RWL Newsletter #26
Officially I can now wish you a Happy New Year! I took the above picture on a New Year's Day walk with my dog Marley. I thought it was apropos for my first newsletter of the new year because, aside from the fact that I took it on New Year's Day, it's a picture of a bridge. Bridges are a great metaphor for achievement, don't you think? We're all on a journey and a bridge helps us get to where we want to go. My daughter gave me that crystal ball you see in the center of the picture. I thought that made the picture appropriate because the crystal ball gives me a different perspective, a different way of seeing, which is critical if you want to be creative and innovative - you have to be able to see things differently than everyone else. And, of course, it's a crystal ball, which means we're looking into the future! I love cramming lots of symbols into one image!
Anyway, here are three tidbits to motivate your creativity and innovative thinking at the start of an awesome 2017!
Read
What: Brainpickings, What Makes a Good Life: Revelatory Learnings from Harvard’s 75-Year Study of Human Happiness
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/08/23/harvard-grant-study-robert-waldinger-ted/
Why: Brainpickings is one of those really great sites that serves up really cool insights from all sorts of areas of life. A curatorial service, not all that different from what I am trying to do here, except they don't have healthcare executives in mind when they pick their topics. Anyway, this one is relevant to the healthcare field. This story is about the Harvard Study of Human happiness, and seems to be a good article to start the new year off with. What does this have to do with leadership? I'll be starting my OB course in a couple of weeks and the first question we as a class are going to contemplate is what motivates people? What motivates us and keeps us going, as it turns out, is good relationships. That sounds like the core of good leadership to me. (And this post has a TED talk as a bonus.)
Watch
What: Steve Jobs, Don't be Afraid to Ask for Help
https://youtu.be/dxNQebY-Qdw
Why: 2 minutes of excellent advice from one of the legends of our time: "I never found anyone that didn't want to help me if I asked for help... Most people never pick up the phone and never ask." A little motivation to be a little more daring in 2017. We are a helping industry, after all. But we have to be able to ask for help ourselves.
Listen
What: Health Leader Forge interview with Dennis Kain, FACHE, Senior Vice President, Tyler & Company
http://healthleaderforge.blogspot.com/2017/01/dennis-kain-fache-senior-vice-president.html
Why: When I was getting ready to retire from the Army and expressing some anxiety about making the transition, a friend of mine said, "The Army is like a bus. You get on, and sooner or later you get off. Best to get off on your own before the bus driver throws you off. But regardless of what you do, the bus is going to keep on going." My first interview of 2017 is with Dennis Kain, SVP of Tyler & Company. Tyler & Company is a respected executive search firm specializing in recruiting and placing health care leaders. Dennis had a very successful career in health care operations, culminating in being the CEO of a large community hospital before making the transition to executive search. I really enjoy the stories of successful people who took chances and tried different things, and were successful. Dennis's story is one of those. Successful first in operations, successful now in executive search. Sooner or later we all get off the bus, and Dennis has some great advice for when that time comes. Even if it's not your time to make that transition, it's interesting to hear about how executive search works.
That's it for this week! Have a happy and safe New Year and I'll talk to you again next year!
If you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://tinyletter.com/markbonica
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 by e-mail, or you can tweet to me at @bonicatalent .
Thanks for reading and see you next week!
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
Twitter: @bonicatalent
"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor." - Henry David Thoreau