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Thursday, March 10, 2011

A Transition Gift

As I traveled toward the time of transition after 12 years of service as the founding CEO of CHRISTUS Health, I pondered about what would be the appropriate gift to give to my leadership team upon my departure. I determined that the best gift I could give them would be to record and then share some of my learnings from both my personal and professional life’s experiences. Therefore, my transition gift to me was setting aside some time, usually in the early morning hours, to reflect. As a result, first there were 10 learnings, then 20, and finally the 50 that I included in my first book  and distributed to my family, the 200 leaders in CHRISTUS Health, and to the System Board. This, then,  was my transition gift to all of them.  However, I continued the reflective sessions, each one emanating between 10 and 20 additional learnings, bringing the final total to now over 300.

After perusing the entire collection of learnings, and with the added feedback on the value of the learnings from the readers from the original book, I decided that an effort should be made to publish the entire collection, organizing the numerous learnings related to each other in order to maximize their value to the reader. I did just that and sent the final manuscript to two publishers this week for review. I will keep you posted on their feedback and their recommendations. Although I have written many articles and chapters of books that have been published in the past, I have only had two other books make their way into print. One I authored  while at the Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania in 1980 entitled Poison Dos and Don’ts, which was published a second time in 1984. Recently I co-authored a book with Andrew Garman and Tricia Johnson entitled The Future of Healthcare: Global Trends Worth Watching, published by Heath Administration Press. Entitled The Learnings of Dr. Tom, this most recent endeavor  has been divided into 16 chapters, ranging from “Creating Leadership that Others will Follow”, “Business Literacy –A Key for Sustainability”, “Passion – The Fuel Needed to Go the Extra Mile”,  to “Personal Learnings – Sometimes the Hardest to Learn”.  The final and 17th chapter of the book contains my answers to over 50 questions that were asked of me in response to a questions I posed at the leadership conference…..
    If this is the last chance you have to interact with me, what burning question would you like to ask?
Over the next several months, I will blog about some of these chapters in more detail, interposed with topics that are more current with the significant changes that are occurring in our complex healthcare delivery system in the United States. As always, I hope by reading my wireside chats that they bring enjoyment and added value to your life’s journey.

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