Get Out of Your Office to Foster Happier Employees

I had the chance to talk with John Heer and get his thoughts one year after he won the prestigious Harry S Hertz Leadership Award, given by the Baldrige Foundation to leaders who exhibit behaviors that have inspired, encouraged, challenged, and empowered others to achieve performance excellence.

Heer is the current owner and lead at P3 Leadership, a consulting company that views world-class results as coming from the focus on people who have a passion and a purpose.

John believes that the most important approach to improving a company’s bottom line is to focus on the people and culture.  He defined culture simply as “how employees and leaders behave when no one is looking,” and talked in detail about how he used the principles of servant leadership to foster an improving culture.

In our discussions, I specifically asked him how a new leader could engage employees.  His first response: “Get out of the office” and engage front line staff.  He talked about his own experiences in the mostly centralized setting of a hospital-based health system.  Here are three examples:

• Find employees where they gather and work and take a few minutes to interact….John talked about how he would walk up behind the desk of a nursing unit and start asking questions – how’s the day going? Anything interesting going on? Leaving these questions opened ended allowed the responders to decide if they wanted to talk about an interesting patient personality, a resource need for their job, or life away from work.
• Eat lunch with different employee groups without bringing the power point.Eating for a few minutes with 4 to 10 employees on a regular basis, 2-3 times per week if possible, gave John not only the insight to the people he was eating, but also provided others watching a key understanding of his leadership style and commitment to the organization. He specifically noted the difference between called lunch meetings (“Town Halls”, etc.) and simply going to the cafeteria, buying lunch, then randomly choosing a table to sit down and interact while eating.
• Be personally active with New Employee Orientation.   John spent up to 2 hours every other week talking with new employees to the organization.  He talked about the culture, the critical success factors, how decisions are made, the ability to personally affect a customer’s life, and more. John viewed this time not only to ensure people heard from him personally what was important to him about culture, etc., but also to provide an immediate example of how he was willing to take the time to show his focus on employees and their value to the organization.

Of course, getting out of the office and talking with employees is easier when the company has a centralized office setting.  It can be more of a challenge to interact in a multi-office or remote work-from-home setting, but the idea is the same.  Engaging employees is simply about time, attitude, and commitment.  

In a virtual environment, an organizational leader should still be using technology on daily basis to interact with employees in a personal way.  Even if they only talk business, picking up the phone, using an online chat room, video conferencing, etc., will all enhance the personal nature of the relationship more than email or simple ‘meeting only’ conference calls.

Whether in a centralized or remote setting, leaders who make a concentrated effort to get away from the traditional meetings and behind closed doors office work and spend time interacting with the staff are more likely to have employees who are engaged with a sense of belonging.

CEOs: What can we learn from Brian Dawkins?

Brian Dawkins, the best safety ever to wear an Eagles uniform, talked about leadership during his Friday interview with Mike Missanelli on 97.5 The Fanatic, which was to discuss his Football Hall of Fame semifinalist nomination.

When asked about his definition of leadership, he simply said “To Serve.”

He went on to discuss aspects of his philosophy that sounded a lot like the basics of Servant Leadership, documented by Robert Greenleaf in his 1970 essay The Servant as Leader. In the essay, Greenleaf states “the servant-leader is servant first... It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first.”

Dawkins talked about being direct with his teammates and asking questions like “Is there anything going on with you?” and “Can I help?”  He discussed how he “always tried to be respectful of people’s space.” He sounded like someone who spent a lot of time getting up from his locker and checking in with others.

Dawkins played for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1996 to 2008, drafted in the second round after playing at Clemson University.  As we all know in Philadelphia, he was the fan favorite of that team, exhibiting drive, tenacity, skills, and teamwork like none other.  

In the interview, Dawkins continued with his need to always give his all while expecting more from his teammates: “I’m giving everything that I have; I’m never going to ask you to do anything that I won’t do or haven’t done.”

He was demanding of both himself and his teammates: “The greatest word in my vocabulary is accountability.  The greatest thing a team can have in addition to character is accountability.  I want you to get away with nothing.”

Currently working in the Eagles scouting department, Dawkins talked about the Eagles teams under Coach Andy Reid simply by saying a “Village is built over time,” and that each person needs to be accountable to himself, his teammates, and his responsibilities.

Dawkins was named All-Pro six times and made nine Pro Bowls. He was both the first player in NFL history to record a sack, an interception, forced fumble, and touchdown reception in a single game and the first player in NFL history to record at least 30 interceptions and 30 forced fumbles.

He also talked about how he develops as a person.

“I grow the most in depth from the tough experiences in my life.   When I was going through tough experiences, I grew much greater than anytime I was having success in my life.” He ended his thoughts with “It’s virtually impossible to truly grow in comfort.”

There is no one right way to be a leader, but what Brian showed me in his interview is that clear communication and honest self-awareness of what you believe in will go a long way in having the people around you accept you and your leadership style.

5 Reasons Why Leaders Focus on Pipeline Management

A new division head told me a story the other day that the company leaders had been focusing on the immediate promise of closed business (forecast) for that month's expected wins.  When discussing future months, the leadership team based their idea of the market and future sales potential by enabling the sales team to discuss individual sales ‘stories’ from the front line sales managers – i.e., this person bought their products for “xyz” reason, so others are sure to follow – and accepted this analysis as a basis for estimating future growth.

Since leaderships' focus was the short-term sales wins, it was sketchy at best knowing exactly what the sales process entailed, what the metrics were to succeed, how accurate was the forecast, and what the next ½ year would bring (much less the following year) beyond trusting the individual sales stories.  As the market required the industry to change from a transaction-based sales approach to a solution sales approach, the length of the sales cycle grew, as well, forcing a good portion of ‘find now, close now’ deals to be ‘start now, close next ½ year’ deals.  Unfortunately, there were not trusted metrics or an emphasis on accurate pipeline reporting available to accurately forecast this transition.

I brought this discussion to Jim Olson, long-time sales and sales operations leader in the telecommunications, technology and software industries, and we spent the morning discussing his experiences on the five reasons why organizations should focus on the pipeline, not the forecast, as their first order of business.

1.      Forecasting is a result of Pipeline Management, not the other way around.  Accurate Pipeline management can help drive both short term and long term forecasting while developing an understanding of the length of the sales cycle. Driving forecasting – the promise in dollars and deals of what will be closed within this quarter (or other company-defined ‘short’ time-period) –eliminates sales representatives from focusing on or sometimes even revealing their opportunity pipeline (i.e., a sales rep knows they won’t get questioned on items the manager can’t see or doesn’t know about and chooses to just show what they are almost certain will close as a win in the short term).  Forecasting with an established sales process has been provide to produce predictable results long-term and helps leaders understand the business.  If an organization is only focusing on the commitment to close quarterly pipeline, it encourages the sales reps to not report the future potential closes.

2.      Pipeline Tracking encourages open communication between Sales Rep and Sales Manager. By going through the pipeline and what opportunities are in what stages, what came in new, and what left the opportunity process, a manager will have a much better idea on the activities of the sales rep, provide guidance on territory management, ensure the right activities are being done for both closing deals this quarter and ensuring future quarter deals are being worked, and report his metrics back to senior management with much more confidence and accuracy. In other words, proper Pipeline Management allows you to know your true Opportunity base.

3.      Analytics are available to understand if you know your opportunity base.  If you are tracking your entire pipeline, with a defined and commonly used definition of the steps in the sale (i.e., sales stage process), you can easily calculate metrics like sales cycle length, close ratio, etc.  From this information, you can not only understand what will be closing this quarter, but see what has potential for closing in future quarters. From there, you can then make business decisions on what is needed for the business (is the funnel big enough to support future expected growth?, are we driving enough leads today for future sales?, etc.).

4.      You can build a more accurate Forecast. Knowing the pipeline and applying the historical metrics in #3, you can easily calculate the forecast through data, comparing that with the ‘commitments’ or ‘promised business’ that the sales reps are providing.  Once you establish accuracy in your forecasts, you can then provide a framework to senior leadership on future quarter potential, including being more accurate in future quarter forecasts (i.e., create a data calculation to look at current funnel and apply the metrics – the ‘weighted’ or ‘factored’ calculation being an example of companies across industries with b2b multi-month sales processes).   With the same defined sales stage and opportunity reporting base, your short-term Forecast becomes your upside and/or committed opportunity.

5.      Increase Customer Benefit by prioritizing activities by forecast and sales stage. With an accurate pipeline, sales reps can understand where potential customers are in the sales cycle, timing discussions around discovery, customer requirements, benefits to the customer of a potential solution, etc., based on customer buying signals and where they are in the process. For example, a customer needs the software company that understands what you do and how you do it – and the sales rep knows at what point in the pipeline process to gather this information.

