Day: October 7, 2019

Principle: Wholehearted

Overview
Every day we have the opportunity to demonstrate the theme of LOVING by how we show up in our homes, in our work, and in our world through the principle of Wholehearted. When we bring our Whole Heart we show up with empathy, widen our circles of compassion, and share a willingness to accept our own vulnerability as we courageously open ourselves up to others. By LEADING Wholeheartedly, we are an invitation for others to join us and signal that we are sincerely committed– that we are all in.

The heart is a symbol often used in health care representing life, yet it is also a globally accepted symbol for love. Combining the two, we see that health care isn’t just about LIVING – it is about LOVING – with our whole heart.

How Wholehearted Fits into LOVING

Wholeheartedness is the first principle of LOVING — signifying a commitment to bring your Whole Heart, knowing that you are worthy, and that you are enough. While LOVING is an integral facet of our personal lives, it can often be forgotten as a part of our workplaces. LOVING binds us together and guides and informs all the other them in –LEADING, LOOKING, and LIVING. Wholehearted provides the lens to help define how we do what we do. Throw your heart into it, and the rest will follow.


Be Kind

When a quirky, elderly lady approached the register at a local bookstore, the team member helping her had no idea she would be the most influential customer she’d ever had. In this random-act-of-kindness tale, the customer perfectly portrays what it looks like to Wholeheartedly move through your day with LOVE for the people you come into contact with. She surprised the customer behind her in line by purchasing all of his textbooks (and some chocolate) and then reflected that “it’s important to be kind. You can’t know all the times that you’ve hurt people in tiny, but significant ways. It’s easy to be cruel without meaning to be. There’s nothing you can do about that. But you can choose to be kind.”

How can we actively choose kindness and bring our Whole Hearts to our interactions with team members, providers, patients, and guests? What might we improve in our systems to design for kindness?

Heart Not In It?

There are times when it may feel like our Whole Heart is no longer in our work, and it may happen more often than expected. A 2017 Gallup poll found that only one third of workers feel consistent passion for their job. But just because the passion isn’t there doesn’t mean you can’t rediscover it. One way to regain footing is to come to terms with what you’re trying to get out of your work. Is it a career? A job? A passionate calling? Next, consider tweaking your work. Could something be redesigned to gain a greater sense of meaning or satisfaction? Finally, is there something else besides work that could help ignite your passion and change your overall mindset? Sometimes it isn’t really the work; it’s our greater sense of self that might need revisiting. As leaders, we can help our team members see and tap into their feelings. We may even be able to reinvigorate them by design their roles anew or sparking a new passion.

How are our organizations set up to LOVE our team members when they’re Experiencing a lack of passion for the work? Do we push them away or do we give them more reasons to show up Wholeheartedly for their team members and patients?

What Stops Compassion?

In this TED Talk, psychologist and author Daniel Goleman dissects how we choose whether or not to LEAD with compassion each day. While we may be prewired for compassion, we continue to conduct a cost-benefit analysis before performing an act of kindness for another. What would it take to help? What might be gained? In those Moments of weighing all the minutiae, we miss out on the opportunity to simply choose to be Wholehearted in the way we move through the world.

What does compassionate action look like in our unique positions in the health care industry? How, like Goleman, can we break from our daily grind and discover a new way to extend our Wholehearted selves? What can we Notice today?

Wear Your Heart on Your Sleeve

Do you know who made your favorite t-shirt? Not just the brand, but the human who physically created it? Thanks to clothing startup Known Supply, now you can. Aimed to highlight the real lives behind factory doors and the products they create, Known Supply sews the name of the individual that created the t-shirt into the label. Pop onto their website and search the t-shirt maker’s name to learn his or her story and even thank them. This move wasn’t just aimed to bring awareness to customers, creating a Connection between them and the maker of their clothing; it is also aimed to bring the seamstresses Wholehearted ownership over their work. What a prideful symbol of transparency!

There are so many hands and hearts that contribute to the care that a patient receives in our clinics and hospitals. What are some ways our organizations can honor the humanity that goes into our Wholehearted work? How might we “sew the names” of our team members into the caring we provide?

In the Spotlight with Julie Kennedy Oehlert, Chief Experience Officer, Vidant Health

What does the principle of Wholehearted mean to you?

Julie Kennedy Oehlert (JKO): When we think about the work we are doing at Vidant Health, Wholehearted means showing up as your best, most loving self in all situations. We are in the midst of a positive cultural transformation, and we’ve found that bringing your Whole Heart–and bringing LOVE to the table–creates a dynamic that can be rare in our frenzied environment–while we’re creating such significant change in our organization and our industry.

