Maria Popova's comments in her must-read weblog The Marginalian reignite our profoundest conundrum: “The hardest thing in life isn’t getting what we want, isn’t even knowing what we want, but knowing what to want."

Why is the 1994 ABC News Special, "Revolution at Work," so riveting in 1994? It shows us what we want at work. This clip says everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe1Ea6-aGns

We all seek a workplace flooded with meaning, joy and connection like the one documented by ABC. Thirty years later such a workplace remains not only uncommon but even rarer!

Why? 

The brilliant Popova offers this: "We think we want connection, but as soon as contact reaches deeper than the skin of being, we recoil with the terror of vulnerability."

Creating a meaningful workplace requires risking vulnerability! "There is no place more difficult to show up than where marrow meets marrow," Popova continues. "And yet that is the only place where two people earn the right to use the word 'love.’

Since most healthcare CEOs I know hate the word "love" in work settings (thus forfeiting the right to use it anywhere) they recoil at living "where marrow meets marrow." Yet the caregivers they lead work there every day! 

If hospital and hospice leaders truly seek mission fulfillment, the only path is the one offered in "Revolution at Work."

-Erie Chapman

Screenshot: Erie with Renee Speelman, R.N.