In addition to the above reasons, here are two more items to consider from a Chief Customer Officer view:

6.      Lead Generation and Funnel Development requirements are defined. Building leads from either the marketing or sales perspective (research shows that the most efficient b2b businesses obtain 30% of leads from marketing campaigns and initiatives) are clearly understood if you can calculate both ways – from lead to close and from expected sales back to leads. Tracking the quantity and quality of leads is imperative to understand how many leads are needed to drive the Funnel increase that is needed to get the Opportunity base you need to deliver the sales results expected.

7.      Provides direction for Marketing and Relationship Management Automation.  To help the sales people keep ‘selling’ – i.e., actively work the pipeline deals and prospect – automation processes and systems are being implemented to assist with ‘keeping the contact warm’ until they become an active lead or ‘keeping in touch’ with the existing customers to help with Customer Success and upsell opportunities.  Having a clear sales process with a well-defined Pipeline Management process ultimately helps the corporation trace back and define the requirements for marketing and relationship management automation.

Ultimately, senior executives want to know that sales is providing accurate current and future information surrounding sales and expected revenue.  By starting with the Pipeline that is reported from a defined sales stage process, the sales leader can confidently provide executive management what they need to know on a consistent basis and ultimately develop a trusted reputation that helps when corporate initiatives to help sales are requested.

CEOs: Interviewing CIOs? Six Things to Listen for Regarding Cyber Security Risk Management

Four times in the last 36 months I’ve had a company call or send a notice that “due to a security breach…”, my information has been compromised.  It frustrating, scary, exasperating, and a general pain in the you know what. Imaging that individual person's reaction from millions of people, or across an entire country's infrastructure, is astounding.  Per the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, “Sophisticated cyber actors and nation-states exploit vulnerabilities to steal information and money and are developing capabilities to disrupt, destroy, or threaten the delivery of essential services.”

With the common understanding that everything online is connected, a CIO's business acumen around Cyber Security is one of the fastest growing conversations happening today.   A CIO who can effectively work through and discuss the overall business strategies across systems can ultimately make decisions in the context of everything else the organization wants and needs to do.

I spent an afternoon talking with Bob Merkle, a Cyber Security Risk Management consultant for Business Executives, regarding what he is hearing with his clients.  Here are six related items that he hopes a CEO and CIO talk about when discussing the current and future security risk management needs of a company.

1.      Give everyone a piece of Risk Management responsibility.   Security is not an IT issue – every employee in every department should have Risk Management responsibility embedded into the culture and written into their job description.  At the tactical level, here are some simple examples of every-day tasks to highlight this statement.  Can an employee easily forward a phishing email to be reviewed?  Is the employee thinking about how he/she can securely send this employer-based piece of data to the vendor?  Are all the passwords the employee uses at work all the same and tied to personal passwords used at home?  Ultimately, the company should send clear and consistently repeated communications emphasizing the Risk Management responsibility.

2.      Rethink all Procedures from a Security standpoint.  How many procedures does the company have that don’t have a manual check to ensure security? How many processes are 100% automated that don’t have security check controls?  Look at all processes – not just the obvious IT ones (e.g., a NW administrator gives notice – is there a way to reduce their access and change ‘shared’ administration processes to ensure security?  How is the sales rep giving out the companies Fed Ex account number to the customer sending in a signed contract?) – with an eye towards securing company IP and private data of the company and their customers.

3.      Ensure all employees share customer-first thinking.  Executives, management, and line workers who think of the customer first (outside-in thinking), question any process or transaction that they don’t understand, or question any potential lack of security through the customers’ eyes (external or internal customers) will be helping the company minimize security risks.  Thinking customer first applies not just to security, but for all ideas that ‘maximize the chance for business success.’  Ever hear of the story where a company lost a major contract with UPS because they sent in the paperwork through Fed Ex? The mail room person executing on the task of sending out the paperwork could have prevented it.  It’s the same with managing security risk – any individual who takes the time to question what they are doing can prevent a breakdown.

