Somehow it Works

"Hire for attitude, train for aptitude" Southwest Airlines is a study a corporate culture. I've been here 10 days, and have watched at least 100 people come and go at various points during the week. Fortunately, we usually have overlap, but Saturday and Sunday have major turnover.

Yet somehow it all works. People arrive here and their first words are "What can I do to help?" I watched a nurse who has been traveling for 12 hours, take night call in the ICU after an hour nap. Surgeons and anesthesiologists have strong personalities. In all my time here, I have yet to hear a raised voiced, and delays are taken with a shrug - "It's Haiti." Now I acknowledge that people who volunteer for this type of mission self select. I also realize that a culture has been created here that allows easy transitions, even for a first timer like me. At my nightly staff meetings I try to reinforce the culture through my words, and during the day, my actions. In my previous leadership roles, I found myself sometimes frustrated that I couldn't get people to do what I needed them to. I tried to manipulate them. What I'm realizing is that a leader must support and create the culture. Social mores then should drive the rest, as well as identify outliers.

I am in a transition phase in my life and my career. I teach patient safety, citing the airlines and the culture of safety. I couldn't put my finger on what it takes to create that environment. I'm still not sure, but I'm going to be watching carefully how they do it here, over the next week.

I'm going to have alot of things to do and decisions to make when I get home. And having been enlightened by lessons of Milot, I think I can do them better.