Beyond Hero Culture: Trusting Your Team to Shine

Do you trust your team to cover when you are gone? I was inspired to comment on the importance of team, especially at this time of year, after listening to one of Bill Russell’s Friday podcasts on his ThisWeekHealth Newsroom show. If you are a regular listener, you know Bill comments on various topics on Fridays rather than focusing on a specific news story. This episode was called – “Step Aside”. It’s definitely one worth listening to.

He talks about lessons from a recent golf tournament where the format was more than what we golfers know as “best ball”. In this tournament, whoever had the best ball didn’t get to hit the next ball. Only the other three could hit it. This ensured everyone was participating fully on the foursome team.

He also talked about “hero culture” which I’m afraid many IT shops still depend on. We know that IT takes a team. And there is no “I” in team! When you or someone else takes a break or is unavailable, can your team cover or can at least one other person step in?

Let’s take that question a step further and apply it to the holiday season. Who is doing the holiday decorating, gift shopping and party planning in your household? Do you have a holiday “hero culture” at home? Or are you sharing the tasks?

I am getting ready for a multi-week vacation which has included working the pre-holiday to do list. Happy to say gift shopping is done! I’ll get as far as I can on all my work tasks and then do my handoff document for my StarBridge Advisors colleagues before I leave. With our team approach, I know everything will be covered just fine.

Whether at work or at home, there is no need to be a hero – think team and know that others will step up and maybe even grow with some new responsibilities. Note to parents – your home team includes your kids!

Wishing you a happy, healthy, stress-free and joyous holiday season!!

Nana Camp Chronicles: year 2 insights and adventures

We held our second Nana Camp last week. Given how well it went (despite my husband and I being exhausted by Friday night), I think we’ll make it an annual event in the summer. Last year I wrote about our first one in my post “Leadership lessons from nana camp”. The rules we agreed on (pictured in that post) hung on our refrigerator until a few months ago when my husband went on a purging spree. Good thing I have a record here so we could revisit and decide on new/revised rules for this year.

Two (ages 10 and 8) of the four grandkids had their first away/overnight camps this year having attended Girl Scout camp. So, they came to Nana Camp with a new perspective. My daughter suggested that the 10-year-old could be a Counselor in Training (CIT) when we were last together as a family on Father’s Day. I wasn’t quite ready for that but I’m a fan of delegation! Not sure what a CIT would mean for us but as a start that day, she wrote down the list of ideas for this year and what they liked from last year. That list of course was put on the refrigerator door. We used it at our camp “orientation” session Monday morning to plan and vote on activities for the week.

The other two (ages 8 and 7) have been to day camps that are mornings only and gotten used to making their own lunches at home while their parents work in their home offices. Love hearing that! Means they all are capable of it and that I could expect them to do more for themselves at breakfast and lunch.

Together on Monday we agreed on activities for the week and what the rules would be. We also talked about their lessons from last year – mainly not to have stupid fights about everything – who sits by who at dinner, who sits by who in the car, who gets the first shower, who walks which dog – you get it! And of course, they are one year older and that much more mature!

Here is this year’s complete list of rules – a slight variation on last year with few additions: Continue reading

Healthcare for all: ensuring inclusivity in LGBTQ+ patient care

June is Pride Month. In recent years, LGBTQ+ rights have come under attack. All this after the landmark Supreme Court decision in 2015 supporting marriage equality. These attacks are taking many forms – “Don’t Say Gay” bills in state legislatures, bans on drag queen story hours, protests and intimidation at events, bomb threats at children’s hospitals providing gender affirming care, and more.

A March 7, 2023, piece in the Boston Globe by Renee Graham, “Understanding the intersectionality of hate”, begins by highlighting the number of bills pending in state legislatures. “The American Civil Liberties Union is tracking more than 380 anti-LGBTQ bills in nearly three dozen state legislatures, ranging from bans on gender-affirming care for trans youth to prohibiting classroom discussions about LGBTQ people or issues”.

In the face of these attacks and threats, and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, allyship is more important than ever. Who doesn’t have a gay family member, friend, or colleague? Allyship is showing up and speaking up. There are many ways to do this as individuals and organizations, especially during Pride Month.

In 2015 I wrote a post titled “Marriage equality, it’s personal”.  I talked about the experience of my aunt when her longtime partner was hospitalized in her final days and how my aunt was treated. That was 1990. We’ve come a long way in healthcare but need to continue these efforts given the strong anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments.

