As part of a Public Health Leadership course I am taking online through the University of North Carolina, I recently completed an assignment based on Edward Murrow's "I Believe" essays. The "I Believe" series, which began in the early 1950s and still continue on http://www.npr.org/ , asks writers of all ages and professions to profess their personal philosophies. Authors compose short essays illuminating their beliefs on anything of personal importance, from recycling soda cans to receiving heart transplants. My particular essay was assigned as a way of introducing myself to my fellow students by way of espousing my beliefs on leadership, particularly in health care.
As Murrow wrote, "It would be easier to enumerate the items I do not believe in, than the other way around." As someone who still has so much to learn about both leadership and life, my core principles and beliefs are just beginning to emerge and become clear. I am sure that over the years, some of these philosophies will change and evolve as I collect experiences and mistakes, but I sincerely hope that the following will always be true:
I believe in clumsiness.
I believe in clumsiness in its finest form: the kind that leaves your newly pressed suit stained with coffee before you even pull into the office parking lot, the kind that ruins your carefully decorated cupcakes as they tumble to the floor, the kind that results in too many awkward handshakes and near-miss kisses at cocktail parties (see post below!).
My entire life I have groomed an inborn talent for clumsiness. I have always been a spiller, tripper, and all around dropper, deemed “Messy Marva” by my parents in my toddler-hood and achieving a sterling reputation for being the most scuffed-up, knee-bandaged kid on the playground by first grade. If my version of tumbling—tripping over an imaginary rock and plummeting to the ground—were considered an Olympic event, I would easily win more gold medals than Michael Phelps.
However, it wasn’t until I strapped on my three-inch heels and skirt suit a year ago that my predilection towards clumsiness flourished into a full-blown affliction. Plunged into a world of health care executives, I felt uncomfortable and awkward in my new clothes and new role, like a kid playing dress-up who suddenly finds herself itching to ditch the corset and slip into a T-shirt and ratty shorts. My first job out of college in a management fellowship at a network of private cancer hospitals required me to interact with the most senior individuals and undertake projects where, quite frankly, I had no clue how to even begin, let alone execute successfully. My anxiety, combined with such high-pressure situations and my inherent inability to control my limbs left me a literal mess. At the very moment I was struggling to fit in the most, I was spilling on myself (and worse, on others), tripping, and uttering awkward gaffes at every turn. In short, I looked like a coffee-saturated clown with a goofy smile wavering precipitously towards tears.
And so one day I cracked. I had just finished a conference call with the senior executive team, and in fumbling with the unfamiliar phone system, had inadvertently placed the call on hold, plunging the entire meeting into a loud, canned version of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Worse, I didn’t realize my mistake until minutes later, when I received a scathing email informing me that the dozen most important members of the organization were still sitting on the call, seething and gritting their teeth against the strident tune. Mortified, tears instantly sprang up in my eyes and a small squeak welled up in my throat. To my surprise, however, the croak turned into a giggle which soon blossomed into a full-blown belly laugh.
Five minutes later, I wiped the tears from my eyes and the anxiety from my mind. There is so much pain, angst, and suffering in the world, it occurred to me, and suddenly it seemed both ludicrous and narcissistic to spend so much time worrying about the pen marks dotting my shirt or the pencil smudge above my nose. In a cancer hospital, you are constantly surrounded by patients in pain, terrified caregivers, and employees who are over-worked and under-appreciated. It was at that moment I chose to embrace my clumsiness. I learned to laugh at myself when the inevitable misfortune occurred (and still does, frequently), and I learned to share that laugher with those around me. I figured, if I’m going to scrape my knees or dirty my jacket, I might as well get a smile out of it.
In fact, just a few weeks later, I cracked a joke about the aforementioned phone mishap during another leadership team meeting, and ended up striking a jovial relationship with one vice president who is now a frequent mentor of mine. As weeks passed and I grew more comfortable in my own skin, I learned to joke with, smile at, and gently jest with patients and their families. For some, a slight smile or smallest of giggles might be one of the few uplifting moments of their day, when they can forget their pain, anxiety, and fear, and simply celebrate the small joys of life, if only for a second.
As I have come to assume more responsibility and leadership, I have found that there is no ice-breaker quite like a good chuckle. By inciting a group to laughter, you establish a tacit understanding of the group’s culture; you create a common touchstone to which all individual members can connect. As I’ve become more at ease with myself, I’ve noticed others following suit: the laughs come more easily, faces light up, people are more upbeat and energetic. If someone laughs with you, they are much more inclined to open up, expose their vulnerabilities and tear down the barriers which may have stood between you moments before. For me, this past year has taught me one critical lesson: the absolute importance of taking my work seriously, but never taking myself too seriously.
And so I believe in leadership through laughter. I believe in the power of sharing a moment of joy with those around me, be they patients, caregivers, frontline employees, or senior-most executives, and walking away from that moment feeling re-energized. After a hearty chuckle, we can move on filled with what Deming calls a constancy of purpose, ready to relinquish our own sense of victimization, of burden, and of weariness, and with a renewed sense of compassion and humanity, work towards making a difference in the lives of our patients, colleagues, and families. In recent years, scientists have begun to demonstrate and document the physical benefits of laughter, proving through science what so many have known for centuries. Laughter, it seems, truly is the best medicine, especially in today’s complex landscape: it is cheap, easily accessible, and its benefits can be readily spread amongst the masses, regardless of age, race, gender, or insurance plan. As healthcare paradigms slowly shift towards models of holistic and integrative medicine, laughter will become a key component of whole-person treatment, as it mends both mind and soul, patient and employee alike.
For me, my clumsiness and subsequent bursts of laughter have transformed into a bridge over which I can drive from the shores of self-involvement, across the void, to touch upon the lives of others….always being sure, of course, to keep a Stain Remover Stick in the glove compartment for all the messy moments to come.
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