For us, Wholeheartedness is a tool for change because when we LEAD with our Whole Hearts and LEAD with LOVE, then the change we seek is more possible. I think about what we learned from Dr. Victoria Sweet at STIR and what she calls “slow medicine,” which is about being intentionally slow. We’re trying that here at Vidant, starting with slow, Wholehearted leadership, where we are lovingly present so people can move into change with a feeling of care and kindness. If our team members don’t feel LOVE and Wholeheartedness in their space and if they don’t feel like they are enough or what they do is enough, then fear and negative power dynamics shows up and inhibits the change we are seeking.

How do you, as a leader, and in your organization, use LOVE and Wholeheartedness as part of your Experience journey?

JKO: With our learning from The Experience Lab, our Office of Experience chose to set an Intention for the entire first year of this journey, and it was simply to be LOVING. It sounds easy and perhaps cavalier, but it’s really not. If you ask an organization, leaders, and team members to design with LOVE, it’s not that easy. We get asked, “What’s LOVE got to do with it?” And the answer is, “everything.” LOVE is everything. It’s how we can heal health care. When people unleash themselves with LOVE, it shifts things. If people say, “I LOVE my team” or “I LOVE my work”—how powerful is that? When people ask me, “How do you get so much done?” I always answer, “With LOVE.” Love has become such a powerful influencer in our culture that we continue to apply LOVE as an Intention in all we do. It has become iconic for what we stand for, and that shows me that it was something both our team members and patients longed for.

The word courage comes from the Latin word cor, which means heart. Can you talk about courage and Wholeheartedness in your work?

JKO: Wholeheartedness takes courage. It takes courage every day to show up with LOVE. It takes courage to set LOVE as an Intention in a health system and talk about LOVE at the executive level–in executive meetings and in the boardroom. Think about it though; who pushes back against LOVE? No one. It’s a unanimously positive and desirable state to LOVE. People LEADING change in other organizations often say to me, “I get pushback on my Experience efforts.” My reply is that at Vidant no one pushes back on LOVE—nobody.

We know that this courageous, Wholehearted work may sometimes hit speed bumps. How do you navigate those barriers?

JKO: That’s the courage part! Navigating those speed bumps takes courage. It takes being authentic and Wholehearted in your work. We have to take time to explain where we are coming from. Those who are leading our culture transformation don’t get defensive, and we don’t take the power-over approach. We take the time to explain to people why this is a better state of being for them and share all the positive consequences of having LOVE as an Intention. It takes patience. Leaders must role model! I know it may seem safer to go along with the current flavor of the month for how to get results, yet there are so many benefits of standing up and saying we should use LOVE as the way. I can’t think of any downside for this.

What advice do you have for Lab Partners?

JKO: I think defining LOVE for your organization is super important. I choose to use MLK’s definition of LOVE and find that it resonates with our team members.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. defines love as “understanding, redeeming goodwill for all men, an overflowing love that seeks nothing in return.” The concept of LOVE may seem foreign in an industry focused on survival in a changing landscape. But LOVE—an understanding and redeeming goodwill—may be the exact thing that health care needs to transform itself to better engage team members and serve patients. It’s about LOVING the humanity of people and LOVING humankind. By defining LOVE, it helped create and define our culture.

We also did a lot of socializing of our LOVING Intention. I put quotes on my door, in reflections, in emails; I use LOVING words and terms myself in front of the board, and meetings, and in our action plans. I pointed it out to people. Culture isn’t created by an overlay or edict; it’s created like electricity–it flows.


Leading through LOVE

What kind of leader do you want to be? In this fascinating Forbes interview, Kristen Aldridge and Seth Mattison, co-founders of Luminate, share the thought that in today’s world, to be an effective leader, we need to LOVE the people we LEAD. When we LEAD through LOVE, we cultivate a culture of compassion and care that paves the way for people to grow. There is something good and lovable in everyone, and when we find it, we let go of our judgments and instead create Connections. LEADING through LOVE also brings us to LEADING through service rather than power—focusing on the growth and well-being of our people and communities.

Take a minute to find something to LOVE in each and every one of your team members. What kinds of qualities are you seeing? How might you celebrate them and bring them out more?

Creating Space for Wholeheartedness

This beautiful animated video dives into the importance of vulnerability and what gets in the way of us being Wholehearted. It takes courage to show up and reveal our true selves when our day does not go as planned. But this vulnerability is what Connects us and allows us to release the burden of being uncomfortable together. Holding space for these struggles and accepting our imperfections creates Connections between us as humans.

What are some of the obstacles to being Wholehearted in our organizations? In ourselves? How could we remove those and instead create the space for vulnerability?

SPOTIFY Playlist: Wholehearted

Allow the songs on this playlist to unlock your Wholehearted self. Emulate LOVING practices for yourself and others when listening.