise.
• They model integrity; their actions and words align perfectly.
• They heap praise on others, and deflect it from themselves.
• They are extremely generous with their time and resources. 
• They keep both their questions and explanations simple.
• They freely extend trust toward others.
• They exhibit remarkable kindness.
• They are transparent to a fault.

Plenty of areas we can polish up on, huh?

SwitchOnYourBrain

 I recently read Switch On Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health by Caroline Leaf (2013).

My top takeaways:

Ø  Our attitude, not our DNA, determines much of the quality of our life.

Ø  Our brain does the bidding of our mind, not the other way around. 

Ø  Our mind controls our body.

Ø  Happiness is a choice, and it comes from within.

Ø  80% of cancers are due to lifestyle, not genetics.

Ø  What we believe, and believe about ourselves, alters the facts.

Ø  Whatever we think about grows, whether positive or negative in nature.

Ø  Epigenetics: our thoughts and choices impact our physical, mental, and spiritual development.

Ø  Multitasking is a persistent myth.

Ø  Quantum physics is another way of admiring God.

Ø  Empathy fosters trust, and makes communication more genuine. 

Ø  Quantum physics informs us that the universe is connected with faster-than-light transfers of information.

Ø  Writing is a powerful stimulant to the neuroplasticity of our brain.

 

My favorite quotes:

“How we think not only affects our own spirit, soul, and body but also people around us.” (p. 24)

 

“Our mind is designed to control the body, of which the brain is a part, not the other way around. Matter does not control us; we control matter through our thinking and choosing. We cannot control the events and circumstances of life but we can control our reactions.” (p. 33)

 

“Our thoughts, imagination, and choices can change the structure and function of our brains on every level: molecular, genetic, epigenetic, cellular, structural, neurochemical, and electromagnetic, and even subatomic.” (p. 68)

 

“The law of entanglement in quantum physics states that relationship is the defining characteristic of everything in space and time.” (p. 121)

 

“Automatization applies to everything in your life, because everything you do and say is first a thought. This means nothing happens until you first build the thought, which is like the root of a tree buried under the ground. The thought produces words, actions, behavior, and so on, which can be compared to the tree, branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit you see above the ground.” (p. 133)

 

“Attitude is a state of mind—a thought plus its attached emotions—and it influences what you say and do.” (p. 161)

 

Dr. Leaf’s book was an interesting crosswalk between current neuroscience and scripture. She frequently used one to reinforce the other. She made me think. Which I love…

InquiryGurus

Some of the smartest people I know play dumb a lot. They steadily pitch questions at us that make us think. Then those crafty characters glean the collective wisdom that comes out of the responses to their powerful questions.

Here are some things I've noticed in the questions these Inquiry Gurus put on the table...

• Their question stems frequently come in invitational formats such as "What should we consider as we ... ?" and "How might we ... ?" 
• They pitch one question at a time, not bundling or daisy-chaining them.
• They keep each question short and compartmentalized.
• They almost never ask a Yes/No question. 
• They almost always end with this one: "What are we missing?"

Did I mention that the Inquiry Gurus spend far more time listening than they do talking???

DemandModel

The teams I have worked with over the years have likely grown weary of hearing this steady admonition from me: "If we can't model it, we can't demand it."

As I think about that declaration -- while looking in my own metaphorical mirror -- several dimensions of this assertion seem relevant. I cannot demand of others the following if I cannot model it myself...

• Intentional growth and learning.
• Deep commitment to continuous improvement.
• Stretching to engage with "different" and more folks. 
• Habits that foster physical, emotional, intellectual health.
• Seeking to gain a different perspective of intractable problems. 
• Leaning into discomfort and novelty, rather than avoiding it at all risks. 

That ought to be a good start on my day.

Come on in. The water's..................well, a little uncomfortable.

HeadlessChicken

My lovely bride of 49 years and I live on our ranch. 

Some of the critters we raise are chickens. From time to time we harvest chickens. A chicken with its head removed will run around burning up remaining energy like crazy -- aimless, nondirectional, frantically -- until it drops.

When we look in the mirror and see the same kind of behavior in ourselves, it's probably time to pause, prioritize, recalibrate, realign our time/effort/energy to our desired outcomes. 

As with all metaphors and analogies, this one has some weakness. But, I'm betting you get the point.

Whatcha aiming for today?

PushPull

Getting important stuff done is never a solo undertaking. It almost always takes a team. 

The more important the task/project, more (and more capable) folks are needed to pull it off. 