I’m proud to have worked at Boston Children’s Hospital in recent years. Despite bomb threats due to their gender affirming care program, they are not deterred from their ongoing commitment to providing comprehensive and affirming treatment for LGBTQ+ patients and families. They have been awarded the Healthcare Equality Index’s (HEI) Leadership Status every year since 2015. They provide LGBTQ+ patient and family centered care in four key areas: patient non-discrimination, equal visitation, employment non-discrimination, and training in LGBTQ+ patient and family centered care.

The HEI is the national LGBTQ+ benchmarking tool that evaluates healthcare facilities’ policies and practices related to the equity and inclusion of their LGBTQ+ patients, visitors, and employees. Nearly 500 healthcare facilities achieved the top score of 100 in 2022 and earned the LGBTQ+ Healthcare Equality Leader designation.

My 2015 blog also referenced this HEI designation. I was working at Michigan Medicine then and they too were recognized with HEI Leadership Status. I closed that blog hoping that in the coming years, thousands more healthcare organizations would receive this same designation. There is progress, but more is needed.

Resources:

National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center – Ten Strategies for Creating Inclusive Health Care Environments for LGBTQIA+ People

Human Rights Campaign Foundation – Transgender-Affirming Hospital Policies

From workaholic to fitness enthusiast: living a healthier lifestyle

When I turned 50, I joined a gym – it was a birthday present to myself. Many years of working long hours, commuting, and raising two daughters kept me from regular workouts. I figured at 50 it was well past time. I knew that no one at work was going to come into my office at 6pm and tell me to go home and take care of myself. I had to own it. I have belonged to a gym almost continuously since then though I’ve lived at 5 different addresses in that time.

I had another major milestone birthday last week. And I can honestly say I have never been as physically active as I am now. Go figure. Guess that’s what happens when you work less!

At a minimum, I walk a 1.3 mile loop late afternoon almost every day with our two dogs. I go to 4 classes a week at the YMCA if I register before there are wait lists. I play pickleball every day I can when the weather is good. And I’ve signed up with a women’s golf group to play 9 holes once a week when my schedule allows – I know this will be more fun and social than exercise.

If you are a golfer, you know that’s a humbling experience! From 2000 to 2012, I had periods where I golfed 9 holes once a week but never took lessons. In the past 10 years, I’ve golfed only a few times at charity outings. We moved to a planned community in late 2021 and our townhouse is on one of the two golf courses. We see a lovely but challenging par 3 hole from our deck – we see golfers tee off hoping to hit it over the junk and then we see them hunt for their ball around the green. This summer I decided it was time to get back into golf myself. Continue reading

New Year’s Resolutions – one month in

Do you make new year’s resolutions? Do you share them with others for accountability? Do you use the new year as a time for reflection and goal setting?

I have made explicit resolutions in some years and not others. A few years ago, I framed them as intentions – they were balance, passion and engagement. Regardless of what form it takes, the start of a new year is a good time to reflect on the past year and plan for the coming year in both your professional and personal life.

My resolutions at the start of 2022 revolved around life/work balance and I’m happy to say I have made good progress. In 2022, my work schedule was very manageable, I spent more time with family (including fun times with grandkids), got a lot of exercise (including becoming a Pickleball addict), and vacationed without worrying about work.

More time with family may sound like a cliché – maybe more available to family is another way to say it. So, what are some examples of being available? When my daughters tell me about a game or performance that my grandkids are in, I now have the flexibility to say yes, I’ll be there. When my daughters ask if I can take care of their kids for a few days, I now can say yes. That included “Nana Camp” last summer. And when my sister’s husband passed away back home in Minnesota, I was able to spend extended time with her.

I am carrying all these positive 2022 changes and more into 2023. Continue reading

Lessons from the road

This is not a consultant’s or salesperson’s road warrior set of lessons. But rather observations and a few life lessons after a two-day drive home from Florida to Massachusetts. While my husband napped during one of my driving shifts, I had plenty of quiet time to think and observe. Here goes on my lessons from the road:

