Cultivating a Wholehearted Culture

Join host Jandel Allen-Davis, M.D., CEO and president of Craig Hospital, as she explores the concept of living wholeheartedly in the workplace. As a leader, do you find your work fulfilling? Do you feel a sense of purpose in your role and within your team? Do you feel comfortable sharing ideas or solutions, even if they might not be the right answer? 

If you asked your team these questions, would you be satisfied with their answers?

Guests Melanie and Gail, who work in healthcare, and Shannon, a leader in philanthropy, along with Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis, explore what fuels a wholehearted workplace and its impact on employees and patient outcomes during this episode of Unstoppable @ Craig.

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Disclaimer: The content in this podcast is intended for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice or treatment for specific medical conditions. No professional relationship is implied or otherwise established by reading this document. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat a health problem or disease without consulting with a qualified healthcare provider. Craig Hospital is not affiliated with resources that may be referenced in this podcast. Craig Hospital assumes no liability for any third-party material or for any action or inaction taken as a result of any content or any suggestions made in this podcast and should not be relied upon without independent investigation. The information on this page is a public service provided by Craig Hospital and in no way represents a recommendation or endorsement by Craig Hospital. Any use of this content by a corporation or other revenue-seeking or -generating organization is prohibited unless first approved by Craig Hospital. 

For more information, transcriptions and behind-the-scene photos, visit https://craighospital.org/unstoppable

Craig Hospital is a nationally recognized neurorehabilitation hospital and research center specialized in the care of individuals who have sustained a spinal cord injury (SCI) and/or a brain injury (BI). Located in Denver, Colorado, Craig Hospital is an independent, not-for-profit, 93-bed national center of excellence that has treated thousands of people with SCI and BI since 1956. Learn more: https://craighospital.org

Transcript

0:00:04.0 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: Welcome to Unstoppable @ Craig, where we pull back the curtain on what makes healthy workplace cultures click, and what happens when people are empowered to expand the boundaries of what is possible. We'll explore the perspectives of employees and leaders who have carte blanche to speak their truths, tell their stories, and unlock uncommon ways of approaching challenges. I'm Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis, CEO and president of Craig Hospital, a world renowned rehabilitation hospital that exclusively specializes in the neuro-rehabilitation and research of patients with spinal cord and brain injury. Join me as we learn from people who love what they do and what happens when fear doesn't stifle innovation.

0:00:48.3 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: It's a rare privilege and honor for a CEO or president to have the opportunity to talk to team members in such an intimate and cool way, especially about a topic around wholeheartedness, which I get to see every day at Craig. I get to see it on the faces of grateful patients and families who, there's not one I speak to that doesn't, right after I introduce myself and tell them who I am, say something about your staff, this team, this hospital. I've never seen anything like what happens here and get to sort of experience the gratitude and the coolest opportunities for that come up when I have the chance to hear those words in front of a team member and say it's all about them. It's all about whoever it might be that might be in a room, or whether it's a nurse or a therapist taking care of folks and and supporting them in thinking about what these last two and a half years have wrought for all sorts of leaders, both in healthcare and outside of healthcare, to say that we are not bruised.

0:02:00.5 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: And hopefully though to less frequently say that we are broken in healthcare or in, as I said, any other industry be inauthentic. These, these two years were tough, but what I have had, the ability to witness as a leader of an organization is what happens when we, and it's not I, it's we as whoever is the leadership or managers of, an organization. Keep mission and purpose first. And in talking to Shannon and Melanie and Gail today, all who've had different tenures at Craig over this time, there are a few things that certainly rose to the top for me in terms of what's the secret sauce of getting through tough times and enjoying the wonderful times and, and more importantly maintaining strong cultures that endure. There's a poet, David Whyte, who found himself pretty exhausted running a little nonprofit.