Hagel, Brown, and Davison (2010) asserted the importance of PULL over PUSH when we're trying to get big things done. They underscore the importance of those in the lead knowing when and how much to PULL (invite, encourage, imbue, empower). In their view, more PULL, less PUSH.

I've also heard folks using driving as analog to this concept: Knowing when to use the accelerator, when to use the brake, and how much pressure to apply to each in that constant ebb and flow process is critical. All while we constantly monitor and assess the contexts.

A thought: Knowing when and how much to PULL or PUSH can't be done from behind a desk or by poring over spreadsheets. Those in the lead gotta know the folks, gotta be on the ground, gotta have a front row seat to work as it's being done.

Relationships matter. A lot.

 

PresencePower

We sometimes get so busy being productive that we forget to be present.

There is tremendous power in being present, fully present. Here are some of the things that manifest, and are perceived as, presence:

• Non-distracted eye contact.
• Interest in the person, not just the performance of that person.
• Seeking reasons to compliment others (and mean it).
• Asking good questions. 
• Listening deeply to the answers to those questions.
• Putting down (or away) devices when engaging with others.
• Keeping the phone on silent mode.
• Showing up, on time, with homework done.
• Kind words, and a smile.

None of those things cost money, so we don't have to budget for them or fill out a purchase requisition. Interestingly, productivity often flows nicely as result of our being present. 

Power to the presence perpetrators!!!

Teacher < > Coach

The best teachers I know follow this recipe:

• Relentlessly craft lessons that cause students to acquire and retain knowledge relevant to the subject matter. On continuous loop, in many and varying ways.
• Persistently present students with skill development activities that require usage and habitual application of that knowledge. On continuous loop, in many and varying ways.
• Expose students to, and require them to wrestle with, novel situations in which the students must transfer the acquired knowledge and skills to new contexts/problems. Providing ongoing feedback as the students productively grapple and struggle.

The best coaches I know follow this recipe:

• Relentlessly craft lessons that cause students to acquire and retain knowledge relevant to the subject matter. On continuous loop, in many and varying ways.
• Persistently present students with skill development activities that require usage and habitual application of that knowledge. On continuous loop, in many and varying ways.
• Expose students to, and require them to wrestle with, novel situations in which the students must transfer the acquired knowledge and skills to new contexts/problems. Providing ongoing feedback as the students productively grapple and struggle.

The best teachers I know are superb coaches. The best coaches I know are superb teachers.

ToxinResponse

Toxins occur -- in our bodies, in the environment, and in organizations.

In all three domains, the response to toxins can follow several possible pathways...

• Removal of the toxin and cleanup of the mess left behind.
• Put in place processes to mitigate and interdict toxins.
• Intervene with counter-toxins of some kind.

A well-worn and repeatedly proven ineffective response...............ignoring the toxin.

CulturalSpinnerThumping

Culture is evolutionary. The culture of our family, of our house of faith, of our team, of our organization (of any kind) was built over time, one brick at a time.

The version of that culture (of whichever organization we're thinking about) we experience today is the manifestation of the current habits in practice by the collective membership. 

We cannot change the culture of any of those organizations with one purchase of snake oil, by excommunicating or firing one member, by occupying a new building, or by hiring a popular consultant. The likelihood of the success of any of those quick-fix strategies is the equivalent of thumping a spinner. 

Meaningful cultural change results from the daily discipline of the members deciding which habits make us better (and doubling down on them) and which of our habits make us less (and purging them).

And, tomorrow, we do it again. 

Poor-formance

Sometimes people perform poorly. 

Those of us in leadership roles are, thus, obligated to address it. That is a non-negotiable.

There seems to be three critical points in that process of "addressing it."

1. Discerning the cause of the poor performance. We have to consider a wide range of possibilities (or combinations thereof). They might include: lack of motivation, lack of skills, lack of knowledge, lack of clarity about expectations, nefarious intent, life crises, poor health, etc. Some of those things we own, some we don't. Some we can do something about; some we can't. Rarely is poor performance about just one thing. 
2. Having the conversation. One thing that is certain about poor performance is that it won't change unless we address it with that person. 
3. Taking corrective action and follow-up. Building a collaborative corrective action plan WITH that poor performer is the piece that determines success or failure (or dismissal). The poor performer stands the best chance of righting the ship when she/he is involved in crafting the solution(s). Important to remember is that that which is not monitored......is optional.

One final thing for consideration: Poor performers respond best when they feel like we CARE about them as much as we do their performance. That one requires from us a good, hard look in the mirror. 

