Reaching the Top

When I was a young man, I remember being fascinated by things that hit the “boiling” or “tipping point”.

My mom would ask me to tell her when the water was boiling on the stove, so she could throw the spaghetti in the pot. The water would just simmer there until finally, it would start to bubble up to a rolling boil. Or I would build towers using almost anything (playing cards, wooden, alphabet building-blocks, etc.). I was intrigued by seeing how high I could get them before they tipped over).

There always seemed to be a point where it toppled or fell.

Inversely, when I was striving for something, there also seemed to be a point where things just came together.

One of the most influential people in my life was Steven Covey, the author of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. Many years ago, I was lucky to meet him at a company function in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. I was nervous to approach him at a break, but I built up the courage and asked him, “Of all of your teachings, which one makes the most difference in understanding relationships?” He replied, “The emotional bank account”. He told me that it is an account based on trust between people instead of money. He said you make deposits and withdrawals based on interactions. Once the bank account is close to being full, you have a strong friendship, trusted partner, reliable vendor, etc.

I remember thinking that this concept works with almost every personal relationship. It worked while I was making friends and falling in love with my wife. It worked while deciding which supervisors to trust and which repair shops to take my cars, etc. The bank account seemed to work with every interaction. And usually, I could tell you the moment when the account became full.

When I took over a struggling department, region or company, I would almost always have an introductory speech. This is usually presented on one of the first days taking on the new assignment. My talk centered on our vision.

I would proclaim that we are going to make decisions as close to the patient as possible not in a corporate office. I would talk about treating patients like a loved family member and always doing the right thing. And I would discuss making the work place a great place to work.

Now most people would shake their heads and say, “Yes, that is what we want too,” but I could tell that they had heard words like that before. They wanted to believe me but they didn’t trust me yet. Our emotional bank account was empty.

Sometimes I would even say something like that I will prove it to you through our actions. Then it was up to me and the leadership team to make sure that we followed through.

In order to earn their trust, we had to share good and bad news and to be transparent. We had to care about people and their personal lives, not just work life. We had to always do the right thing and walk the talk.

Almost always over a period of time, I could feel the relationship and work place come together. People wanted to and started to believe in our new culture, vision and mission. They started to believe in themselves and they started to work together. And almost always, I could tell the moment we had made it. It was usually an event, a day or reaching a milestone goal, but I could feel very clearly that we had turned the corner from distress to success. That was a boiling or tipping point. The bank account was full.

Some turn around managers immediately go into an environment and place demands and make wholesale changes without earning that trust. They achieve some necessary short term success. But I have found that for it to stick, for the unit to thrive and to run on all cylinders for the long haul, I needed to invest in relationships and to earn trust. I earned it step by step, deposit by deposit. It seems to me that any goal worth achieving is worth working towards that way. In most cases, long term success in anything is earned “eating the elephant one bite at a time”.

Or to put it another way, before you know it, the water will be boiling and Mom will be throwing the spaghetti into the pot.

Thanks for reading this.

With a goal to “help the next one in line”, Glen Cavallo, a 30+ year healthcare executive has chosen to share the many lessons he has learned with others. Glen does this by serving as a coach/advisor to leaders at all levels of organizations, as a board member and as he presents inspirational speeches at regional, national, annual and awards meetings.