Leadership Insights

There’s a radio talk show host who’s known to use a simple phrase that carries a lot of heft. “Words mean things,” he often says in response to those who take seemingly plain words and interpret them in creative ways. He’s right in a way – words do mean things. They must have some common, easily understandable meaning in order for us to communicate clearly with one another. But the English language is nuanced, and there are some – politicians, lawyers, comedians and advertisers come to mind – whose job it is to parse the language and amplify (sometimes exploit) the nuances to make their points. Words do mean things, but they may not mean the same things to everyone.

This is one of the reasons it’s so important for organizations to write mission, vision and values statements with as much clarity as possible. Show me a list of values written by an organization’s attorneys, and I’ll show you an organization that’s confused. Values must be written from the gut – by the people who can’t separate their own identity from that of the company. They’re the ones who know what the organization was meant to be, what it is and what it hopes to be.

Thankfully such is the case with Mercy. The Sisters of Mercy wrote a list of values that have words that are quite common. They aren’t unique to Mercy or Catholic health care or even non-secular health care. Dignity, Service, Stewardship, Justice and Excellence could be the values of any organization – even those outside of health care. But they have clarity. They mean things.

I would ask you to think about one of those values in particular. Excellence in Mercy’s tradition is defined as giving “only the best for those entrusted to our care.” From a leadership perspective, the challenging thing about excellence is that it can’t be ordered. We can require people to be satisfactory, and we can correct people or in rare and extreme cases even dismiss people if they’re not satisfactory. But no one can make someone else be excellent. That is their choice. As a leader in this organization, the best I can hope to do is to inspire or influence others to choose to be excellent, but that’s where my influence ends and their autonomy takes over in full.

As you go about your busy workday at Mercy, I’d like to know what inspires you to choose to be excellent? What pushes you in the opposite direction toward mediocrity? I’m interested in your thoughts. Please email me at alan.scarrow@mercy.net.

Diversity

Recently my neurosurgery colleague Brian Ragel and I went to India on behalf of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons to teach some surgical courses to Indian neurosurgical trainees.  On our way to the city where the courses were held, we stopped at a tea plantation in the mountains of southern India where I snapped this picture.  While this picture of Dr. Ragel against one of the many mountains where tea bushes have been planted for centuries may look like a typical “let me show you where I went on vacation” photo, the story contained within its four corners is quite interesting.  Three thousand years ago, people in China started drinking tea, a step that coincided with drinking boiled water that, coincidentally, killed disease-bearing microorganisms.  Tea bushes grow best at high altitude in a warm, wet climate.  Since the mountains of southern India are close to the equator, it is an ideal place for growing tea making India one of the largest tea producers in the world.  However, tea is not native to India.  According to our tour guide, tea seeds were originally brought to India by prisoners of war from China.  While the tea thrived most of the time, some years the climate was too wet and the tea bushes suffered.  To solve that problem, Australian eucalyptus trees were planted because their deep roots soaked up excess water.  Of course none of this mattered until there was a large market to sell the tea which happened when the British invaded India, loved the tea and began vigorous cultivation and exportation of cargo ships full of tea to millions of caffeine starved Europeans.  Thus in the picture you see Dr. Ragel, a man of European descent, at an Indian tea plantation, enjoying the harvest of a Chinese plant whose growth is enabled by Australian trees.  Makes the world seem quite small doesn’t it?

As I was looking at this picture I began thinking about how diverse and connected life in Springfield, Missouri is with the rest of the world.  Within my own group of eight neurosurgeons, we have individuals that are one generation or less removed from Iran, Korea, Pakistan and Nigeria.  On the small cul-de-sac where I live we have many of the world’s great religions represented – Protestants, Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, and Mormons - all within throwing distance of each other.  Even a simple can of Coca-Cola that you may have on your shelf at home in southwest Missouri is contained in an aluminum can from Western Australia, filled with syrup based on a recipe from Atlanta, Georgia that calls for Mexican vanilla, cinnamon from the inner bark of a Sri Lankan tree, coca leaf from South America (processed in a plant in New Jersey to remove the cocaine), and combined with red kola nut from the African rain forest.

Each of us has these stories that connect us to others.  We need them.  The diversity of opinion, background and perspective opens our minds, stimulates new ideas, makes for more innovation, and powers our growth. I’ve shared some of my own stories of diversity, I am interested in yours.  How do you find yourself connected to the rest of the world?  Email me at alan.scarrow@mercy.net or follow me on Twitter: @DrScarrow.