 

SnarkPenalty

It's tempting to get snarky sometimes. Especially when we're right.

Snarkiness, however, always comes with a penalty: Lost trust, ill will, simmering anger, disengagement, etc.

The price we pay for being snarky makes it never worth what enjoyment we may think we realize from it.

NoviceDevelopment

My early years of professional service were spent pretending to be an athletic coach. 

I heard Nicholas Keith of the Texas Education Association speak this week to to the powerful progression recipe for learner development:

> Acquisition (initial learning of the knowledge/skill)     

   > Fluency (practicing for speed and accuracy)

      > Generalization/Adaptation (applying the knowledge/skills into real-world contexts)

The best coaches I have known over the years use this very formula toward the development of athletes.

The wisest teachers, leaders, and mentors I know do exactly the same thing.

MatterMaking

We all want to feel like we matter.

The wisest leaders I know are masters of helping us feel like we matter.

How do they do that? They...

• LISTEN to us, intently.
• ASK us questions, to probe our perspectives, opinions, assumptions, values.
• TREAT us as equals and volunteers, not subordinates.
• INVITE us into conversations and explorations around consequential stuff.

The very best of those leaders do these things, not as an act, but because it's part of their fabric.

MonsterFighting

My lovely bride of 49 years has oft reminded me that we're ALL fighting monsters of some kind. She asserts that everyone is dealing with some issue or challenge, and in many cases, multiple monsters at the same time.

The Love of My Life also encourages me to remember that almost all of these monster-fighters are "doing the best they can" under the circumstances.

Her wisdom in this regard has caused me often in life to observe more closely, care more deeply, discern more keenly, listen more intently, forgive more easily.

I wanna be like her when I grow up... 

(Fighting off a few monsters of my own.)

Decision-itis

Over 50 years of professional service, I've worked for some bosses who thought they needed to be involved in every decision, provide their approval for every transaction, be leading every consequential conversation. They got in the way quite a lot. 

I tend to think of those folks as having the malady of Decision-itis. It's an inflammation of the frontal cortex of the brain, causing extreme overactivity, generating an aura of self-importance. 

I've also worked for a few who seemed completely unable or unwilling to make a decision. These suffered from IN-decision-itis. This disease presents as an apparent complete malfunction of the executive function of the brain. It's almost like an allergic reaction to the need to make a decision.  

Finally, I have worked for a precious few bosses who carefully gathered evidence, sought multiple perspectives, examined best practices, carefully forecasted potential outcomes, and then....................... made a good decision. These I deem to be the Judicious Deciders. 

Any guesses on which are the best to work for?

BEcoming

The day we stop learning is the day we put the first foot in the grave. Becoming the very best version of ourselves is a learning journey, from the first breath to the last.

Existing, however, is not the same as living a meaningful life.

Some things that help us BECOME all that we can be...

• Remain curious - enough to keep asking questions.
• Learn - purposefully, in a fashion of daily discipline.
• Care - for others, for the earth, for the future (and show it).
• Exude transparency - in all ways being genuine and authentic.
• Forgive - freely, often, and with the knowledge that the blessings flow in both directions.

That'll be a day's worth of work. 

Rather, more like a life's worth.

Energizer

A car without fuel won't go. An electrical appliance that is not connected to a power supply won't spin, chop, heat, cool, light, jiggle, or ??? A sailboat without wind drifts. A solar panel without sunlight won't generate electron activity.

Stuff that requires energy to work............requires...........ENERGY!

Same goes for organizations that are trying to accomplish important things. Same goes for individuals that are trying to live impactful and meaningful lives.

Energy comes in all kinds of packages: physical, intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual.

WE -- you and I -- can be the source of energy provision......for ourselves and for those who depend on us.

Being an ENERGIZER is a daily learning journey.

Time to power up!

CollectiveIntelligence

I read a book about 20 years ago in which the author asserted there is no such thing as individual intelligence, that it's ALL collective. A good point, it seems to me. To wit: everything we know and can do is built on what someone else knew or could do, before us.

Another angle to this argument is relevant when we're dealing with sticky and complex problems. Putting multiple minds, experiences, and perspectives on developing a solution to a sticky/complex problem almost always results in better solutions. 

When we try to leverage the wisdom of the group, the results are always better when we...

• Stay relentlessly focused on the facts.
• Divorce the conversation from political concerns. 
• Are committed to outcomes that are good for the whole (not just some).
• Build flexibility into the deployment processes.
• Abandon the desire for perfection.

Did I mention "sticky" and "complex"?

