This winter we had our annual leadership meeting in sunny South Florida, attended by about forty leaders from around the United States. This leadership meeting has typically been an opportunity for leaders to come together and listen to presentations, learning the goals and initiatives of the company. But I was on a mission to make it more than that. After all, I had leaders flying in from nearly twenty different states most of which were dark, cold, and gloomy this time of the year.
So now I ask you, what would you do if faced with organizing a large meeting of national and regional healthcare executives flying in from everywhere in the United States in the dead of winter? How would you make it productive? How would you successfully engage them? How would you make it meaningful? How would you make it a good investment? How would you make it inspirational and not the normal “hum-drum” meeting? Oh by the way, did I mention my boss would be attending and participating in this meeting?
Well, I decided that I would offer some form of inspirational opening. I wanted the message to be uplifting and positive, and something they could take back to all of the people they are leading and inspire them. I wanted to inspire them to explore opportunities for change and improvement both personally and professionally. But I had no idea what I was going to do. So as usual, I started to research available resources.
I found the book I thought I might want to reference during my meeting, and bought it to see if it would meet my objectives. It turns out it was exactly what I was seeking. It is called “Be The Sun, Not the Salt”.1 And not to steel the thunder from reading the book, it is about the heliotropic effect of plants and how they grow towards the sun. The book suggests that people benefit from behaving in a way that attracts people to them like the plants to the sun. The concept is pretty basic, be kind, be considerate of other peoples’ needs, and smile.
So I decided to ask them to “be the sun” while they were in sunny South Florida and always. I bought each of them a copy of the book, painted them all their own watercolor original, and wrote them all a personal message conveying how their individual leadership behaviors are heliotropic. I ended my presentation with a sunny message of my own on the value of life-balance in leadership. After my presentation, I gave them their gift bag with the book, card, and cookie in the shape of a sun. I made a sincere and time-consuming personal investment in all of the preparations. It took me nearly three months painting all of the original cards and writing all of the personal messages, but in the end I feel I created an inspirational connection with each and every participant.
As usual after the event I reflected on my efforts and what I learned from the whole experience. I sincerely did all of the preparations because I care about these people. I believe in them. I trust them. I respect them. And I wanted them to understand how much our positive energies, efforts, and commitment to inspirational leadership and life-balance impact our abilities to lead and our leadership outcomes.
But what actually happened was so much more profound. Most of the participants approached me throughout the meeting and after, and told me how they planned to use this information. They asked permission if they could share my content with others. They reflected on their own lives and how much work they still had to do to achieve true life-balance and a sunny attitude.
As an occupational therapist, my message is often to engage in meaningful occupations to enrich your lives. This is another example, so go out and be sunny!
1Cohen, H.D. (2016). Be the sun, not the salt. Cohen LLC Publishing.