  • Without the big picture and context, it’s easy to make a mistake. That’s what happened when going around Washington DC day two. I lacked context for the different options. I took an exit based on how I interpreted the signage that caused us to get rerouted and sit in the rush hour traffic we were trying to avoid.
  • You need to ask yourself if shortcuts are worth it and at what cost if you are unsure of the outcome. Near DC, I took the express lane with high tolls when I wasn’t sure if I could exit in time for the next highway that I was supposed to take. My goal was to avoid DC rush hour traffic as much as possible, so it seemed worth it.
  • Estimated hours and schedules for anything is just that, an estimate. You never know what obstacles will get in the way to change it. Watching the ETA on your navigation system can give hope until you run into heavy traffic, accidents, or construction work and the ETA starts bouncing around. We ran into so much of all this on the way down to Florida that we had two 15 hour driving days instead of what was expected to be closer to two 10-hour days.
  • Alerts are great for awareness and/or taking action but you never know the true impact until you get in the middle of the situation. Our map/navigation app gives crash and hazard alerts, whether they have been cleared yet or not, and the number of minutes delay they will cause. In most cases, the delay was far longer than the initial alert said it would be.
  • The higher you go in an organization, the more uncertainty you face requiring a steady hand and focus on the goal. On the way home, we decided to take a route that avoided the big Northeast cities and all their traffic even if it meant more miles. At one point driving through Pennsylvania, we had about 45 minutes at 1600 feet altitude with very heavy fog and near zero visibility. My husband’s steady hand on the wheel was reassuring.
  • Everyone you talk to will have an opinion or advice, but you must decide what is right for you. People who make this trip regularly are willing to start off in the middle of the night to avoid rush hour in a big city. That so didn’t sound like something we would do so we left early morning each day.
  • Even two people make a team and teamwork is critical. Friends who have done this drive talk about doing 5 hour driving shifts before taking a break. Not us. My husband and I would drive as long as we each were comfortable and switched drivers often making our pit stops as efficient as we could. Fortunately, our two furry team members were perfect in the back seat – happily sleeping in between each stop.
  • Technology has changed the way we live and travel – duh! I’m old enough to remember when we used a paper trip tik book from AAA for family vacations as a kid. Probably many of you are old enough to remember when we used to have spiral bound paper map books for a state or city with the tiniest of print. Now we rely on smart car navigation systems and apps on our iPhones.

We spent two relaxing weeks visiting friends at their condo overlooking the ocean. The balcony was an awesome office with a view for keeping up on email each day and doing some time sensitive work calls. Daily morning beach walks and afternoon pickleball, lovely sunsets and moonrises, a few museums and some shopping, and seeing a midnight space launch from a 35 miles distance down the coast. Our two dogs behaved and got along well with their two dogs. Good news – we’re invited back next year. Now that we’ve done the long drive that many northerners do in the winter months to spend time in sunny Florida, we know what it takes and learned a few travel and life lessons along the way.

Grief and loss during the holidays

In this Season of Gratitude as we celebrate holidays with family and friends, I am mindful that it can be a very difficult time for people who are grieving. A particular holiday song can be a trigger, decorations can be a trigger, just about anything can be a trigger. Whether it’s been a few weeks or many years since losing a loved one, holiday times can be especially difficult.

Being mindful of what others may be experiencing is so important. I won’t pretend to be an expert in helping people process their grief, but I have certainly experienced it this year with family members. Being aware of what they are going through, letting them talk openly about it, and just listening is my best advice. There are no right words.

While social media can be a pit of negativity, there are also bright spots of inspiration and positive messaging. I saw something on Facebook recently and shared it with my sister whose husband passed away in September. Healing Hugs (a non-profit organization that helps support parents who have lost children) shared these words from Angela Miller, founder of the grief organization, A Bed for My Heart:

There are no rules for surviving holiday grief.

Do what you need to do to survive.

Honor your loved one how you need to, and do what feels best for your fragile, aching heart.

You are missing a huge piece of you, so do whatever you need to do to find a sliver of peace.

I also saw something shared on Facebook about holiday host etiquette from Sarah Nannen who writes about the paradoxes we face in life, grief, motherhood, and our shared humanity:

If you’re inviting someone to your home and they’re grieving, be sure you’re inviting their grief to attend, too. It will be there, anyway.

Don’t invite someone with the goal of cheering them up for the holidays. Don’t expect them to put on a happy face in your home. Don’t demand they fake it til they make it or do something they don’t want to do, either.

Invite them with the loving intention of offering cheer and companionship and unconditional care during the holidays. To do this, you will need to honor and be responsive to their needs and emotions. Continue reading

Ban books? No, encourage young readers

It’s that time of year – whatever holiday you celebrate during this Season of Gratitude there is likely some gift giving involved. You may have an obligatory attitude of just getting it done or (hopefully) a more positive giving attitude spending time selecting thoughtful and more personalized gifts. When I had leadership teams reporting to me, I would give them a book each year. It was often the hardest gift to buy – deciding on the perfect book that they would all like. Over the years, my books included some of the best titles on innovation, leadership, technology, public health and more.

Now my holiday gift book buying is all for younger people. In addition to the one big gift for each of my grandchildren, I get them a book. I will be starting two of them on the “National Geographic Kids Almanac 2023” this year – it is filled with information on animals, science, nature, technology, conservation, and more.  I bought “Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Inspiring Young Changemakers” for one of the granddaughters at my daughter’s suggestion. I was delighted to get the suggestion as I have been patiently waiting for my granddaughters to be old enough so I could start buying some of the feminist books for girls I see in bookstores. And for my grandson who loves all sports and is learning to read, I’m getting a fun story he should like – “The Dog That Stole Football Plays”. The football player on the cover has a “Jets” jersey on and that happens to be the name of my grandson’s flag football team. Hoping he loves the story, and it encourages him to read more!

