**At Providence, I’m on a team of people who are trying to instill newly formed Team Norms into the culture at the Digital Innovation Group (DIG). One of our Team Norms is around leadership, so in the month of October we decided to focus on this norm. As a part of that focus, I’ve been writing weekly emails to the team exploring brief ideas about leadership. What is shared here is the content I’ve provided to the team…though shortened or edited when necessary.**
Happy Friday DIG!
As was mentioned in the recent DIG Town Hall, each month we will focus on one of the 11 Team Norms that we ratified earlier this year. The goal is to live the Team Norms by (1) using the language of our Team Norms in daily conversation, (2) giving each other ‘Shout Outs’ when we see good examples, and (3) helping one another to improve through creative ideas, examples, and open dialogue.
For the month of October, we will focus on:
We Lead—We empower one another to take initiative and remove roadblocks. We expect it.
As we turn our thoughts to leadership and to finishing strong in 2016, I’m reminded of the classic tale of the 3 stonecutters.
One day a traveler, walking along a lane, came across 3 stonecutters working in a quarry. Each was busy cutting a block of stone. Interested to find out what they were working on, he asked the first stonecutter, what he was doing. “I am cutting a stone.” Still no wiser the traveler turned to the second stonecutter and asked him what he was doing. “I am cutting this block of stone to make sure that it’s square, and it’s dimensions are uniform, so that it will fit exactly in its place in a wall.” A bit closer to finding out what the stonecutters were working on but still unclear, the traveler turned to the third stonecutter. He seemed to be the happiest of the three and when asked what he was doing replied: “I am building a beautiful cathedral.”
At DIG we (Stonecutters) are running fast and working hard to build products that impact Providence, while doing so in a way that radically changes and revolutionizes the healthcare industry for all patients (Beautiful Cathedral).
Leading in this space looks like being aware of what is going on in your team, being empowered to make tough decisions, and having empathy that allows us to look for solutions that enable long-term success for our teams, our providers, and our patients. I think there is a lot of this going on daily at DIG and I’m excited to see what the month of October brings for us to think about and focus on! 🙂
Happy Leading!