Fulfilling life goals and bucket list dreams

I don’t have a bucket list. But I did set four big broad life goals for myself about 10 years ago. They are doing work I like at a more manageable pace, travelling more, spending time with family, and having fun friends that I spend time with. Happy to say, I’m meeting these goals fairly well at this point.

My sister does have a bucket list. About 6 months after she lost her husband to cancer last year, she was still trying to figure out how much travel she was willing to do with family and friends. She mentioned to my husband and I that seeing the national parks was on her bucket list. My husband jumped on the idea and proposed a multi-week road trip itinerary to three parks – Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, and Glacier. My sister was in! Together they worked out the details and booked all the places we’ll stay – whether it’s one night while continuing to our park destinations or several nights near each of those parks.

That trip is happening now. My sister has been my best friend for as long as I can remember – she is only 16 months older than me. My husband and I have been best friends since the mid-1970s. I know the three of us will have a great time with lots of laughs and deep conversations as we traverse the miles together and take in the incredible scenery. She can check it off her bucket list and I’ll be meeting two of my big goals. Nothing wrong with that!

There is no “so what” to this post other than to encourage you to stay focused on your bucket list or life goals. I wish you all a happy end to the summer and hope you too have carved out some time for R&R with family and friends these past few months.

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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

Lessons from Succession: What not to do as a leader

I recently wrote a blog post called “Ted Lasso leadership lessons”. If you were a fan of the Ted Lasso series, you can readily see there were many lessons to be learned. Another popular series, Succession, wrapped up around the same time. I wasn’t sure how I could comment on leadership lessons from that series as there didn’t seem to be any characters that you would want to model. But there were plenty of lessons on what not to do as a leader.

Others have figured out what to say about Succession leadership lessons, so I’ll share the insights from one of them. A Forbes article on June 26th by Robert Pearl, MD, titled “5 Fatal Flaws Of Healthcare Leaders: Inspired By HBO’s ‘Succession’” describes five dysfunctional leadership styles to avoid based on some of the lead characters. In his words:

  1. Delusional leaders overestimate their abilities. Their ideas are unrealistic and their vision for the future: pure fiction.
  2. Narcissistic leaders bask in praise and blind loyalty. They reject and punish those who provide honest feedback and fair criticism. Their obsession with status and self-importance blinds them to long-term threats and opportunities, alike.
  3. Immature leaders get promoted before they’re primed and polished. They often lack boundaries and excel at the sport of making others uncomfortable.
  4. Political leaders are better at advancing within an organization than advancing the organization itself. Like chameleons, these leaders change with the scenery, shifting alliances and values as organizational power waxes and wanes.
  5. Compromised leaders are skilled at making promises. They seek support by vowing to fulfill wants and palliate pains.

Dr. Pearl closes the article highlighting three attributes that excellent healthcare leaders must have:

  1. Clear mission and purpose
  2. Experience and expertise
  3. Personal integrity

The third, personal integrity, is particularly critical. As Dr. Pearl says, “Everything changes when an emerging leader becomes the head of an organization and faces a crisis. As risks and pressures intensify, people tend to fall back on approaches and habits they learned in the past, particularly problematic ones.” Without being a spoiler, anyone who watched Succession can see how easily the emerging leaders fell back to their own demise.

I encourage you to read the full article but must warn you with a spoiler alert – if you haven’t seen the show but plan to watch it given all the buzz, bookmark the article to read later.  What buzz you ask? The fourth and final season just received 27 Emmy nominations with a total of 75 nominations over all the seasons.

Related Post:

Ted Lasso leadership lessons

The transformative power of bold leadership in healthcare

With reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ rights under attack in so many states, it was good to see the Summer 2023 Issue of the Brigham magazine in the mail this week. This issue is titled “Care for Every Body – Embracing Inclusive Medicine”. As a former VP and donor to Brigham and Women’s, I receive the paper copy to read. You can access it online here.

The main articles include:

  • Sex & Gender Glossary – essential terms and definitions for understanding sex, gender, and well-being.
  • Pro-Care. Pro-Patient. – describing how the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology is working toward reproductive justice for all patients. An alarming data point: If all abortions in the U.S. were to stop, 24% more people would die from pregnancy complications and 39% more non-Hispanic Black people would die.
  • Soul Meets Body – describing how the Center for Transgender Health is breaking barriers and providing state-of-the-art, life changing care for trans and gender diverse people. An alarming data point: 46 states have proposed 491 anti-transgender laws in 2023, more than the previous four years combined.
  • Women ≠ Tiny Men – describing how physician-researchers are working to balance the scales for women’s health.

These articles and the programs described represent bold leadership in healthcare and what we should expect from healthcare providers.

Just as the Winter 2022 Issue titled “Standing Tall for Justice – Cultivating Equity and Inclusion in Medicine” was bold leadership as it covered racial equity in healthcare. And just as Michael Dowling, President and CEO at Northwell Health in New York, regularly shows us what bold leadership means. He doesn’t shy away from controversial issues as he addresses the issue of gun violence and calls for civility and decency in our public discourse.

