April 9, 2011

Last night I witnessed that rare quality in a leader, humility.  I attended the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organizations’ Foundation Gala in Washington DC.  There were lights and flowers and diamonds and glamor.  The nations’ hospice leaders and donors were decked out in their finery to give out awards and celebrate.

This year the Healthcare Architect Award was given to Mary Labyak, President and CEO of Suncoast Hospice.  Mary has had a brilliant career in hospice that started in 1980 in Clearwater, Florida.  She was hired by a handful of volunteer board members to provide hospice care to the dying citizens of their area.  Mary and her dedicated volunteers and staff embarked on a journey that has led to a profound change in the way people are cared for at the end of life.

Many people across the US have contributed their life’s work to this movement, but few are more recognized or revered than Mary Labyak.  Growing up in a small town in the upper peninsula of Michigan, in a family of adopted children with a variety of ethnic backgrounds, she learned early about the power of diversity and negotiation.

A social worker by background and training, Mary has always brought a keen understanding of the power of listening to her work.  She listened first to dying people and their loved ones in her community and then to people from all across the US and the world.  What did they want, what did they need, and what would make their lives more meaningful and comfort filled?  She challenged and supported her team to achieve those things and so much more.

She has met with Presidents and Prince’s; spoken to the legislature and congress and written and changed laws. She and her team rebuilt the entire Suncoast Hospice operation following a devastating fire that completely demolished their offices.  Mary stood steadfast while the world’s eyes were on a dying woman and her family as the most horrific of right to life public debates was played out on the international stage.   When Terri Shivo’s life was in the balance, locked between a family in crisis and governmental intervention Mary and her dedicated team never waivered in their commitment to their dying patient Terri and her family.

During those anxious days Mary was threatened with arrest by the Governor and with death by extremists.  With fearless courage and unwavering determination she stood firmly at the side of Terri Shivo, the patient, as she always has and never gave way to the extremes on either side.

An amazing thing about Mary is that she always concentrated on the results and not the recognition. While it takes tremendous confidence and resolution to do the things she has done, her work was never about self-promotion.   Her work has always been and still is about the people she and her staff and volunteers serve.

Also, Mary believed hospice was never simply about health-care, it was and still is about human-care.  It was never about how much money they could make but about how much care they could provide to the greatest number of people in need.

Mary has never forgotten: “it is about the patient”.

She received her award last night as a person with 3 voices: one as the CEO of Suncoast Hospice where she grew a small hospice into an international beacon of excellence; one as a member and active leader of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and Foundation, where she helped focus a nation on end of lifecare; and finally, she spoke most eloquently as a person battling cancer where she has faced her own mortality.

She spoke with passion of the “immense human suffering” she has witnessed while receiving chemotherapy.  She spoke of the people who have lost their jobs, their homes, and even their children because they no longer had funds nor fully function due to their illness and cost of treatment.

Mary has seen what those patients need first hand and she challenged us last night by saying  “if you really want to pay tribute to me and others recognized here tonight, the real way to do it is for every single person in this room involved in hospice to recommit themselves to push a little bit more to reach out to those suffering people that we cannot reach now…”

I am confident that Mary and her team will find a way to serve those people who are clinging to the hope of renewed life while facing death each day.   She has already done it for so many others.

On rare occasions humility and grace, power and wisdom  exist in a single individual…for over 30 years and tonight we witnessed one such individual,

Mary Labyak.

Lessons From The Field

In my work as a consultant I have the good fortune to meet and interview all types of people.  I interview everyone from Board members, community leaders, internal staff, housekeepers to executives.  It is always my delight when I meet someone who is “real”; someone who is comfortable in their own skin, with a sensibility about life and not trying to impress anyone.  I know when I have found one of the truth tellers because I get “truth- bumps” (AKA good bumps) when I talk with them.

These people are everywhere, sometimes in the most unexpected places.  I was recently in a small rural town in the south conducting a program assessment.  I met a Board of Directors member who had been the Chief Operating Officer of the largest privately owned agricultural chemical company in the world.  Not in the largest in the USA, but in the world!

How did that happen?  This man came from humble beginnings of picking cotton, stripping tobacco and working on his grandfathers farm to becoming the COO of an international company.  A company that started in that  small town in the rural south.

Did his experiences of growing the chemical company have any correlation to growing a hospice?

“What did it take to compete with the big boys?” I asked.