0:02:58.6 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: And there was a moment where he actually was gonna have some wine with this Brother David Steindl-Rast, who's one of his friends and also a poet. And he asked that brother David, speak to me about exhaustion. And Steindl-Rast stepped back and paused for a moment and then said, you know, the antidote for exhaustion is not necessarily rest. And so David, why repeats the antidote for exhaustion is not necessarily rest. It's not necessarily rest. Well then what is it? And he said the antidote for exhaustion is wholeheartedness. And I remember when I first heard that line, I mean, I was literally driving and I could have, it was a devastating line to think about when you are really doing work for which you are both, I'd say sort of made, you know, and it's purpose driven work that, you know, time has this way of flying even during the hard times. So who we have a chance to talk to now is, Shannon Lowe, who is the senior director of philanthropy at the Craig Hospital Foundation. We are so blessed to have a philanthropic arm to what we do. It enables us to do so much more than typical rehab facilities do. And so Shannon's been here a little over five years. She's had a great career. She is absolutely a seasoned professional in terms of philanthropy. And so, you know, I'd like just to start Shannon by saying hello and welcome.

0:04:21.3 Shannon Lowe: Hello. Thanks for Having me.

0:04:23.1 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: It's great to, it's, well, Shannon and I worked together a lot. It's fun to get to have this conversation 'cause we've never actually had It.

0:04:29.2 Shannon Lowe: I was really excited last night when I reread your CEO reflections because I remember, and you may not remember this, but one of our first times together when you joined Craig, we were in your office and I don't know why you gave me the book to look at, but the book was on the table or something and I opened up the David Whyte book where it just gives this very in-depth beautiful description of these sort of everyday words.

0:04:58.5 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: Yes. Consolation. Yeah.

0:04:58.7 Shannon Lowe: And I opened up the book and read one of the words, and I can't even remember what it was, but I immediately started tearing up and you looked at me and you said, you need to keep that, that was meant for you. And I remember thinking that, that experience reminded me like it was reassurance. You got it.

0:05:15.8 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: I got Craig.

0:05:17.2 Shannon Lowe: You got it.

0:05:17.4 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: Craig got me. That's what I think. As I said, I think I want more than anything. But I wanna start with why did you choose Craig and what keeps you here? 

0:05:26.1 Shannon Lowe: I worked with at-Risk youth for a long time and love that mission really. But when this opportunity came up and I learned more about it, it spoke to me because my father was born with spina bifida. And although he didn't have a traumatic accident that left him in a place of navigating the world differently than other people, I grew up keenly aware of accessibility. Just, I had a vision that most kids wouldn't have had. And so learning more about Craig and, and knowing what we do here, I learned very much the difference between a traumatic life-changing event and something that you are born with certainly. But I also understood the concept of there may be a lot of people in the world that are in the same ocean, but nobody quite has the same boat and.

0:06:13.8 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: Beautiful. Yeah.

0:06:14.3 Shannon Lowe: I felt that with my dad and I felt that with the patience that I interact with all the time now here at Craig. What keeps me here is certainly that, I mean, I think everybody, you walk the halls and everyone is, I'm here for the patients. I can't believe what the patients do. I can't believe the perseverance and the grit that requires what it takes to be here at Craig. So it's an, it's just an honor to see that every day. There's also that beauty at Craig where we get to show up as our whole selves. I really, really believe that we get to show up as our whole selves. And so my team allowed me to show up as my whole self.

0:06:52.4 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: If you think about, you said bring my whole self to work, which we do have this incredible ability to do here. And then there's this notion of you aren't exhausted if you're living in a wholehearted way. Not that you're not tired, but you're not... So how would you define, and for you, what's wholeheartedness look like in the workplace for you? 