4.      Long-term systems process, not a training event.   Systems to a business savvy CIO doesn’t just mean technical computer systems, but the computer and people systems throughout the business.  CIOs who ensure the yearly class on Security is given to every employee must also ensure that there is an ongoing system in place to keep the Security training top of mind – i.e., they must clearly develop the ‘process’ around the training event. Each company can find a way to make it part of the business….an employee does X every day – are they asking themselves if the task and process around it is ‘safe’?  Challenge them to send it examples on what may or may not be safe and should be questioned.

5.      Put a strong Quality Control system on the basics.  The risk to a business is that they have to be 100% perfect to keep the trust of the customers in their business.  To this end, the basics of security need to be completely covered. For example, how often does a company survey all the servers for open ports and who/what may be using the ports?  Although security is not absolute, implementing a structured approach to ensure minimal to no risk on the security basics is a fundamental task that all companies should be mastering (as an aside, if you know an example where a Six Sigma approach was specifically implemented for Security risk management, please enter a comment to this article.).

6.      Accept it is a short-term cost with long-term ROI.   Merkle thinks the idea that Smarter, Faster, Cheaper should be applied to security is downright scary.  The facts show time and time again that it takes money to secure customer and company data, hardware, etc. CIOs set this expectation up front by agreeing to security-based Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are created and tracked so the CEO can be assured that money is being spent wisely. Ultimately, the ROI is in the long-term ‘prevention’ of a breach that costs companies millions. The Ponemon Institute 2016 Cost of Data Breach Study found that the “all-in” of information lost or stolen averages $221 PER record.

The recent NIST announcement regarding the Baldrige Cybersecurity Initiative has been publicly endorsed by, among others, U.S. Chief Information Officer Tony Scott, who is helping to lead the President’s Cybersecurity National Action Plan. Scott believes that approaches like Baldrige will stimulate improvement to the security challenges and problems organizations face today. 

The Baldrige-based Cyber Security self-assessment tool helps CIOs and others better understand the effectiveness of their cybersecurity risk management efforts. (Cyber Security expert? Visit the Baldrige Program website "Phase 1" area for a free download of the new Cybersecurity Excellence Builder and provide feedback online by December 15th, 2016).

Clearly, US industry leaders and company CEOs are taking on Cyber Security as a key leadership issue. CIOs who clearly understand the business ramifications of lowering the company’s security risk have a distinct advantage.

Sales Leaders’ 4-pronged approach to building a sales team

I was presenting this information to middle school aged children during a Future Business Leaders event. During the dramatic pause I built in after the statement “Step one, hire good people” a wonderful young man named Travis looked me in the eye and astutely said…..”No, Duh!”  Well, Travis, sometimes you still need to state the obvious.

1. Hire and mentor good people. People can succeed in sales in a variety of ways with a variety of talents.  Each sales leader for a b2b organization needs to define what they need – and not in terms of product experience, but rather the ‘type’ of person that can succeed with the organization’s sales needs.  For most of my career, I’ve found that b2b sales reps who are most successful have the following attributes: a) They like people. b) They have an internal drive to push forward (NOTE: I used to say they must love the kill – in other words, they enjoy immensely winning the deal – however, I have known sales reps who have an internal drive to push forward for the sake of activity and work – not necessarily from the high from the contract signing itself – who still exceed 100% every year because they’ve learned how and when to close throughout the whole process.) c) They understand that having a way to keep track of “stuff” is critically important to their job, and d) They understand how to think in terms of the person they are talking with – not necessarily ‘empathy’ or ‘emotional intelligence’ (although these help), but simply having a knack for knowing what the person is thinking or is about to say before they say it – i.e., like in an argument when you can expertly argue both sides.
2. Foster customer first culture with outside in thinking. Consultative selling, solution selling, outside in thinking, talking about the benefits – these ideas start with the basis that the sales person first has to understand the potential customer’s environment, then find the issues they are trying to solve – both for the organization and the individual person’s ‘wins’. Part of the sales leader’s job is to ensure that each conversation they have with a sales rep ensures that the rep is thinking about ‘them’ and not ‘us’ or ‘we’ – this concept is the key to the strategy needed to win the deal.  A good way to understand if the sales rep is there is to ask “Can the sales rep have a conversation with themselves – speaking both for them and the prospect?”
3. Establish expectations of how to work. The distinctive sales leader expects two fundamental elements from the sales reps – 1. Sales, 2. Reporting of future sales.   In order to obtain that, the best leaders ensure the organization has expectations on how to work (and hopefully advocates for the infrastructure to make that work as efficient as possible – see next bullet).  Some common questions to ask each sales rep - who do you need to talk to, how are you finding opportunities to work, how are you building and managing the funnel, what are your strategies for closing each deal, how are you closing something with every contact, where are you against this year’s goal, what does your future year funnel look like.  Take time to write down how you are going to help the sales rep answer each of those questions – and deliver to the team the expectations to have these questions answered at any time. The steps along the path to the final sale is how to build the pipeline and ultimately be successful.
4. Implement operations that are effective.  I’ve seen the most successful sales leader take personal responsibility to have Corporate see sales as a positive extension of the business, not just closing deals, but ensuring a positive environment for all the other departments to do their job (customer support, development, installations, etc.).  Working together with corporate to ensure sales operations are implemented in such a way to a) maximize the sales reps time and b) provide corporate with field sales status is critical to the success of the sales team. Read this article for the four ideas that sales leaders follow when focusing on sales operations.