Trustability

Our world seems chock full of way too many legal documents, contracts, and memoranda of understanding. It seems we can't afford to trust someone unless we've hemmed them up with hundreds of words of demands, constraints, limitations, expectations, etc. 

I am reminded daily of the pervasiveness of these systems built on one thing: DISTRUST! 

All are grounded in the presumption that "the other" will not do the right thing unless they are bound to it via some contractual obligation.

To the contrary, years ago I learned about a very different approach. Here's how it looks:

"I'm going to trust you...............until or unless you give me some reason not to."

How's that for a contract?????

LearningTriad

We tend to think of learning as just one process or event. In fact, the most impactful learning is a three-fold undertaking: 

Learning > UN-Learning > RE-Learning

Fundamentally, this triadic process is a state change. What we know gets modified, what we can do evolves. Some of the elements that trigger (and sustain) this process are:

• Attention - a focusing of our brain by observing, by listening, by reading, by experimenting.
• Agency - no one else can do the learning for us; we only own it when we do it.
• Application - testing what we think we know and can do against real-world contexts.
• Will - we triadicly learn best only when we want to.

Happy Tri-Learning!

ForwardFacing

Questions are tools. Powerful questions are powerful tools.

When thinking about improvement -- whether as individuals or as organizations -- a few simple questions can push us forward in significant ways:

Why are we doing what we're doing?

If our endeavor is worthy, what are we doing that does not contribute to that outcome?

If we're engaged in impactful actions, how might we do them better?

How do we know how well we're doing?

Clarity about where we're headed is critical. Persistent alignment of our thinking and behavior to that aspiration is .................................... nonnegotiable. Or should be.

If not, we're definitely not facing forward. 

PatternProblem

Maybe the problem is not the problem. Maybe it emerged as result of a faulty pattern.

Looking upstream of the problem is often very revealing as to why the problem is a problem in the first place. 

And the thing about pernicious patterns is that they reliably persist in pushing out problems. 

Is there a pattern doctor in the house???

Delegation

Delegating is sometimes -- too often -- viewed as a way to reduce load. There are, however, some powerful underlying reasons for delegating important tasks and decisions to others on the team (whether that team is one's family or a multi-national organization). 

Effective delegating sends powerful signals to others on the team, such as...

• We're a TEAM and can only be successful if we contribute as such.
• I trust you to do important work and make consequential decisions.
• I'm here if you need me, but I intend to "stay out of your way."
• You take care of this important work; let's communicate regularly on how it's going.
• Expect to get credit when things go well; I'll provide cover when they don't.
• I'll keep you in the loop on looming storms or rattlesnakes in the grass; you do the same.
• You have the authority to make improvements. In fact, it's expected.

Few things are as affirming and satisfying as working with an effective TEAM. 

It almost always starts with leaders communicating that we are one.

WhenBreathBecomesAir

I recently read When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (2016).

 This book is a posthumous memoir written by a young neurosurgeon, PK, who died of lung cancer at the age of 37.

My top takeaways:

Ø  The Forward written by Dr. Abraham Verghese is some of the most beautiful prose I’ve read.

Ø  I could never be a physician.

Ø  Diseases are simply molecules misbehaving.

Ø  Quality of life has everything to do with quantity of life.

Ø  Words are just as important as scalpels in the surgeon’s tool chest.

Ø  Statistics are humans, too.

Ø  The easiest death is not necessarily the best death.

Ø  Death, like life, is process more than event.

Ø  The physician’s duty is not to return patients to their “old” lives, but to keep them living for their “new” one.

Ø  Bereavement is but another phase of marriage.

Ø  The fundamental question: How do I live a meaningful life?

My favorite quotes:

“Because the brain mediates our experience of the world, any neurosurgical problem forces a patient and family, ideally with a doctor as a guide, to answer this question: What makes life meaningful enough to go on living?” (p. 71)

“Lucy and I both felt that life wasn’t about avoiding suffering. Years ago, it had occurred to me that Darwin and Nietzsche agreed on one thing: the defining characteristic of the organism is striving. Describing life otherwise was like painting a tiger without stripes.” (p. 143)

“Yet I returned to the central values of Christianity—sacrifice, redemption, forgiveness—because I found them so compelling. There is a tension in the Bible between justice and mercy, between the Old Testament.” (p. 171)

“The main message of Jesus, I believed, is that mercy trumps justice every time.” (p. 171)

You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.” (p. 224)

This book was required reading for my oldest granddaughter as she was completing her undergraduate degree (as part of her capstone project). She recommended it to me. I am thankful for that, on multiple levels.