0:07:11.5 Shannon Lowe: Gosh, I think that what you said about exhaustion, it is, it's if you're doing something, if you're feeling exhausted or burdened, then you're probably not doing things that make you feel alive. I'm sure that's a quote from someone. I don't get to take credit for it. But I do think there is, I think that during the hardest times of the pandemic, the leadership team did a tremendous job of keeping everyone engaged and informed and it allowed an ability for everyone to show up in their own unique way. And so I think I felt, even though there were times probably where I maybe felt irrelevant when I heard what was going on on the floors and what people needed that would be so fleeting, you know? So I always felt like I had a purpose. I always felt like I was doing things that made me feel alive. And I think you can't not be humble at Craig. There is just, every single one of these people probably thought they were gonna go to work the next day and their whole life's been turned on their head.

0:08:20.2 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: You know, that notion of... And by the way, the Latin derivative of heart is cor, which is courage. So when you think about your five years here through that lens, is there any particular stories that you'd share about those? 

0:08:37.3 Shannon Lowe: You know, in my five years we've had a hospital CEO change. We've had an executive director change at the foundation. I've been navigating, you know, at one point we thought we were gonna have a new leader then I was executive director interim for much longer than anyone wanted.

0:08:53.2 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: Longer than we thought. No, you were great.

0:08:56.3 Shannon Lowe: Especially during the pandemic. But I think in general, what our team in particular has done... Has just been allowing a lot of space and time to think and to create solutions and to complain and to cry and to do, you know, feel all the things that, that we feel so that we can move forward and be efficient and effective. And I think there's been so many times where I can just see that exhaustion on the team's face from what I think is balancing personal and professional decision fatigue, et cetera.

0:09:37.4 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: Let me ask you, if you were, gonna have the opportunity to talk to someone in another industry, nothing healthcare, 'cause sometimes I think it's easier in our space, not always. And certainly challenged now to kind of live a purpose-filled life 'cause nobody wakes up also in the morning saying, I think I wanna be a patient. Nobody wants to. What are a few takeaways, two or three that you would say are sort of the personify Craig's culture that are the three takeaways that if somebody were saying, boy, I wonder if we could bring that into our organization in some way. What are those three things you'd say? Bring those in. If you wanna have a wholehearted culture.

0:10:20.2 Shannon Lowe: I think there is a deep commitment no matter what viewpoint you have at Craig, that if your gut is telling you this is the thing, Craig trusts that. And I just don't know that you get that in a lot of places. Like I wrote down some things of like emotional, intelligent transparency, understanding Efficiencies, that's not what makes me excited. I know there's been a couple times, like you said, I've brought you ideas and you're like, yes, nope, not that one. But I don't ever hesitate to say my gut is saying this. And I hear it all the time when it comes to clinical practice, that we are patient focused. And I think that has become a tagline and so much of healthcare, but not here it is lived and breathed and trusted. The trust behind my gut is saying this, that you should do that.

0:11:24.8 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: I think that idea of trust is one that trust that if we're, if we're hiring the right people and that's all about hiring for fit, the kind of people who are gonna thrive in a culture like this, not just come to work every day. It, it does take then letting go of the wheel and letting them drive. Right? And just sort of trusting them no matter what might happen. 'cause we don't do everything perfectly every day that we know how to come behind and support people but to give them the agency to do what they know they need to do 'cause they're gonna do it through the lens of the patients.

0:11:58.9 Shannon Lowe: That's right.

0:12:00.1 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: Well Shannon, I think one thing that we, I'll tell you as an executive team have talked a lot about is this whole topic of burnout and exhaustion. And I have a different perspective than not them. I think we're all sort of in agreement is that there's the burnout and if you look at the definition, I'm not sure that's what most of our employees... There can be some that are really suffering through or dealing with. I think there's just some deep fatigue and it's fatigue that some we can fix here at Craig. And that would be certainly one of the other lessons that I would sort of take takeaways from this last couple years that I'd say to any other CEO or leader or just person in an organization is that if you are feeling fatigued, you're normal. And then our job is to figure out what we can do internally to help with some of that, but then have the ability to let the rest go because we can't do it all. And if we do, we risk exhausting ourselves as leaders.

