RWL #220
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! It was a busy week here because I was attending the annual Congress of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) virtually. On Monday afternoon, my colleague Karen Clements and I presented a session on creating a culture of mentorship. Hopefully I’ll be able to share the video at some point. I think the session was well received. So it was weird spending the week jumping from teaching my normal classes to jumping into a conference. I was pretty tired by the end of it. I have to say, I’m not cut out for attending virtual conferences. Way too many distractions. Being in a room creates discipline, but it also creates all these opportunities to participate in spontaneous conversations and make new connections.
We’ve had some nice days this week, so I was able to get out and do a sunrise paddle yesterday. I went out of Newmarket, the next town south of Durham, and paddled the Lamprey River. I’ve done the Lamprey a few times, but never at low tide (the Lamprey feeds into Great Bay, so it’s brackish and tidal). I love how the experience of paddling on a tidal river changes with the tides. When the tide goes out, it’s like someone is pulling back the curtain to show you the hidden side of the river.
My wife and I have an appointment to get our vaccines on Tuesday - we are so excited! It looks like by next week our kids will also be able to register for vaccination, so we can’t wait to all have the vaccine and be able to start to get back to normal life. I hope you are able to get the vaccine soon and I look forward to seeing you IRL!
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Read
What: Bonica & Hartman, A longitudinal study of the school-to-work transition of early careerist healthcare managers
https://unh.app.box.com/v/longitudinalSTWT
Why: I was pleased to see my article with my colleague Cindy Hartman finally came out this past week. If you manage young people joining the workforce out of college, this is a pretty comprehensive description of the school-to-work-transition. This article was the result of 2 years of data collection, so it’s grounded in the real experiences of a group of alumni from my program here at UNH. We discuss the challenges these young people faced and what organizations could do to help them make the transition more successfully.
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Watch
What: Connor Neill, How to Focus and Get Important Stuff Done (Pomodoro Method) (9 min)
Why: Neill introduces the Pomodoro Method. The idea is to teach yourself discipline by setting down to work on hard things in 20 minute chunks. It’s called the “pmodoro method” because the person who developed it used a timer that was shaped like a tomato (pomodoro is Italian for tomato). I use a method like this during the summer to keep myself accountable for working on my research. But you could use it for any hard thing that seems overwhelming - you eat the elephant one bite at a time.
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Listen
What: The Dispatch, Coronavirus, Variants, and Vaccines (41 min)
https://omny.fm/shows/the-dispatch-podcast/coronavirus-variants-and-vaccines
Why:The Dispatch is a conservative opinion media organization. I really enjoy the podcast. It is an unfortunate truth that COVID vaccines have been politicized, and it seems that people who self-identify as conservatives have more reservations about taking the vaccine. So it’s great to see a conservative media organization taking on this issue. From the description:
Former CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden joined Sarah and Andrew Egger (subbing in for Steve) to discuss all things vaccine related. Not only is Frieden an expert on the COVID vaccines, but also on listening to those who are concerned about taking it and trying to give them the scientific facts that support getting the shot. As he says, “Effective communication starts with listening. … I understand your concern, but I’ll share with you some information that may be helpful to you.”
I was particularly impressed with the focus on listening, which applies to all leadership roles, not just when you are trying to convince people to do something for their own good.
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What: Deep State Radio, When Can We Go To War and Who Decides? (46 min)
https://shows.acast.com/deepstateradio/episodes/when-can-we-go-to-war-and-who-decides
Why:Deep State Radio is a liberal-Progressive media organization. They started out as a foreign policy-focused organization, but now consider domestic policy as well. I follow them mostly for the foreign policy because I think they do that particularly well, and foreign policy does not break down as clearly along standard party lines. In this podcast they consider the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that was created in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. Here’s the core of the law:
That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R43983.pdf
This law has been used by Bush, Obama, Trump, and now Biden to engage in acts of war without further authorization from Congress. Constitutionally, Congress is the only entity that can authorize war. The fact that this authorization was made 20 years ago stretches any reasonable interpretation that this is constitutional. To me this is a major constitutional issue. The podcast takes this up in a measured way.
From a management perspective, how do you decide what level of controls you are going to put into place to ensure your agents (whether they are employees, contractors, or elected officials) are performing in the way you want them to perform? The 2001 AUMF gives far too much lee-way to the president and for too long without having a reauthorization.
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What: Honest Chaos, Sailing in Company (1 min)
https://anchor.fm/honest-chaos/episodes/sailing-in-company-estojn
Why: A little shameless self-promotion here - this is my newly reinvigorated spoken-word poetry podcast. One of the primary themes that I work on (work through, might be a better word) in my poetry is the randomness of life. One of the things that surprises me about life is the collection of friends I have accumulated over the years, especially from my Army time. Many people who are dear friends I probably would not have befriended if we had not been randomly thrown together by the Army. I think in many cases we became friends not because we had anything meaningfully in common, but because we decided that we would be friends - we willed our friendship into being, and then through common experience began to have substance to build the friendship around. There is so much divisiveness in society today as people emphasize their differences rather than what they share, or look to create common ground if there is nothing there to begin with. So I try to do all of that in under a minute. The podcast is on iTunes if you want to get future episodes.
Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line at mark.bonica@unh.edu , or you can tweet to me at @mbonica .
If you’re looking for a searchable archive, you can see my draft folder here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jwGLdjsb1WKtgH_2C-_3VvrYCtqLplFO?usp=sharing
Finally, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://markbonica.substack.com/welcome
See you next Friday!
Mark
Mark J. Bonica, Ph.D., MBA, MS
Assistant Professor
Department of Health Management and Policy
University of New Hampshire
(603) 862-0598
mark.bonica@unh.edu
Health Leader Forge Podcast: http://healthleaderforge.org
'It is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keep the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.' - Gandalf (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey)