Part Three
Other Voices
The value of another’s experience is to give us hope, not to tell us how or whether to proceed.
PETER BLOCK, THE ANSWER TO HOW IS YES1
Whether they are called case studies, benchmarking, or lessons from the literature, the experiences of those who have done the work are invaluable in battling burnout and building resilience, not because they tell us precisely what to do or what not to do, but because they give us hope that the difficult work not only can be done but also must be done. While there are many courageous innovators and educators working in this space, I have selected the ones featured in this part primarily because of their deep passion as well as their commitment first to the members of their healthcare teams (lead yourself, lead your team). All of them clearly understand that in healthcare, we can no longer sustain the cost that providing excellence in healthcare extracts from our team members; they know that those teammates are performance athletes in whom we must invest, since improving their lives is essential to improving their patients’ lives. For all of them, the work begins within.
All of the healthcare systems that have tackled burnout have certain characteristics in common:
• They all began with leaders understanding their personal journey of burnout and their obligation to act on behalf of their teams—“The way they were working wasn’t working.”
• They all understood the importance of a passionate, powerful guiding coalition.
• They all state some version of “The work begins within,” meaning a primary focus on investing in the individuals first.
• They share the importance of leading yourself, then leading the team.
• They all share an appreciation for the fact that team members are performance athletes.
I know you will enjoy learning from their work.