What impact do you have as a caregiver? Read on & discover something shocking. According to quantum physics, your behavior is affecting the molecules of energy in every person around you, (& many others far away) in ways science has not been able to measure - until recently.
The interlocking circles, the heart, the golden thread, all symbolize WAYS in which you do & can have an impact by your practice of Radical Loving Care.
An example your impact comes in comments posted in the Riverside Methodist Hospital Alumni site on Facebook in response to my July 26 posting of the Journal article: Days 207-211 How Leaders Never Miss An Opportunity To Miss An Opportunity
Forget that these comments (slightly edited) were aimed at me & insert your name. Here are a couple samples among hundreds that spoke SPECIFIC things about the impact of leadership on culture & patient care.
"Thank you, Erie Chapman, caregiver Kathleen Grannan wrote. "Working at Riverside with you at the helm truly uplifted the environment to where I felt supported to give my all. Your vision made so many visions seem possible. I relish so many memories of making a difference in people's lives, and you lifted us up to make those moments possible."
Neurosurgeon Dr. Janet Bell added, "Truer words were never spoken! Those were the days my friend." (see attachment for more notes.)
This would have been lovely if the ONLY comments posted. But, Katherine & Janet inspired a flood of others. Reading them I developed a fundamentally different idea of the molecular energy impact of Radical Loving Leadership.
Riverside nursing was 'the best in the land," (back in the '90s) mid-level leader Erin Keller wrote, [we] "nurses thrived under the leadership of Erie Chapman, as did all of us under his smart and compassionate direction...Thank you, Erie, for our sacred time together."
The hard evidence of Erin's accuracy is that in 1995 there were 800 job openings annually (among 11,ooo employees) & 30,000 applications to fill them. Riverside was ranked TOP 3 best hospitals to work at in Ron Zemke's book, Service America & top ten by ABC national news & Working Mother Magazine.
There were so many "little things" that staff from the '80s & '90s referenced: that I had remembered everyone's name. That I had come up to visit them when they were sick or after they had a baby. MOSt importantly, that I had brought out the best in them and helped them discover that they could more for patients than they realized.
THAT, is the key for leaders and for each of you. Once again, it is not "just a few nice notes" but a flood of them arriving like angels from decades ago sent to bless me (and themselves)
You. do NOT go out there and do good things to get such sincere thanks 30 years later (I had to wait until age 77 to absorb this experience.) You try to do you best and, here is the hard part for some people, you have to assume that IF you got 100 notes they would say what these notes said.
Download Riverside Alumni TRIBUTES copy pdf
In the next Journal I will offer evidence from MIT & other high level science centers on how you are influencing people far from where you work right now.
-Erie Chapman