Below is a list of seven resources that have helped me keep my resolutions longer and better manage my life and my work. Check them out, gather your team together and discuss how you all can adapt them to be more productive and more powerful in the coming year!
7 ideas to help you and your team define and keep your new year’s resolutions
1. Goals to direct you. We use the term ‘goals’ loosely, so check out your resolutions to see if they really are goals or just a wish. Use the acronym SMART. Goals need to be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time based. If they don’t meet these criteria, they are dreams, not goals.
2. Masters to coach you. Peer coaching is coming into its own. When one person is more skilled in an area, she is paired up with someone who would benefit from developing that skill. It’s a definite self-esteem builder on both sides. You may want to bring in a leadership coach for yourself to help you reach new goals and keep your team on track. A coach can hold up the mirror, help you stretch, grow, and hold you accountable for new outcomes. Explore our customized coaching process at Tweed Jeffries.com.
3. Anchors to remind you. An anchor is a symbol for the change you want to make; a tangible object that serves to ground you and remind you of your commitment. I’m known for using the color purple and even writing with purple ink. Purple is the color of royalty and it’s an anchor to remind me to treat others like royalty. Be creative and encourage your team to choose something to remind them of their goals. Have fun with it.
4. Systems to organize you. We learned in anatomy class that structure is for function. What tools and systems will add structure and keep you and your team focused on your goals? A white board so everyone can see progress? 20 minute updates once a week? An accountability partner to help people stay on track?
5. Words to inspire you. Read and listen to messages that lift you up individually and as a team that remind you, “Yes We Can!” Fill your mind with positive, mind-expanding books, CD’s and speakers who show you the possibilities instead of the problems. Start a book club. Ask team members to report on articles they’ve read that will foster better care or better relationships with each other.
6. Friends and family to support you. “Watch who you are hanging around with,” as my mother would say. Are they people that care about you so much that they’ll hold your feet to the fire? Challenge your team members to name two people who will help them be accountable for what and who they want to be? Encourage them to stay away from the negative people in their lives!
7. A faith that guides you. Tielhard De Chardin said “We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” And so we are. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we cannot see. Let that faith guide you so you can encourage and support your team to keep their eyes on the goal and their hearts in the mission.
I just returned from my annual spiritual retreat with 4 of my best friends. We gather every year right after the holidays. This was year #12. We talk, laugh, learn, eat, and pray. We each set a theme for the year and commit to helping each other stay focused on it. This year, mine is “Achievement without Achieving.” Just articulating that phrase already has me slowing down, being present to the moment and breathing deeply more often. I find that too much of the time I have ‘hurry sickness.’ I tend to ‘push the river’ which is silly, because it’s already flowing!
The Resolution Quiz
1. What have you resolved to do differently as a leader this year?
2. Which of the above 7 resources is exciting to you and will help you and your team more likely keep your resolutions?
3. What are you willing to stop doing that’s blocking your success? Will you coach your team by asking that question of them?
Step Up!
To make a resolution is to make a decision to do something. Why not make a decision to do something that will spark you to really make this year different personally and professionally!
It’s what leaders do!
Elizabeth's Hot Topics for 2012
Elizabeth Jeffries, RN, CSP, CPAE, is an award winning professional speaker, author, and executive coach. Elizabeth has worked with home health agencies and hospices all across the country on executive team building, leadership development, and executive coaching.
If you would like to have Elizabeth work with your home health care or hospice leadership team, take a look at her Hot Topics for 2012:
Staying Up in a World that's Upside Down!
In this upbeat session on personal motivation, you'll discover tips on how to stay on top of the world in a world that's often upside down! You'll leave this program with renewed energy to live on-purpose, take better control of your own life, and handle the changes around you! (45-60 minute keynote only).
Retrain Your Brain!
How to take control of your brain, master your emotions and make smarter decisions
Your brain has a mind of its own! If you've ever been under pressure, felt irritated or lost control in a hot situation, you know how your brain can sabotage you. The good news is you can Retrain Your Brain!
In this playful, participative program, you'll discover the competencies of Emotional Intelligence and how they apply to the workplace. You'll leave this session sparked with strategies to raise your EQ and armed with new ways to manage yourself, make smarter decisions and lead others to get the outcomes you want.
Work as a Calling
How to Better Serve Your Customers and Get More Meaning from Your Work
This powerful program on why we work will spark you to view work in a new light! It will serve as a motivator to initiate, focus, benchmark and refine all your activities. Discover why it's important to both you and the organization to see your work as a calling, how to recognize roadblocks to hearing and answering the call and much, much more!
Leader as Servent
A cutting edge approach to leading people into the future
To successfully guide today's health care organizations through the wilderness of change, leaders need to cultivate the attitude, knowledge, skills and behavior of a servant. This requires unlearning old thinking and relearning new and different ways to influence followers.
In this participative learning program, you will hear timeless principles that will give life to the human spirit, unleash creative power, and build a culture of trust. You'll find these hope-filled strategies invaluable as a leadership model for now and into the future!
To book Elizabeth Jeffries to speak for your association, convention or corporate meeting, contact her at 502-339-1600 or visit her website at www.tweedjeffries.com.
Home Health & Hospice Facts, Trends and Data
As leadership in home care and hospice, here are some facts and data that you may find helpful as you grow your business and get ready for the future:
- Five leaders representing home health care and hospice have been selected to serve on the CMS Innovation Advisors Program. They are Julie Lewis, Amedisys Holding, L.L.C., Baton Rouge, LA; Nancy Roberts, Kent County Visiting Nurse Association, Warwick, RI.;Paula Sutter, Sutter Health, Fairfield, CA; Alen Voskanian, VITAS Innovative Hospice Care, Torrance, CA; Janet Will, Joseph Richey Hospice, Baltimore, MD
- The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) will recommend to Congress that hospice payments for fiscal year (FY) 2013 be updated by 0.5 percent. The number of hospices has continued to increase, driven by growth in the number of for-profit hospices. From 2009 to 2010, the number of Medicare-participating hospices grew from 3,462 to 3,555
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in December announced the launch of the Independence at Home (IAH) demonstration program. The program, established as part of the Affordable Care Act. (ACA), will test a service delivery model that utilizes physician and nurse practitioner directed primary care teams to provide services to high cost, chronically ill Medicare beneficiaries in their homes.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced the launch of the Independence at Home (IAH) demonstration program. The program, established as part of the Affordable Care Act. (ACA), will test a service delivery model that utilizes physician and nurse practitioner directed primary care teams to provide services to high cost, chronically ill Medicare beneficiaries in their homes. The IAH demonstration could provide opportunities for home health agencies that have a visiting physician program, or who are positioned to work with physician practices that are interested in participating in the demonstration program.
Stephen Tweed, CSP, is Chairman and CEO of Leading Home Care ... a Tweed Jeffries company. For over 25 years he has been a recognized leader in strategy and leadership development for home health care & hospice companies and associations. He is the author or co-author of seven books, five of which were written specifically for the home care industry. He has served on the boards of directors of three not-for-profit home care agencies, and has served as interim President & CEO of a $25 million home care company. 