Junkmail Inspiration

 Our telemedicine team is extremely indebted to a Kanata mailman and one particular piece of unsolicited advertising (aka junkmail) that was delivered last spring.

  This is a story that reminds me of the importance of a skill that Dr. Edward DeBono taught me known as the creative pause. It is the act of making an intentional effort to look for creative ideas from the least likely sources of inspiration. It also reinforces the power of heartfelt and animated visualization when setting and reaching goals.

  You may recall from a previous blog that our Telemedicine Program at the Royal was recognized for its fifteen years of work in the field with a donation of one million dollars over five years by Bell Canada. One of the deliverables in the gift was the creation of luxurious telemedicine suites where our clinicians can provide care by live videoconference to patients in rural and remote areas of Ontario. These suites would proudly wear the Bell Canada name in appreciation of its support.

  It was April and the time had come for Sarah, Martin and I to start building that marquee facility. We looked at each other without a clue on how to start. We had plenty of collective experience purchasing the videoconference equipment and placing it in rooms to simply enable clinical consultations to happen – but a luxury suite with multimedia and television quality was way out of our comfort zone.

  To make matters worse, there were no vendors in the region who delivered the total package (beautiful room plus technologies). We were at a project impasse.

  Then fate took over. On most days upon arriving home I can identify and discard the junkmail in seconds. On this day, the typical pile included an Audio-Visual company specializing in high-end Home Theatre. Noticing this one unusual piece, I gave it my attention and within its pages was a picture of a beautiful room with customized woodwork and the requisite plasma monitor and all the technical bells and whistles.

  We now had the mental image we needed. I took the flyer to work. Handed it to the team and said “this is what I want it to look like. I want this room to be the wet-dream office for any mental healthcare specialist.” The picture and those words gave us the launching blocks for our race to the deadline.

  Within weeks, and with outstanding partnerships within our own supply-chain management and facilities teams, this luxury studio project came to life. And I’m proud to say that most of the planning happened while I was blissfully relaxing at the cottage. The junkmail image and effective description of our goal powered my colleagues through the summer.

  Today, the studio is ready for its celebratory opening, on time and well within budget. I still have that junkmail flyer that provided the spark that ignited our team’s efforts toward achieving this daunting but fulfilling challenge. 

As per our blog policy - the opinions and comments in this article represent those of the author and should not be considered representative of the ROHCG.

Googlize Our Department

Last spring one of my team colleagues circulated a viral email from Google. The email highlighted all the comforts and perks that can be yours if you went to work for the mighty Google.

There was a hint of envy in the supplementary message that was shared among the team; a “wouldn’t this be a dream job” innuendo.

Rather than just acknowledge the message and move forward, I took it to a team meeting and asked the question “why can’t working in our program be just as motivating and rewarding?”

We then created the task of Googlizing our workplace.

The first step was thematically organizing the appealing aspects flaunted by Google into the categories of health, work-life balance, environment, and team interaction. Then came some brainstorming which yielded 22 immediate ideas, with implementation challenges ranging from simple to creatively complex.

Over the span of the first few months since the first meeting, we have implemented four of the ideas. One of the coolest is the purchase of “Core strength building Fitness Balls” for everyone on the team. Now each of us is literally bouncing in our seats, working the back and abdominal muscles. Perhaps there’s a calendar opportunity in our future!

We’re celebrating some of the wackiest honorarium days on the calendar. National doughnut and cheese days are behind us. There’s a day coming soon in honour of the Ice Cream cone. Perhaps it’s a good thing we have the fitness balls. The team seems to love the days that celebrate food.

I’m proud of the way our team refused to submit to being victims of our fiscally constrained healthcare environment. They clearly relish the challenge of creating a workplace that invites us to participate everyday. There are many other ideas that are in development to Googlize our department. If I can blend these great workplace ideas with their passion for achieving goals and providing outstanding services and products, then perhaps we’ll be the envy and motivator for another organization in the same way Google motivated us.


As per our blog guidelines - the opinions and comments in this article represent those of the author and should not be considered representative of the ROHCG.

A Behemoth Lesson in Trust and Leadership

I expect to be a better leader after each vacation. That results from a blend of casual but professionally related reading by the beach, stress-free reflection on the busy period prior to the holiday, and even practicing leadership and coaching skills within the joyous confides of family and friends.


One of the most enjoyable days of this year’s vacation was a day spent at Canada’s Wonderland, riding every daredevil ride the park offers. The highlight of the park is its newest rollercoaster called Behemoth. It’s one of the new generation of rollercoasters (called a hyper-coaster) that contains a (nearly) direct vertical climb and drop.

Want to learn more about this ride? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behemoth_(roller_coaster)

How does Behemoth connect with trust and leadership?

Let’s present the Behemoth experience with any new special project challenge. Here are the characteristics of the Behemoth ride that would serve you well in a new project.

o You are embarking toward the unknown. You know it is something you haven’t done before, and it will lead to an experience previously unimagined. But you must have the gumption to try it. Not every type of personality has this which is just fine. For me, these hyper-coasters create what I call “out-of-body experiences” that attract me to their insanity.

o As the coaster begins the journey, hauling you 230 feet straight into the air, it gets scary. You’re helpless. Your inner voice screams ‘high enough’, ‘please take me back’ or many other things. You accept the fear and keep going.

o What helps deal with the fear is trust. You have to trust that the engineers who built Behemoth, and Canada’s Wonderland who paid 26 million dollars for it, have your back. It’s the same with an anxiety-thrilled project; trust in your leaders is huge.

o The payoff moment arrives. On the behemoth, you are falling at a speed of 127 kilometers-per hour (almost 80 miles-per-hour), followed by a series of rapid “air-time hills” that create a brief sensation of weightlessness. During this part of the ride, you feel a greater sense of team as everyone around you screams. You are all living the moment together.

o In less than three minutes, the ride is over. You will decide if it’s an experience you want to repeat (with your newly acquired experience and understanding), or maybe you have learned that you never want to do it again.

Any project that seeks to profoundly change or create new ways of improving our lives will probably carry many of the same emotions as a ride on the Behemoth. As a leader, we should look for team members with the courage to face the unknown; accept the risks; and the ability to acknowledge and conquer their fear. The leader of such a team must realize that they will place their trust in you to safely support and protect them at every turn.

If you have that kind of team, you’ll accomplish great things.

As per our blog policy - the opinions and comments in this article represent those of the author and should not be considered representative of the ROHCG.

Transcending Music Into Survival – Leadership Is The Trick

I keep some space between my passions for leadership and music. Who is really going to believe that a jiving, jumping fool at the front barrier of a Peter Frampton concert (me on July 10th) is going to be continuing his read of “High Altitude Leadership” (Chris Warner & Don Schmincke) when he calms down the next day? I’m a strange cat in that respect.

I don’t go to concerts expecting to see examples of leadership. But on July 17th, I witnessed a wonderful example of selfless leadership during the course of a natural near-disaster at a festival rock concert here in Ottawa.

The (band) leader in this situation was Rick Neilson of the group Cheap Trick. At 7PM they launched into their show with all the energy captured in their 1979 multi-million selling live record “At Budokan”, and the sun was shining on them for the first four songs of their set. At 7:20 PM, during their fifth song, an ominous black sky quickly rolled in. Strong winds began to whip the festival grounds. And even though the PA system cut off the sound to the mass audience, Cheap Trick professionally played “Tonight It’s You” to its conclusion for those who could still enjoy it at the front of the crowd. That professional finale could have cost them dearly.

The group quickly waved to the crowd and left the stage, but before I could count ten steamboats, a blast of wind grabbed the stage like a kite and blew it to the ground in seconds.

I’m sure I wasn’t the only person in front of that stage that thought there was no way the group and crew had time to get out. My first thought was that I had just witnessed the possible death of a group I have grooved with for over thirty years.

All the people around me did the expected and ran for cover, but my counter-intuitive healthcare brain kicked into emergency planning mode and I jumped the barrier in front of the stage and headed toward the wreck to lend a hand. I spent fifteen minutes hollering for anyone trapped under the fallen stage and equipment, and then hauled road barriers away to make room for emergency vehicles.

As I paused for a moment in the pouring rain I noticed the group’s leader, guitarist Rick Neilson behaving more like emergency crew than rock star. He was searching for everyone that he knew was on the stage. He was at the hip of a fallen team member (the band’s truck driver) who was badly injured in the collapse. He was communicating with the few inexperienced festival grounds workers during those initial minutes of shock and panic immediately following the stage collapse. I thought to myself, most performers would be in their trailers, perhaps on the phones with their attorneys after such an incident.

Rick Neilson clearly considered this event a family tragedy. This probably explains why band members, crew and fans have been so loyal to him. This was not a rock personality in front of me in the pouring rain, lightning flashing over our heads. These were the behaviours of a military commander or any archetypical leader in a crisis.

Perhaps this explains why the group has survived the music business for approximately four decades. They were at the height of their rock music popularity in the late seventies and early eighties, but like most classic rock groups, as styles and commercial radio changed, the group’s space in the limelight dwindled. But here they were making a long overdue return to Ottawa Ontario, in front of 10-15 thousand fans, on a huge stage with a ton of equipment about to fall on them.
Any business or industry tends to destroy the selfish. I’m sure that holds true in the music business. But if Neilson’s actions during this catastrophe are representative of his care for the family that are Cheap Trick and the music they create, then leadership and rock ‘n roll have thankfully coexisted.

You can get more on this near catastrophe on the band’s website at http://www.cheaptrick.com

Mental Health First Aid for Ottawa and Region

As you may have read in my brief blog bio, I love being the first to deliver a new service or product. And so I’m quite proud to announce that the Royal is adding a new certification program to its Public and Professional Education catalogue.

It’s called Mental Health First Aid Canada. It’s very similar to the concept of medical first aid. When you are witnessing the early signs of mental illness, what can you do?
Sadly, very few are prepared. The stigma of mental illness also obstructs appropriate action or treatment.

The Mental Health Commission of Canada created the program for this country after learning about the evidence-based work of Betty Kitchener and Professor Tony Jorm in Australia. Formal evaluation of their program demonstrated that successful participants were:

• Better at recognizing mental health problems
• Learned more about appropriate treatments
• Were more confident in providing help
• Overcame any stigma they may have had about mental illness

Four terrific colleagues of the Royal made a huge commitment to the rigorous five-day training session toward becoming certified trainers of this program. We are the first to offer it in the Champlain (Eastern Ontario) region of this province. It is being offered in other parts of Ontario.

I believe it is the type of program individuals practitioners, community-based workers, public and private businesses, and the general public have been clamouring for. The 'Basic' version of the course takes approximately 12 hours over a two day period. Our first course here at the Royal is August 11 and August 12. Learn more about this innovative program at the Mental Health Commission website at:
http://www.mentalhealthfirstaid.ca/EN//Pages/default.aspx
Learn more about our course, and register if interested at: http://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?EventID=991231

As per our blog guidelines - the opinions and comments in this article represent those of the author and should not be considered representative of the ROHCG.

More Bums Than Ever Before

Over eight thousand bums to be specific.

It’s reporting season, and some of the key numbers that we must provide to our stakeholders captures the amount of education/training/support opportunities that we create here at the Royal.

Recording bums in seats doesn’t tell us how effective we are in influencing change in professional practices and personal attitudes. We have other evaluation methods for that. But it’s a number that we should be proud of because this impressive number represents the work of a small and dedicated group of people. How small – a party of eight.

Our Director of Library Services led the creation of our Centennial Series of Public Lectures that brought nearly two thousand people into our Health Care Centre to learn how to cope with the burdens of Mental Illness.

Our Conference and Training Program Administration Assistant’s efforts resulted in thousands of healthcare professionals across the region and country acquiring the latest in knowledge and specialized skills training toward improving care for people with Mental Illness.

Over 200 of these events were broadcast across Ontario through the Ontario Telemedicine Network.

And from all this work, we generated revenue that we can re-invest toward building new programs that can provide even greater impact on those providing care and requiring care.

We continue to prove that clinicians and clients don’t always have to be in the same room. Our telemedicine consults increased by over 50%. That’s why we believe our gift from Bell to enhance our program is really a gift to patients living in rural and under-serviced communities.

And so it’s a proud moment for our team – but soon we must change our perspective and accept that these accomplishments will be yesterday’s news. And our new challenge will be to creatively plan how we will surpass these numbers next April. It may be scary, but it makes our work much more fulfilling.

As per our blog policy - the opinions and comments in this article represent those of the author and should not be considered representative of the ROHCG.

Strategic Planning - Overlooking Relevance Can Lead to Irrelevance

Straight up – I’m big on Strategic Planning. You can never stand still for any length of time and stay relevant in my opinion.

That’s why I’m startled by the results of our organizational survey where nearly 2/3rds of those surveyed stated they didn’t believe the orgs 3-year Strategic Plan (2009-2012) was applicable to them or had any impact on their daily activities.

I know what some will say; “it’s a small sample, only about 15% of the total staff group.” I think it’s big enough to indicate a trend, and you’ll have a tough time convincing me that the 80-85% of staff that weren’t motivated enough to participate would make the statistical scenario better.

I need somebody to explain to me how providing the best possible care; advancing discovery through research and education; working in an integrated system with our care partners in mental health; making our workplace the best it can be; and being financially healthy isn’t applicable to their job.

Where would Apple be, where would Google be, University Health Network, John Hopkins, any truly recognizable innovator in any field, if 2/3rds of their staff felt their organization’s strategy had no relevance to their work.

Making strategy count is a manager’s role. And in this crazy environment of workload and information overload, it’s hard for those doing their best on the front line to find the time and energy to listen to something that isn’t “right here, right now”.

But Strategic Planning is real – real important, really rewarding when you see how you can move yourself and your organization forward, and it’s also really the only way the Royal has survived as a care provider in this region for over a century. We can’t risk that by being apathetic to the importance of Strategic Planning.

As per our blog policy - the opinions and comments in this article represent those of the author and should not be considered representative of the ROHCG.