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0:13:02.4 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: The past two years have led many to ask themselves, is there another place where I belong? The immediate answer may be yes, but I suspect that with some deep reflection on the nature of fatigue, which we have been living through and enduring and experiencing and witnessing for these last couple of years. And on the nature of how quickly and subtly our worlds can become small, one might come up with a different answer. Well Gail Galinsky is an example of what happens when you allow your whole self to be nourished by the work you are gifted, honored and called to do. Gail is an occupational therapist in the wheelchair clinic at Craig and she's been at Craig for 42 plus years. That's more than four decades working at one hospital. I just thought I'd start by saying what brought you here? Ask you what brought you here as this special person who I got to have a little bit of a conversation with one night walking outta here. And what keeps you here, 42 years.

0:14:03.1 Gail Galinski: 42 years. Yes. I kind of started here. Do you... As a whim, I moved here to actually to be a ski bum you know, you come to Colorado and I had worked as an OT in Pennsylvania and my girlfriend said, you've gotta work at Craig Hospital. And I went, what's Craig Hospital? I had really no clue. And she said it'll look good on your resume. A lot of good that resume's done me. So after all these years. Did us better Good. Yeah.

0:14:27.8 Gail Galinski: So I literally came in, she was more aware of Craig and what the mission was and all that and I really wasn't at all. And I worked with my first patient following another therapist who has since left and fell instantly in love and I really had no intention to work with spinal cord injury at all. And it was a spinal cord injury patient and it just sounds hokey, but I really fell in love and I still remember the patient's name and what he did. And so obviously I've been here 42 years but I've had lots of different roles and I started out on the floors and within a year I was, I think I was an assistant supervisor and then I went to neuro-trauma unit we used to have over at Swedish. And then I was there for a year and then I came back and I was a supervisor on the floor and then I was actually the OT director for 11 years with that.

0:15:18.9 Gail Galinski: And then I had twins at a very old age. And so I found it was hard to do both at the same time. So then I stepped down from that position and I had always had a love of the wheelchair and getting people moving and independent and functional and things has changed so much in that arena from a red chair and a green chair where your choice is. And it's just changing.

0:15:43.1 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: Oh, goodness Yeah.

0:15:43.3 Gail Galinski: I mean literally for our power chairs we had two power chairs, a red one and a green one. And it just fascinated me. So then I kind of took on that role and stayed and stuck with that.

0:15:54.3 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: And what keeps you here? 

0:15:56.1 Gail Galinski: What keeps me here? You know, so many different things. You know, obviously the patients and their families. The dynamic setting of Craig, there isn't a day, I honestly, I'm not exaggerating. There isn't a day that I don't learn something. And I say this to new staff all the time who are like, oh my gosh, I've got so much to learn. And I say to them, you won't stop learning and you shouldn't stop learning. And I'm kind of a, I think that's really important that we all continue to take advantage of the technologies that's out there, take advantage of the education and Craig provides that and gives us outside opportunities and inside opportunities. And I don't think I could ever work someplace that didn't have that high standard and high bar that says you need to keep improving on what you do. Because even though I think we do amazing, we can always do better. And I think that's important as leaders to make sure that our staff don't get stagnant and still and not keep improving. 'cause you always can. So it's certainly that opportunity. It's the excitement of young staff, young, smart, new blood that comes in all the time. 'cause there are a lot of smart young staff here and it's fun to watch how the older staff and the newer staff combine and share their knowledge in different ways.

0:17:20.1 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: So tell me what's in the core for you? 

0:17:22.3 Shannon Lowe: Well, the patient, I mean, and I think even as a, as a manager, I was very conscientious that I had two jobs. 50% of my job was helping staff and maintaining staff and building their expertise and knowledge and keeping them happy and keeping them confident in what they do. But the other 50% was what do we need to do better with the patient? And so it's a very fine line of when you're a manager, are you managing your staff or are you managing our patient programs? And sometimes I think as managers we lose sight of, but why are we here? We're here for the patient and we spend, can spend too much time with staff and it, but it's a fine line. You have to because if you don't have healthy, happy staff They're not gonna treat the patients well.

