I’ve always loved trees. I loved climbing trees as a kid.  We had our favorite “big tree” where my friends would meet, a giant live oak that had grown up around a telephone pole.  As elementary school kids we would ride our bikes to the “big tree” and climb up its enormous, gentle trunk. Then …

A big part of what I do is executive matchmaking, helping hospices connect with leaders who can pilot them safely through the shifting seas to the future. For those of you who are knee-deep in the search process, or who foresee an executive search in your future, here are some of the things I’ve learned …

I have been thinking a lot about intentions: Merriam Webster dictionary defines intention as “a determination to act in a certain way”, and goal as “the end to which effort is directed”. When I ask myself what my intentions for the day/week/year are, versus what my goals are, I come up with very different answers. Last week, …

The Predictive Index’s Matt Poepsel recently wrote about the major human capital trends that will shape the coming year in hiring, defining “human capital” as, “…the collective value of the knowledge, skills, creativity, and other factors of any group of people performing work”. What does today’s workforce look like, as seen through this lens? For …

We live in a world where healthcare leaders must move as fast as they can to keep up with the changes that confront them daily.  It is easy to get so caught up in the budget shortfalls, the regulations, the competition and so much more, that the actual work done by the hospice staff may …

In hospice, we don’t have anything to sell other than the services we provide. We don’t make a product; we don’t offer goods or trade. What we offer is love and care to people who are dying, and to their loved ones. Generally, the first order of hospice business is relieving someone’s physical suffering; we …

I was touring a hospice care center when the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies drew me to the kitchen, where I found a group of girls from the local high school. They told me that once a week they come to bake cookies for the families and patients in the care center. What …

Is hospice a commodity?  Is it a payment system for the dying? Is it only for the final days of life?  Is it only about giving morphine until a patient is no longer in pain? Last week I attended the National Summit of the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC) in Washington DC.  The speakers were …

For most people, death is something that happens at the periphery of their lives – but some of us choose to make it the focus of our careers. I knew early on I wanted to care for the sick, but my path to caring for the dying was more circuitous. As a kid I was …

Simone Sinek, author of the book Start With Why, wrote that companies that deeply understand why they are in business are much more effective and last longer than those that just want to produce a product. He used the Wright brothers as an example. The Wright brothers were not well funded, nor did they have college …