Minute Motivation

In the spirit of the holiday, I share this blog from Tameka Williamson – leadership lessons from Rudolph. Join in and sing along with me……. Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose. And if you ever saw him, you would even say it glows. All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names. They never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games. Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say, “Rudolph with your nose so bright, won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?” Then all the reindeer loved him, as they shouted out with glee, “Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, you’ll go down in history.” Oh, the memories of sitting down and watching this classic TV show every year as a child. Well, this week marked the 50th year of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. As I tapped into my inner child and watched this TV classic, the following leadership lessons began to unveil themselves in my mind. I immediately thought about how there are multiple lessons we can glean from Rudo...

We are three days into the Pulse Survey, an opportunity to evaluate employee engagement and the results of the action plan implemented after the full survey this past spring. We sometimes hear comments from employees who feel there are too many surveys. They don’t want to take another one, as they say they haven’t seen anything change since the last one. Alexis Croswell addresses this concern on his blog, Culture Amp: “There are some key factors to understand when deciding on your overall survey cadence and how often to use pulse surveys. First, knowing that it’s a lack of action that causes survey fatigue. As Culture Amp CEO Didier Elzinga says, ‘The most typical reason people don’t want to fill out your survey is because you haven’t done anything since the last one. They don’t have survey fatigue; they have lack-of-action fatigue.’ The rule of thumb to combat this fatigue? Only survey as often as you can take valuable action on the results.”* With this in mind, now woul...

On the morning of November 8, fire swept through the town of Paradise, California. Many in our community have family and friends in that town who lost all that they had. Our sister hospital, Adventist Health Feather River, had to be quickly evacuated. With a very short window of time, the staff was able to get all patients and staff to safety. It wasn’t easy. The following excerpt (a bit long, but it captures what took place) is from Renee Souza, a nurse manager on duty that morning. This is from Renee’s Facebook page, and is not edited. The writing captures the exhaustion and raw emotion felt by the staff. “I started yesterday morning as I start many mornings as a charge nurse on the surgical unit at feather river hospital. I made patient assignments at 0630 am apologized to my floating icu nurses for having to care for five patients and told my staff it was going to be a great day because it was my Friday . 0715 I said goodnight to the last night shift nurse as she headed out. ...

My son, Alex, is spending this school year in France, studying at a college near Geneva, and having the time of his life. After arriving in France, he traded out the AT&T sim card in his iPhone for one from a European company. Today I called AT&T to ask them to cancel his phone line here, so I’m not paying for a line that’s not being used for a few months. When I called, I spoke with a lady who quickly made it clear that she wasn’t interested in listening to what I wanted to do. As I was explaining my situation, she interrupted me to tell me why it wasn’t possible. Alex and I had traded phones, as mine was paid for, his wasn’t, and he needed a paid-for phone in order to unlock it and trade out the card. However, she told me that the installment plan is connected to the number, not the device, so she quickly stated that there was nothing we could do. I told her this didn’t make sense to me, as I now have the phone with installments remaining, and the one he has is clear. S...

In our weekly emails, we have looked at a number of organizations for inspiration, such as Disney, Southwest Airlines, and Apple. There are many great examples of leadership in the business world. But it’s good to occasionally recognize the examples that take place here in our own organization. I watched one of these examples take place yesterday, and want to take a moment to write about the leadership I’ve seen in our HR Director, Keith Jenkins. Keith leads a fantastic team here in Human Resources. The group is engaged, and focuses on the mission of helping you, our leaders, as you create a great place to work for your teams, and help them to answer the Call to Care. In our Wednesday morning staff huddles, the last thing on the agenda is usually “Kudos.” This is often sharing words of appreciation some of you have expressed about someone on our team. These moments are always encouraging. Last week’s meeting went a bit long, so the kudos section was left out. Keith said, “L...

At the Grandview/Southview Leadership Meeting last week, I shared a devotional thought reflecting on my recent experience visiting my parents in Oregon, and helping them with their needs as they navigate some very serious health issues. My dad suffered a broken hip after a fall and has very limited mobility. My mom is working to take care of him, all while going through the process of moving out of their home and into an assisted living center. Several times a week they have had home health providers come by the house – nurses, aides, therapists, etc. It was inspiring to me to see the interaction these professionals had with my parents. One aide in particular went above and beyond to build relationships, to listen and to talk, and to provide care. After she had finished helping dad to get going in the morning, she asked if there was anything else needed. Mom said no, that we could take it from there. The aide then said, “Well, let me just clean up a bit then.” She then went in an...