0:18:07.5 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: You're not gonna have these patients. Yeah.

0:18:10.0 Gail Galinski: But it's hard as a manager to find that time to do that. So.

0:18:14.3 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: If you were to take a few of the things that your experiences over 42 years have taught you or enabled, and let's take ourselves out of neuro rehabilitation and out of wheelchair fitting. And think about this organization that you helped build. Sorry, you helped build it. I'm not sorry. Actually I'm Grateful. And if you had the chance to take this and transfer it to some other industry, you could name the industry, what would you say are the two or three kind of things, characteristics, features of a Craig that if we could bottle and offer to, 'cause we wouldn't sell it to 'em, offer to some other organization that you think makes Craig so great that could help them? 

0:19:00.3 Gail Galinski: Well I think back to what we were talking about before, it's important to have a 50/50 combination of taking care of the staff and taking care of the product. And our product has to be, is our patients. But you need to be able to manage both well and I think that's what Craig does do well. We take care of our staff and we take care of our patients.

0:19:21.9 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: You know, the thing that really does impress me about Craig is someone that said this earlier who I was speaking with, is that there's this trust that we extend to each other, the agency to do your job super well and to creatively solve problems. And can you think of a time or when you think about this whole team working.

0:19:45.1 Shannon Lowe: Sorting out one specific time is hard, but I do think a team that works on fitting somebody to a wheelchair is only gonna be successful if we take the time to listen to the patient because they're the one that has to live in it and do it. And sometimes we as any good employee, you know what you wanna do, you know what's gonna work quickly and fast and efficiently and we will fail if we don't take the time to listen to what is important to the patient. And we can go down a completely wrong path without hearing what's important to them. And just because it's important to us to have them look perfect or, you know, sit a certain way, it may not be important to them and they go down a different path. So I think I've learned to be a little more patient and listen first. And when I say listen, I mean really listen, like ask the questions and wait for the answer and apply what you have just heard.

0:20:49.4 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: You know, there's a a way of just bringing your whole self into work, which is an act of courage because what happens when you say, I don't know, or I'm afraid or I'm upset or I'm whatever, or.

0:21:03.6 Gail Galinski: Oh, I tell patients all the time, you are giving me job security 'cause I have no idea what to do with you. I mean, I say those words.

0:21:11.3 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: It's Beautiful.

0:21:11.5 Gail Galinski: All the time and I just, I'm not... I think it's a very strong thing personally to be able to say, I don't know, but I'll get the answer for you. Or I'm really confused. Let me problem solve, I bring other therapists in I, and I think actually as thinking of management and leadership, I think that's very important to make sure that your staff doesn't have to have the right answer. And our patients are humans. They know when we're pulling the wool over their eyes or we really don't know when we're just kind of faking it. So why not just put it out there and they will problem solve with us. And they want to be part of it. And I think that's why I fell in love with spinal cord injury because it was a, a give and take. They, you know, I'd say, what do you think? 

0:21:57.4 Gail Galinski: And they would give me an idea and we'd go back and forth and it is very fun. Now, brain injury is very different with that because you don't get as much of it. But absolutely. Being vulnerable and saying, this is challenging and we will get through it, but I don't know how right now. But it'll be a process and we usually do, and I come to work every day tired because I get overwhelmed with, oh, I've got this deadline and I've got, you know, they've gotta get outta here with the chair and insurance is kicking 'em out too soon. And they're not emotionally ready or physically ready to make a decision about what equipment they need.

0:22:31.7 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: What is that saying that keeps you at Craig? 

0:22:34.4 Gail Galinski: I mean, everything we talked about. You know, certainly our mission here and why we do it and the excitement of we do it well and, we're still improving on what we're doing.

