What Matters Most

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What Matters Most   Mr. Erie Chapman is founding president and chief executive officer of the $150 million Baptist Healing Trust.  The primary focus of Mr. Chapman’s career has been in the leadership of hospitals and healthcare organizations.  Author of the widely-acclaimed book, Radical Loving Care, his goal is to inspire leaders to establish a culture that supports a continuous chain of compassion and quality.

Our conversation with Mr. Chapman began with an explanation of the impetus behind Radical Loving Care.

“I spent seven years as a trial attorney and judge, and then thirty years in healthcare.  Throughout that period I had this nagging feeling, verified by what was before my eyes, that large parts of our society are being mistreated by systems.  They all offer missions that promise loving care, kindness consideration, the best talent, skill and good stewardship of funds.

“My observation is that most systems do not really deliver on that.   There’s what I would call ‘mission fraud’ out there.  You’re promised loving care and what you get is a system that is interested in something other than care and kindness.  So, I’ve worked all my career to try to create cultures that would foster the kind of care that individual’s want to receive and that most systems actually want to give.

“I’ve spoken to admitting clerks in hospitals and other first-line caregivers and charities and police departments.  These are typically very good-hearted and well-intentioned people.  So, I think there’s a misguided sense of efficiency that tends to drive people away from delivering the loving care that we’d all like to have for our mothers and for ourselves and that we’d all like to be giving.

“I put alot of the responsibility for the trouble on leadership.  Leadership does a very poor job, in general, of supporting first-line staff.  We do encounter organizations that do it very, very well.   It’s just unfortunate that they’re the exeptions rather than the rule.”

Erie does not blame this situation on the human condition.  He uses the word “efficiencies” to describe the trouble of providing loving care.  This situation seems to be a result of a technological society rather than a human defect.

Mr. Chapman continues, “Yes, I do think we’re continuing to run the risk in society that, when individuals end up having to depend more and more on technology, it can feel disempowering to the individuals and their skills.”

Erie challenges leaders of these systems to go that extra mile.  “Initially, they will say, ‘Yeah, we do that.  We give loving care.  Yeah, we’re fine.  You know?’  But, if you push them a little bit on that, we find that it’s not really the case.  It’s very discouraging to see that and people will say things like, ‘Well, you really can’t change people!’  Well, that’s not true.

“I’ve been involved in culture change where the organization adapts to this concept and does very well.  A leader can go into a medium or average organization and lift it into a topnotch organization by changing the culture and that happens through everything from hiring and orienting and training to the kind of signals that leaders give when they move through the organization.”

It’s important to put people first.  “What I tell leaders is that they’ve got one job that’s more important than any other thing they do.  The most important thing for a leader to do is take care of the people who take care of people.

“If you set an example by taking good care of the staff, people will say, ‘Gee, people will take advantage of you.’  Well, that has not been my experience.  There’s the rare person that will take advantage of that.  But, a high percentage of people respond to being well-cared for by improving their own caregiving.  That’s exactly what’s needed.”

So, we want our professionals to be well-trained but with heart and compassion.  “In our organizations that we work with, we emphasize hiring people that have what we call a ’servant’s heart.’ 

“Watch for the servant’s heart.”