Dr. Robert Higgins, President, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and EVP, Mass General Brigham comments in the introduction to the Summer 20223 Issue – “While forging the road toward a more inclusive healthcare systems is not an easy or immediately achievable goal, it is a vital commitment we must make. Our sense of humanity depends on it.”

Are you uncomfortable being a bold leader? Do you embrace or shy away from the DEI discussion? The DEI Committee of CHIME is hosting a webinar this Friday, June 30, at 12PM EDT that I highly recommend. It is titled “DE&I in Healthcare 2.0 – Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable in a Safe Space Zone”. Please follow this link to register if you want to learn how to stay DEI focused in an anti-DEI climate.

In a recent podcast interview, I was asked about some of the unique challenges and opportunities of being a CIO in the healthcare sector compared to other industries. I commented on how being in healthcare is mission driven and how we can make a difference in people’s lives. Leaders of our nation’s leading healthcare systems being willing to address the difficult issues and care for every person is one of the reasons I am passionate about working in healthcare.

What we do matters.

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Ted Lasso leadership lessons

I was late to the “Ted Lasso” series so there were some seasons of binge watching. From its earliest days on Apple TV, I kept hearing about this show from my colleague at StarBridge Advisors, David Muntz. He loved it! My husband and I finally started watching some time last year and saw the season 3 finale last week along with all the other devoted fans.

There are so many lessons to share from this incredibly upbeat soccer coach who we came to know and love. Here are a couple pieces worth reading whether you are a fan or not – no spoilers:

If you haven’t already clicked through to the Becker’s article link above to read perspectives on the lessons from well-known healthcare leaders, please do. In the meantime, here are the lessons:

  1. Lead with empathy.
  2. Being vulnerable doesn’t make you weak.
  3. Optimism is infectious.
  4. Doing the right thing is never the wrong thing.
  5. Winning and losing aren’t everything.
  6. Optimists take more chances.
  7. Everyone differs from everyone else.
  8. Embrace change.
  9. Empowerment breeds confidence.
  10. Winning is an attitude.
  11. Humor cuts through tension.
  12. Courage is the willingness to attempt.
  13. Nobody is bigger than the team.
  14. Be self-aware and genuine. A truly authentic leader doesn’t have the time or the inclination to be anyone but themselves.
  15. Don’t dwell on mistakes or let them define you.
  16. Stay teachable.

I like all of them but 1, 4, and 13 are favorites. Continue reading

Memorial Day: remembering the sacrifice, celebrating the summer

This coming holiday weekend for most of us is the first bookend of the summer season. It’s a time for picnics and barbeques, gathering with family and friends. Depending on where you live, it may be warm enough for a first beach trip and swimming pools open for the season.

But we can’t forget that Memorial Day as a holiday honors the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. The history of this holiday may surprise you. Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day, originating in the years following the Civil War. In 1950, Congress passed a resolution requesting that the president issue a proclamation calling on Americans to observe Memorial Day as a day of prayer for permanent peace. It became an official federal holiday in 1971. Many people observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries or memorials and participating in local parades.

As a child growing up in Minneapolis my family had the annual tradition of visiting graves on Memorial Day. We went to Fort Snelling National Cemetery to visit my father’s grave and then to smaller nearby cemeteries to visit my grandmother’s grave and a great uncle’s grave. Anyone who has been to a national cemetery with rows and rows of uniform white grave markers is moved by the experience. We are reminded of so many who have given unselfish service to our country.

My husband and I had the opportunity last summer to visit the American Cemetery at Normandy in France. That was a very moving experience. Visiting Omaha Beach just prior to that and learning more about the landings on D-Day, then seeing the thousands of graves at Normandy was a sobering reminder of what fighting for our freedom has meant.

I hope that as you enjoy the long holiday weekend you will hold in your heart the memories of all those whose lives are celebrated on Memorial Day.

What advice would you give your younger self?

I love this question. It was one of the questions for a panel I was supposed to be on this week. The NEHIMSS chapter has an annual Women in IT conference, and I was one of four invited panelists for the three-hour event. But 40 miles into my 100-mile drive to the venue, cruising fast on the freeway, my left front tire totally blew out – down to the rim. Scary yes, but I got myself over to the shoulder and called AAA. My second call was to the panel moderator explaining I wouldn’t be able to make it. An hour and a half later I was again on the road with the spare tire that is designed for maximum 50 MPH taking the back roads home to avoid freeway speeds.

I was looking forward to the event and the panel. I love sharing stories with next generation leaders so this was going to be a fun night. I was ready after the usual panel prep call to cover the range of questions we had agreed on.