I have another book buying annual holiday tradition that continues. I buy a book for each of my grandnephews and grandnieces back home in Minneapolis where I’m from and where my siblings and their families all live. That group is older – mostly teenagers. So, we have progressed over the years from picture books when they were little to books focused on their interests including baseball, ballet, and opera during middle school years, to more scholarly and political books now that they are in high school. For example – “A Choice of Weapons” by Gordon Parks, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas”, and “The 48 Laws of Power” by Robert Greene. I count on my three nieces to help me with recommendations and to understand their kids’ evolving interests. The grandnephew who wanted baseball books when he was younger is now into Nordic skiing and heavy metal with his own band. Yes, with my sister’s (their grandmother) help, I found a book he will like.

I can’t talk about nurturing young readers without mentioning the current banned books controversy that goes hand in hand with concerns about teaching critical race theory and talking about LGBTQ. Continue reading

Grateful for the love of family, savoring the moments

What can I say at Thanksgiving this year that is new and unique? How about the fact that two of the biggest birds I’ve ever seen flew by my home office window yesterday? You guessed it, they were wild turkeys. Yes, we live in a more rural area now. In fact, last year while the dogs and I watched two wild turkeys strut along behind our townhouse (you can imagine what the dogs thought….lot of yelping through the window), my husband who was on a conference call later told me he saw a third one up in a tree wondering how it got there and not looking very elegant as it tried to get out.

On the turkey cooking front, we had to cook ours yesterday, two days in advance with a plan to reheat it on Thanksgiving when the family arrives. Why? There were no frozen turkeys at the store and buying a fresh one 4 days in advance we have learned is too far – google says cook within a day or two. Guess that’s my health angle for this post – not serving my family old fowl that will make them sick, and my technology angle – depending on the power of google to ask any question and get an answer. The downside is when everyone arrives, we won’t have that wonderful turkey cooking in the oven fragrance throughout the house. There’s an idea for a candle maker! But the upside is more room in the single oven to reheat the side dishes our daughters are bringing.

I’ve said to a few people that we’re ready for plenty of chaos as the six adults will be outnumbered by our four grandkids and three dogs including a very active 7-month-old puppy that is bigger than both our 3- and 14-year-old little dogs. But it will be wonderful, loving, family chaos. The best kind!

10 years ago on Thanksgiving I was on baby watch. I had just moved to Ann Arbor for my new CIO job and was living alone for 9 weeks. My first grandchild was due any day out in California. Continue reading

On listening, compassion, and empathy

In early September, StarBridge Advisors colleague, David Muntz, published a blog “Ring Theory – A Framework for Helping Others”. For me personally, the timing could not have been better.

I was in Europe on a multi-week vacation but calling my sister in Minnesota every day. Her husband had gone into home hospice just before we left for Europe, and we knew it was a matter of time. He passed away on September 16th. I was scheduled to be home from vacation on September 20th. I told her I could come to be with her as soon as I got home. But we agreed that being with her around the time of the memorial service scheduled for a month out would be best.

I recently spent 10 days with her and had time with her two daughters and four teenage grandchildren. While I was there, I tried to be a non-anxious presence and listen a lot. Just as I did when my sister and I had daily phone calls from Europe and when I was back home. Much of what David talked about in his blog post were great reminders on how to be and what to say/not say.

My brother-in-law planned his memorial service over his final months. It was a beautiful service. The theme was love. There were many tears and a few laughs. As my sister said in a Facebook post shortly after he died, “In these last six weeks, he showed us all how to die.  He was ready, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  In his words ‘I’m just leaving the party too soon’.” Each of us will face death at some point.  My brother-in-law did it with grace. And he did it with love for his family.

Over the years I’ve learned how to be a non-anxious presence from my minister husband and have tried to develop my active listening skills, being compassionate and empathic with others. With David’s post, I am adding “ring theory” to my working knowledge. This is an excellent piece and I highly recommend it. As he says at the end, “We all will spend some time in the center (referencing a visual in the post) as the aggrieved or afflicted. Please use Ring Theory to help yourself help someone else. When done well, they will appreciate it; you will appreciate it.”

I have much more to reflect on from my family experience and losing my dear brother-in-law who I knew for 55 years. But for now, I wanted to highlight and share David’s post and encourage you to read it. You never know when you may need it.