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0:22:49.1 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: Gail referenced falling in love with her work at Craig. It's a culture that leaves space for this love and finding joy in the work that we feel so honored to do. It's a culture that allows for curiosity and growth and at the same time the vulnerability to say, I don't know the answer. We know culture is powerful, it can turn people away or it can be the reason people stay like Gail. Or it can be why people come back. Melanie Lindley is an outpatient nurse practitioner and has returned to Craig three times over the course of her career. Melanie's gonna share with us what she believes is the secret sauce to wholehearted culture.

0:23:29.7 Melanie Lindley: You can't work at Craig and not love it. You can't work here if it's just another job to you because it's tough. It's, you know, emotionally challenging, it's physically challenging. And I think that the people who come into this field, it grabs them for whatever reason. And if it grabs you, if it's something that you really love, you're gonna put the effort and the time into it and, and everybody finds a way to make it work. You know, if you, if you have concerns about a patient and you know, as a Craig staff member, if you go to administration and say, Hey, I've got concerns about our workflow, you know, we need more time for education, we need more time for, you know, whatever it might be, administration listens, you know, it's, and it's happened. I've seen it, you know, since 2009. I've seen it over and over again. The staff is heard and they want what's best for the patient. And then administration wants obviously what's best for the patient, but also what's best for their staff because, it takes a lot to train a Craig staff member 'cause there's a lot that goes into it. So you wanna, you wanna keep 'em, you don't wanna have to keep training new people.

0:24:41.9 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: Amen. It's a fun environment to work in. So there's, is joy a good word to use? 

0:24:46.5 Melanie Lindley: Oh, Absolutely. Yeah. I never wake up in the morning dreading to go to work. Yeah. I'm always happy to come here. And you know, probably another thing that got me through COVID, you know, I didn't wanna be a stay-at-home worker. I wanted to come be with my friends and my colleagues and the people who I'd known and worked with forever. And you know, helping out the patients who really need it. I mean, they really need... They really need our help. And so it's Good to be here.

0:25:12.2 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: And again, it was that unknown that we were all dealing with, but we, there's a whole lot of unknown that happens at Craig as I think about it.

0:25:19.4 Melanie Lindley: Oh yeah.

0:25:20.0 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: So, you know, if you take, think about all that we've had a chance to visit with as someone who's made the decision to come back three times, if you had to sort of think about, take it out of neuro rehabilitation, but just think about a role, a job, an organization, a home is what I think I think about somebody who's come back three times and you were talking to, you know, leadership in a different industry altogether, and you were asked to answer the question, how can I both encourage people to stay, but if they leave to come back, what are those things in my culture or my organization that need to be there that would help us sort of grow that stickiness as we call it, or loyalty, however you wanna put it.

0:26:06.3 Melanie Lindley: I think the biggest thing at Craig is I always feel supported and I always feel valued by my coworkers and administration and everyone you're surrounded with. And I think that to feel valued, you have to feel supported in where you wanna go in your career. You know, if you wanna go back to school or if you wanna change departments or whatever it is that you wanna do for your career. If you have your bosses saying, okay, that sounds good, how can I help you get there? You know, that's huge. And then also listening to your employees when they say, Hey, this is something that we're doing and things aren't going well. Staff is getting burnt out, or, you know, customers or patients, whoever it is, if they're not happy for whatever reason, we need to reevaluate this process. That's what we do Well, I think we all listen and we communicate well and we reevaluate when things are going wrong and we even reevaluate when things are going right to see how's it going right? Well, still how can we improve because there's always room for improvement.

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0:27:22.2 Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis: So who'd you help? What went well? To whom do I need to make amends? Whose day was better because of something I might have done or members of my team might have done? And I bet you there's a lot of other things that you can add to that. We know that tough times are part of what we signed up for. I feel very privileged and blessed that I get to do it joyfully most days, if not all days. And it actually starts with what we choose to create in our cultures. So I hope you found something in this that was useful and thanks so much for listening to Unstoppable @ Craig. Until next time.

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