Of course, there are many other areas to consider, as both this Forbes article and Dave Kerpen's "10 mistakes" article points out, including aligning compensation with business targets, positive motivation, building a winning sales culture, etc.

Although there is no one right way to build a winning sales organization, working through these four areas to make each successful will significantly improve sales communications and focus, increasing the chances of sales success.

Sales Leaders: Who's taking the responsibility to implement sales operations for your team?

The best sales leaders combine personal responsibility with organizational infrastructure to advocate for their team.  Part of this advocacy ensures that the Corporation supports the team with tools and infrastructure to make the sales reps job as efficient as possible.  The responsibility of the sales leader also includes leading the implementation of the operational processes with the sales team to take advantage of the organizational infrastructure.  The best sales leaders take this need as their personal responsibility, and ensure the following operational items are working at peak capacity by either collaborating with the sales support organizations or leading the charge themselves.

• Territory management – how does a sales rep manage their territory?  Are the tools being used implemented in such a way to make it easy for the sales rep to do both: 1. manage their territory at the task level on a daily basis, and 2. view the territory overall to ensure the week to week and month to month strategies are still the best way to move forward?   Build a territory management culture that benefits both the sales rep and management – working together to find and win business.  Surrounding the tools, what are the expectations of territory management? Process?  For example, is there a regular planning call (more than a status review – ensuring the territory plan is enabling the sales rep to maximize their time and ability to find and close deals)? Ensure the process is in place and working.
• Escalation procedures – a sales rep needs help. How do they get it? It’s a simple question and surprising how many organizations don’t have these answers written down. As a sales leader, take an hour and write down the following: 1. What would a sales rep need help with? (there could be dozens of questions here – come up with at least 6 to get started) and 2. What is the first step in getting that help? (including the particulars of what the sales rep does/says to get the help).   Here’s a thought regarding this topic: when should a sales rep proactively call their manager?  When should they talk to ABC corporate department (sales ops, training, tech support, marketing, etc.)?  Establishing clear escalation procedures will save everyone time – and ultimately give the rep a greater chance to succeed.
• Funnel tracking & follow-up automation – although all of the areas in this article go hand in hand with establishing expectations on how to work, this area of tracking the funnel, establishing priorities, ensuring timely follow-up, etc., has the most direct connection to how corporate can help implement an infrastructure of sales support.   Does your company have a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system and a Marketing Automation tool?  These products are specifically designed (or should be) to help the sales rep keep track of and in touch with as many prospects and customers as possible.  The sales leader needs to advocate on behalf of the sales organization to ensure this is true, and request fixes when it is not.  No automated tools? Create something – anything – to ensure tracking and follow-up are being handled.
• Metrics and reporting – Even in the best organizations that fully support their sales teams, the bottom line is that executive management need to know what’s going on. The average b2b sales organization has some type of reporting to management – the sales leader needs to take the "typical" to the next level – what specific metrics can be tracked and integrated into the sales culture – to ensure the most successful ‘deals closing’ outcomes?  (after all, are successful metrics that don’t contribute to sales closes really worth a sales team's time to track?) Establish those metrics and report back out to the sales teams, management, and key departmental managers (marketing, sales enablement, product owners).  Then take that data, combine it with the opportunity funnel and win/loss data, and ensure an executive level dashboard is used on a regular basis (monthly seems to be the common time period).  Again, report it not just to executive management, but to the sales team itself and key corporate partners.

