The LIFT Blog

Schon Beechler joins us this week as a contributor on The Lift Blog. We are excited to have her on board. Her first entry is posted below. Here is a short biography on her: (more…)

By Robert E. Quinn

In the movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana is Jones makes one creative move after another as he encounters his enemies.  At one particularly critical moment, his companion asks what Indiana is going to do next?  Indiana responds that he does not know because he is making it up as he goes along.  The line is humorous.  It is also illustrative of something very important and difficult to understand.  It is about the essence of leadership. (more…)

By Ryan W. Quinn

Last week I attended the annual conference of the Academy of Management. One of the sessions I attended focused on positive organizational scholarship. I sat at a table discussing “positive leadership.” One of the people at this table was a colleague of mine named Mark Krieger, who had interviewed Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford Motor Company.

In the interview, Mr. Mulally said many positive things about empowering employees, the importance of vision, and what it means to be a positive leader. Mark came away from this interview deeply impressed with the man who was running “the only American auto company that got through the financial crisis without needing a bailout.” He and his colleague, Prasad Kaipa, wrote up their interview and submitted it for publication in the Journal of Management Inquiry. However, before it got published, the people who reviewed the manuscript that Kaipa and Krieger submitted required them to do some editing to remove parts of the manuscript that they found a little too unbelievable.

Krieger seemed a little disturbed by this experience as he related it to us. He wondered what kind of economy or society we might be creating for ourselves if we refuse to believe in the good intent and successful actions of leaders who really do seem to be good. Is there a place for positive leadership in our world? (more…)

By Robert E. Quinn

On this blog we have written much about the lift state or what we also call the fundamental state of leadership (FSL).  When I teach this concept people find it very exciting.  Yet they are not sure they fully understand the concept or how to internalize it.  I often ask students to engage in two exercises.  The first is to examine their most extreme life experiences.  Here they almost always discover times in which they have experienced lift.  When they do, they begin to more fully understand.  This understanding can be expanded if they then attempt to mentor and elevate someone else into this state.   In my courses I have the students do these two things and then write about them.  The products they produce are often inspiring.  In this entry, I would like to share the observations of one of my students (I do so with the permission of the student). (more…)

By Ryan W. Quinn

When I am not playing the role of professor or the roles of husband and father (the two things that take up most of my time), one role I play is that of an adult leader in a local youth organization. Recently, we had some turnover in the adult leadership of this organization. I recommended some of the people that we brought into the positions, and I certainly would have recommended the other ones if I had known them better. They are phenomenal.

One of the reasons I thought so highly of these people is because of their willingness and drive to serve the youth and make the programs we offer the best they can possibly be. I knew that they would challenge the status quo and bring new ideas to the table. The funny thing is, at the first meeting with these new people, when they did exactly what I expected them to do, I felt defensive about how much they questioned everything we had been doing. (more…)

By Emily Plews

I spent the 14th summer of my life riding at least 12 miles daily to go hang out with friends. I am sure I worried my parents’ sick that summer. (My parents’ concerns were valid, but a stubborn, 14 year-old-me would have never admitted that.) I would ride alone on roads with narrow shoulders, with cars travelling 55 mph and without a cell phone or flashing bike light.  Truth be told, I wore the headphones to my Sony Discman more than I ever wore a helmet. The only safety measure I agreed to was making a phone call when I got to where I was headed.  You may think my parents were crazy to let me do this, but I am endlessly grateful for their intentional trust.  Such independence at that time fostered invaluable, new understanding of my personal strength and capability. Here I am, 15 years later, still learning from that summer but this time as an analogy to an experience I’m having as an observer of an undergraduate educational program with a  positive organizational scholarship (P.O.S.) component. (more…)

By Ryan W. Quinn

I would like to extend a special welcome to a new contributor to our blog: Emily Plews. Her first post will be coming shortly. Here is a quick summary of who she is: (more…)

By Robert E. Quinn

Recently I spent a week teaching a group of high level leaders from a large, hierarchical organization.  These were very impressive people who wanted to improve themselves and the units they led.  I shared many concepts from positive organizational scholarship.  As the program went forward, they all agreed that a positive organization would have empowered people.  This fact then led to their biggest question: “How do we empower our people?”

I told them that before they could empower there people, there was a puzzle they had to solve. (more…)

By Ryan W. Quinn

Last week I was reading The New York Times when an article caught my eye. In contrast with the all of the articles I typically read about health insurance industry executives battling Washington over the new legislation, this particular article was about Geisinger Health System, a network of hospitals and clinics in Pennsylvania, that has innovated a new business model instead of haggling with Washington. Geisinger’s health insurance plan covers around 250,000 people. They are profitable, in part, because they pay the doctors in their network to hire more nurses under the belief that they will save money in the long run by paying money now.

How it Works

Geisinger’s business model works because the cost of hiring a nurse to track and follow up with patients is ridiculously less expensive than the cost of paying for the hospitalization of patients with heart attacks, kidney dialysis, or other chronic health problems. If a nurse prevents just one diabetic patient who is missing check-ups from getting hospitalized, Geisinger saves between $500,000 and $1,000,000 of hospital costs. A single catch like that can pay the annual salary of many nurses.

Hiring nurses for doctors is just one of many practices Geisinger employs to save money, both for themselves and for their customers. These practices are supported by organizational capabilities that make them possible. For example, doctors and nurses need sophisticated electronic medical records in order to be able to track patients, contact them, and encourage them in appropriate, healthy behaviors. Building these capabilities and implementing these practices requires impressive foresight. Today, many organizations in the health industry are wrangling their hands over the difficulties of implementing electronic health records. Geisinger has been making use of a unique electronic medical record system for years, making the work of its doctors, nurses, and insurers easy by comparison. (more…)