“You’ve got to have the heart and horsepower to make hard changes, you have to be able to be nimble and you can’t do things the way you have always done them if you are behind” he said with a smile.

“You have to have the heart to remove someone if they aren’t doing their job and you have to have the horsepower (people) with the right skills and perspective to move the company beyond the current problem” he further added.

“What did you do to compete?” I asked.

“Sometimes we had to pay more to have our display at the front of the farm supply stores so our products were the first thing customers saw when they walked in and the last thing they saw when they left the store”.  “And we developed relationships with our customers; we were the small, family owned company who wanted to meet the needs of our neighbors; and we strategically decided our neighbors were all around the world”.

These principles apply not only to the international fertilizer industry but can be applied to hospice care, or to any other business as well.  Here are his suggestions for success:

• Be nimble
• Don’t keep doing things you have always done if they no longer work!
• Have Heart and Horsepower to make change happen
• Be competitive
• Don’t expect customers will remember you just because you have been around the longest or are “local”
• Expand your neighborhood and be a good neighbor

Are you competing or complaining?  Decide to meet the needs of YOUR neighbors, then begin!

Welcome to the inaugural blog of Acknowledgings.com!  The aim of this blog is to offer perspectives on what it takes to be a great leader, what it takes to be a great human being and what it takes to enjoy your life.  Because it seems to me that if you enjoy all aspects of your life each day, that’s the true measure of success.

Please join in the discussion, add your stories and comments and let’s increase the enjoyment of our lives by acknowledging the goodness that is present in every day.

When I think of leadership listening I think of my mom, who (pictured below) has been a hairdresser most of her adult life.  Being a hairdresser means standing on your feet all day listening to other people’s problems and trying to make them look pretty.  For the price of a shampoo and set my mom has been listening, smiling, and acknowledging people,  making them look good and feel good about themselves for nearly 50 years.  Some people pay a therapist and don’t get as much as she offered as their “hair-apist”.

I never thought much about the role of the hairdresser other than when you find a good one you stick with them, sometimes even longer than a marriage.  It is often the hairdresser who gets the first call to be a part of the preparation for any big event in a woman’s life: proms, graduations, weddings, funerals, holidays and job interviews.

What skills does it take to be a successful hairdresser?  For 45 years my mother shampooed, cut, curled, teased, rolled, colored, bleached, sprayed and styled other peoples hair all while standing on her feet.  She had customers who had been with her for nearly all of those years.  They returned not simply because she gave a great shampoo or used enough hair spray to have the style last a week.  Most of her customers came back to her year after year, decade after decade because she listened to them, she laughed with them, she supported them, she was interested in their lives, and indeed she cared about (almost) all of them who sat in her chair.

She acknowledged her clients, remembering the details of their lives and continuing their story when they would return. They had credibility and were people worthy of getting to know regardless of their job title or role in life.  My mom treated people with respect and dignity and rarely judged people based on their income, dress, language skills, heritage or color of their skin (or hair).

Do you offer that kind of acknowledgment to your customers and staff?  Do you know who your customers are?  How about the people who work for you?  When was the last time you listened to the story of your lowest paid employee?  When was the last time you listened to a friend for an hour (or 5 minutes!) without interrupting?

Great leaders know when to speak, but also they know when to listen.  They know that every person deserves to be acknowledged for the role they play in an organization.  While the high paid employees are often key to the successful strategy of an organization, it is the lowest paid workers that keep the place running: the chef needs clean plates to serve his creations, the 5 star hotel must have clean rooms and linens or the fabulous architectural design means nothing, the hospice agency with fantastic nursing aides is often known as the best.

Listen. Acknowledge. Care about your customers and those who work for and with you.  If you can do that, you will have loyal customers AND loyal employees who just may stick with you for 45 years.

My mom the hairdresser worked 4 days a week into her eighth decade.  One morning last year she didn’t showed up to work.  Her breakfast dishes were in the sink, her work clothes were laid out on her bed and my brother found her lying on her bedroom floor having had a stroke.

Today she cannot walk, her speech is mostly unintelligible, her right side is limp but her spirit and personality are vibrant and alive.  She no longer does hair, and they miss her greatly at “the shop”, but she is laughing, loving and listening and acknowledging her fellow residents and staff at the assisted living facility where she now calls home.  They love her and treat her like the reigning queen that she is, queen of the listening ear and the happy, caring  heart.

As we begin this New Year I challenge you to acknowledge and listen to  someone today.  Perhaps you can begin with yourself!

Happy Acknowledgings!