Cornerstone Moments

In the healthcare business, we talk a fair amount about the Triple Aim for improving the U.S. health care system. The Triple Aim is a framework developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) that describes an approach to optimizing health system...

I have called scores of healthcare provider practices during the past several months, and have been amazed at what I’ve found. It is very difficult in many situations to reach a human being. Why? Because I often had to navigate a phone system with several options, and...

The word Midbar is most commonly used to describe a wilderness area. In the King James Version of the Christian bible, it is used to describe wilderness 255 times. Wilderness areas are often very beautiful and attractive to us for a variety of reasons. They may be...

Last week I listened to a Minute with Maxwell (John) and the word he talked about for 60 seconds was ‘contagious.’ John talked about how important it is to be enthusiastic, and how that can rub off on others. I agree, and yet I was inspired to approach it a bit...

It is not so much what you do that is of the greatest importance, but who you ‘are’ in the midst of that. The atmosphere produced by you, much more than your activities, has a lasting influence on those around you and will likely become your legacy. I recently read a...

Have you ever contemplated whether you are a shepherd or a sheep? From the outset, I want you to know that I am not insinuating in any way that as a sheep you are a ‘dumb’ animal. On the contrary, as I chewed on the notion of being a sheep, I realized that the lack of...

In the previous Cornerstone Moment, I discussed Management Succession. This time I want to discuss developing cover for absent employees and about employee development to allow the former to be possible. Cover Development When we are absent from the fold on travel,...

It is curious that succession planning isn’t talked about more, but completely understandable. Few people care to dwell much on the idea of being replaced, while business practices tend to counter the culture of succession planning and employee development. I’d like...

Do you ever stop to think about the word freedom? It reminds me of the word mature. I don’t believe we are ever completely free and certainly never 100% mature. These words connote finality, having arrived somewhere, or at the end of the task. We recently celebrated...

As humans, we struggle with conflict that can make our jobs difficult, our lives stressful and our behavior sometimes inconsistent. One area of great struggle is criticism. Think for a moment of how difficult it is to help others without being critical. Hold on! Not...