While I didn’t get to do the panel, I don’t want this question to go to waste – here’s what I was ready to say when asked what advice I would give my younger self:

  • Know your big rocks – I’ve written on this in the past, “Do you know your big rocks?”. It comes from Stephen Covey and it is a spot-on analogy. Our families and closest friends are our big rocks. Don’t let all the little stuff take up your space first leaving no room for your big rocks.
  • Don’t take crap from anyone – In my 30s, two of my peer managers seemed out to get me. One even threatened me. I was the only woman on the management team for a 5-year period. After a lot of stress and wasted energy processing it all at night talking to my incredibly supportive husband, I decided enough was enough. I let our boss know what was going on and told him that I would let him know of any further incidents. He was going to have to deal with it because I couldn’t. In another situation where a male manager from another department got overly friendly with sexual advances, I reported it to compliance. Hard as reporting something may be, it is necessary to stop the behavior if you can’t stop it yourself.
  • Have a strong support system – Whether it is family or friends, everyone needs a support system they can turn to. I could tell plenty of stories about my incredibly supportive husband and how he has been there for me back when I was a young working mother in management and going to school at night for my MBA as well as the decades since (our 47th wedding anniversary is in a few weeks).
  • Accept that you can make choices – One of my staff wanted to consider coming back from maternity leave after she had her first child in a part-time role but worried about how it would stall her career. She was a project leader on a management track. We talked about her options and I encouraged her to keep in mind that she had choices. After a period of part-time work, she eventually came back full-time, picked up again in a leadership role and then had two more children a few years later. She made choices right for her and balanced growing a family with growing her career.
  • Own your own career and be open to the possibilities – Before I left my CIO position at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for a similar role at Michigan Medicine, we were going through major staffing changes in IT. My staff were concerned about their future in supporting legacy systems vs the new EHR coming in. I told them they had to own their own career and be open to the possibilities. When I make that second point now, I emphasize that there are jobs today that no one heard of 5 or 10 years ago and there will be new ones in the future we can’t even imagine now.

There you go – I had plenty more to say on the panel given the other great questions we were going to discuss but wanted to at least share this one.

And after this car experience, my parting advice is keep your AAA membership current and keep your cell phone charged.

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Leadership means being bold and taking on the tough issues

As a leader, do you shy away from issues that may be considered too controversial or too political? What if those issues are at the core of delivering healthcare to your community and supporting your team? In our current political environment with the level of discourse so negative and uncivil, it can be hard to take a stand on something. But true leaders do just that.

Michael Dowling, President and CEO at Northwell Health in New York, is the kind of leader who doesn’t shy away from controversial issues. He should be a role model for all of us. I have mentioned him in previous posts on the need for civility and on preventing gun violence. This week I want to highlight his unwavering commitment and national leadership to prevent gun violence.

Under Dowling’s leadership, Northwell Health hosted the 4th Annual Gun Violence Prevention Forum this week. It was an in-person event in New York but open for virtual registration. I can’t tell how many were in the room but in his opening remarks he said there were over 2000 registered virtually.

His opening comments were inspiring. He said we were gathered to learn, to share, to strengthen our commitment to work together in unison, and to hold hands as we march down the road bending the curve of gun violence. He challenged us to each rethink and reimagine the obligation and responsibility of leadership. As health systems, to ask who are we, what do we stand for and believe in. He said we need to inspire others that this is health. That we can’t improve health unless we go upstream. And that health is more than medicine. Whether inside the organization or outside, to take on difficult topics. To make sure others get involved and feel bad about not doing so. He talked about the progress made. He reminded us that big issues and big successes are the result of a constellation of small things. And he encouraged us to be optimistic, that people follow optimistic leaders. He asked us to be proud, committed and fearlessly optimistic.

He talked about the National Health Care CEO Council on Gun Violence Prevention and Safety taking the pledge to prioritize the health and safety of our communities. 50 health system CEOs have signed the pledge and are united to fight gun violence. He talked about how even a few years ago he couldn’t get anyone to sign something like this. The response he got back then was it’s too political, their board wouldn’t like it, there were NRA members on their board, and so on. 50 is progress and we can hope that in the future it will be hundreds. Continue reading

Considering a career move?

The start of the new year is often a career transition time for people. We’ve heard much in the recent period about the great resignation, silent quitting, and remote work options being in demand. And we’ve seen significant layoffs in the tech industry and to an extent in healthcare providers dealing with significant financial challenges. If you or a colleague are considering a job change, some of my previous posts may be useful to revisit.

Career advice revisited is a list of posts providing career advice that I wrote prior to May 2021. I consider many of them “classics” that are still useful – they cover dealing with a competitive market, questions to ask yourself, interviewing and resume tips, and more.

Two more recent posts since that time provide additional perspective and advice. I wrote Reflections on recent career conversations after talking with many colleagues at the 2022 CHIME Fall Forum. And the post Paying it forward with career advice from late summer 2022 includes links to useful articles and tools for comparing opportunities and deciding whether to stay or go.

For more focused posts here are two more to check out – STEM or not, own your career and Know someone interested in a nursing career?

If you are looking for a career coach to help you through a transition, the post, When to use a career coach, could be helpful. I am happy to talk about how I might assist you.

Note – I am taking a short break from writing new posts the next few weeks. With all the blog posts I’ve written over the past 8 years, I’m using this break to share some of my “classics”. Thank you for being a subscriber – I hope you will encourage your colleagues to subscribe in the coming year.

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