Holy cow! It was 78 degrees Friday morning when I left the house at 6:35 a.m. to start setting up for the annual leadership retreat for the department. We have 22 leaders within Imaging and they look forward to it every year. I do, too...but only because it's my primary chance to challenge them for the year ahead.
This year, I opted to hire an external speaker for the morning sessions, to talk about proper interviewing techniques, awkward conversations (how do you tell an employee they have BO?), and what the law communicates in EEOC expectations. But in the afternoon, I ran the show. I had to. I had a creative ax to grind.
I first asked my leaders to picture their jobs. What do they deal with each day? Then I asked them to think of an animal that illustrates that feeling. I got everything from meerkat to hippo to Bloodhound to squirrel. Then I challenged them to think of all of the bad, stressful, frustrating things in their job. Now what animal/image comes to mind then? The responses were broad: porcupine, the scene in I Love Lucy where Lucy is trying to eat all of the chocolate in the Candy Factory, to the Tazmanian devil. It was very vivid and descriptive...people used words like "drowning," "spinning," and "dark."
After this discovery of the negative feelings in our jobs, I then challenged them to think of the positive, uplifting things in their job. What feeds them? Makes them feel fulfilled? Motivated? Encouraged? Several hands went up immediately and I asked them that, rather than speak these uplifting things out loud, would they be willing to paint them?!
I then offered each leader an 8x10" canvas, a selection of paints, and paint brushes. The room was almost painfully silent as each leader tried to picture and then capture their uplifting moment. At first, I wished I would have brought my iHome so we could pipe in some relaxing music. Then I realized that the team desperately needed quiet. Silence. The sheer amount of information and noise inundating them each day is exhausting. They wanted quiet. And so did I.
After 30 minutes of artful painting, the room had a very different energy. It was peaceful, quiet, and many peoples' blood pressure seemed to have dropped by several points. A very weird experience to paint 'at work,' we saw several emerging artists. At least 4 people said, "I have thought about buying paints and a canvas and never had the courage...I will do that now."
Which was just wonderful to hear. The point was "creativity in leadership." I invited the leaders to share their paintings and what the "uplifting thing" was that fed them each day. I made a list of these uplifting things and then challenged the leaders to identify these things in themselves....so that they can identify and pull them out in their employees. And now they had paintings to remind them of the uplifting facets of their jobs.
After the artistic session, the retreat continued as scheduled. But the leaders kept looking at their paintings and discussing them with their colleagues. It was an inspirational moment. Leadership, especially in healthcare, requires creativity!
So anyway, when I left for that retreat on Friday morning, it was almost 80. When I got up yesterday morning (Saturday), it was 38. With a high of 49 in Indy. Jack and I signed up for a bike challenge through St. Gonzo's and, of course, it was this weekend with the 40 degree temps. We had to leave our house at 7:30 Saturday morning to reach the race course in time. It was 41 degrees with 20 mph sustained winds! The challenge consisted of 2 hours of open course time during which the participants were unleashed on a 1.4 mile loop around a gorgeous state park in southern Indiana. When Jack and I signed up for the race, we assumed it would be a flat course. It...wasn't. The course had a small, steady uphill climb, a racing descent into a ravine (full of sunshine - which we all relished because it was freezing!), and around back into the autumn leave-filled paths to the back of the park. The problem was that the back part of the course included two steep climbs. Less athletic folks were walking their bikes up the hills on the first lap or two.
I'm so not athletic. I used to be. It's hidden in me somewhere. But I would not consider myself "athletic" right now.
But the race's goal was, how many 1.4 mile laps could you complete in one hour and 50 minutes? 110 minutes?
I started the race hard. So hard I wanted to barf. I completed 2 laps in 8 minutes and I KNEW that was not sustainable (especially if I barfed. LOL). I started to pace myself and it reminded me of the stair climb I did a few years ago in Chicago. It's all about pacing oneself and lasting to the end. I did not want to go too hard and have to quit because I was cramping or ill. So I slowed down. Not by a whole lot, but enough to keep my bearings. I started my positive self-talk, that I could do this. Just keep pedaling, just keep pedaling (yeah, that's what I was telling myself).
I met up with a guy who was pedaling at my same pace (by this point, I lost Jack. I had no idea where he was on the course). This guy kept saying, "Wow, those hills suck! It takes me a long time to recover from climbing the hills! During that one big sunshine descent into the ravine, I feel like I'm on vacation!"
From that point on, I kept thinking of the descent hill as "vacation." It's all about perspective, eh?
With each lap, the race emcee would announce your name and the number of laps completed. At one point, I heard my name and then "13 laps completed!" This was about halfway through and I got all excited...I ROCKED! I could cycle! Holy crap, I freaking rock! Then the next lap, the announcer said my name again and then that I had completed 10 laps. Yeah....that's more like it!
But the lesson in this experience was that I GOT to do this crazy race. I would never have found myself riding through hilly southern Indiana if I hadn't taken this job and moved to Indy. I would never be pedaling through a beautiful autumn landscape with several colleagues if I hadn't taken this risk. And secondly, it's all about pacing oneself. I can't sprint. But I can pace myself better so that I can finish the race. My only goal yesterday was to sit on my bike and ride for 2 hours without touching the ground. Without stopping. Without giving up. [Without barfing].
But I did it. 17 laps and 23.8 miles. I finished my final lap with 4 minutes to spare. Looking around for Jack, I saw him finish with 1 minute to spare. Between the two of us, we rode 48 miles for charity in 110 minutes! We earned our pizza and beer during NCAA football. Heck yeah!
