Minute Motivation

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...