Great sales leaders have many attributes and key reasons for their success (see the Harvard Business Review article here as an example of a good list).  Ensuring that the teams have what they need to do their job is a detailed operational need that sometimes gets overlooked.

Why a Nurse Needs an Elevator Pitch Targeted for the Patient

I was with Marla Weston, CEO of the ANA Enterprise, the other day.   In the meeting, she introduced the idea of the ‘nurse elevator pitch’ that would be directed to the patient (and family) by asking the following question: “What is the one sentence every registered nurse should say to every patient on introduction?”

It’s an interesting take on the elevator pitch, traditionally invoked by sales teams on how they can introduce their product or service or by people in transition who need to define themselves in an attempt to make connections while looking for their next opportunity. 

Here's five reasons for Nurses to consider the idea:

1.      Calm the patient (and or family).  A simple elevator pitch describing yourself and what you will be doing (on behalf of the patient) will provide a professional first impression that will let the patient (and/or family) know that they are in good hands and will be well taken care of.

2.      Increase self-confidence.  Using a statement that you believe in each day will instill confidence in yourself – you know why you are here and what you need to accomplish.

3.      Improve patient / nurse communications.  By starting your relationship with a patient with a clear statement of who you are and what you do, you will provide the opening for the patient to know what information and questions they should expect from the relationship.

4.      Improve HCAHPS scores for the organization. If you work in a health system that adheres to HCAHPS, or simply one that performs patient satisfaction surveys in general, studies prove that clear and open communications between the nurse and patient are a major factor in improving the patient satisfaction scores from both the patient and their family members.

5.      Improved Communications with the care coordination team.  A clear Nurse elevator pitch will not only help communicate with the patient, but can also be used directly or indirectly with other members of the care team (i.e., they hear what you say to the patient or you alter it to provide the pitch to them on introduction of a new team). The more the care staff know your role with the patient, the more likely you will be able to complement each other’s responsibilities and tasks.

If you are a direct care professional, what would your elevator pitch be?

Remember, keep it conversational in tone, keep it under 30 seconds, and tailor it to the audience (what’s in it for them).

If you can’t think of one, start with something simple.

“Hi. I’m Stephanie. I’m your registered nurse and I’ll be taking care of you today. I will be...”

Can Nurses Find Satisfaction in the Journey?

I had the pleasure of meeting Tim Porter O’Grady and working with him for a day at the American Nurses Association Corporate Advisory Board.  

At one point, he stated “Nursing is the only medical profession that manages the journey, not the event. For the nurse, the question is….’Did I care?’”

The simple statement – one he’s probably made hundreds of times before – is a great reminder on how we need to focus on the wonderful ways Nurses can affect people in a positive manner instead of getting bogged down in performing the job duties.

Here are 5 reasons to take a step back and think about the next time you feel stressed with the ‘events’ instead of enjoying the journey.

1.      Emotional Connection.   Holding a hand, crying, laughing, or however you make the connection with any person in life brings emotional fulfillment for both parties.  The ability of the Nurse – the caring, willing to listen Nurse – to have that connection with patients on a daily basis is good for the patient – and good for your soul.

2.      Making a Difference.   Many healthcare professionals point to the ability to make a difference in someone’s life is the reason they chose the profession. For nursing, that is proven time and again with both the tasks required of nurses and the interactions that happen between the tasks. On a regular basis, make a list of the patients you touched – either by improving their health with the tasks or by connecting spiritually or emotionally with them.

3.      Advocate for the Patients.   As the one clinician who sees the patient repeatedly during each shift, you are the one person who can advocate for the needs, desires, and satisfaction triggers for the patient. Standing up for the patient is a responsibility that can help you feel great satisfaction when that advocacy produces positive results – or simply satisfies a patient’s need.

4.      Translate Medical Terminology.  I often hear nurses talk about explaining medical issues, terminology, discharge papers, etc., in simple terms that the patient and their family can understand.   What a great way to feel important – making sure someone understands.  (and by the way, if you don’t like this reason, feel free to add in this space any other ‘special duties as assigned’ that brings you satisfaction in what you do.)  

5.      Every day is a new day.   At the heart of healthcare is a singular relationship between two people at any given point in time.  That by definition makes each day have variability and provides new and exciting ways to make a difference.

Take a few minutes and enjoy and enjoy the journey now – and make an appointment with yourself on a regular basis to think how you made a difference.