The Second Mile
So, in regards to what to do with your facilities, you have your first answer, or so it appears. You have a plan, you have a budget, you have met with the staff and stirred up their expectations and the community. Everyone is dreaming the dream! You have done your community assessment, your financial feasibility plan, your strategic planning. And your needs far exceeds your means, maybe by as much as two to three times. How do you fix it?
I am aware of the struggles you are facing with your existing facility, upgrading and expanding versus going to a new site... and the finances. I worked very closely with a CEO and a construction management firm in realigning and expanding their existing facilities and creating a pathway for further expansion in the vacated spaces and providing for long term growth. The ideas brought forth recognized the needs of the staff, the flow and realignment the facility needed. We also wrestled with the financial limitations present when the project was first contemplated, $7M to $9M. We developed a plan that met the budget, and then we developed two other plans that met the needs of the staff and the potential for future growth. We had two additional outside firms provide cost estimates on all three plans. They were all consistent, $9M, $15M and $27M. The CFO looked at these numbers and his comment was, "All I see is blue sky!" How are you going to make this happen? And how did the community pass the $34M bond election that actually made all of this happen?
The answers I am talking about, that I have been seeking to address in the past few articles, all happened in real rural communities. The struggles were real, the consequences were real. The question was, "We have done all of our due diligence, we have come up with our ideas, our dreams, but we cannot seem to get across this great divide, this chasm, this canyon." To address this I want to continue talking about the vision, the idea in the context of the seed. The seed has an 'embodied energy' within it, if it can germinate. But how do you get the seed to germinate? If it is your new lawn, you cover the seed with peat moss and put the sprinkler on it and keep it soaked for several days. But how do you do it in your community?
The answers I have seen all come from going the second mile. I am not talking about a gallon of gas and an additional 10 minutes on the highway. I am talking about walking the second mile. Everything I discussed above is the first mile, it is your reasonable service, your due diligence. If it has done its job, it has awakened you to the realities that you face and sobered you up and brought you face to face with the old maxim 'necessity is the mother of invention'. The second mile is when you realize this is not enough and failing is not an option.
There are things that happen in the second mile that do not happen in the first mile. The first is your awareness is awakened, and not just to the realities of what is around you. Walking on the highway you will see things you never saw driving down the highway at the speed limit. But the awakening is to more than your environment, it is to every step you take. You are not just darting down the street to quick and easy solutions. A mile is several thousand steps, not just one push on the accelerator. Your thought process slows down, your decision making takes on a new value, you more carefully weigh the facts you observe, take a second and closer look. There is an awakening in your thinking process with new insight in the second mile. Every breakthrough in technology is because they saw something more intimately when they slowed down and looked at it more closely to see exactly what was happening. When they did, they saw conflicts at sub-atomic levels that they were able to correct!
In the second mile there is a deepening of relationships. You are not walking alone, your future is their future. There is a bond, a commitment that happens when you realize you are all in this together. And the deepening of relationship is key in getting people to open up and become more serious in their discussions. You are not only faced with the additional distance of the second mile, but also the additional time, and that time translates into better discussions with your staff. The new ideas needed come out of necessity, and the collective creativity of your staff flourishes under pressure. We have been all been in airports when a storm has cancelled all flights and strangers begin to turn into people and conversations and bonding occur, even though it is temporary and only last a day.
The third thing that happens is the 'embodied energy' of the seed begins to make itself known. I do not know how it happens, or when it happened, but hospital and community referenced above pushed through the plans that met the budget into the plan that met the needs of the staff and community. This answer materialized before them as the right answer. Sometimes personnel change that block the acceptance of the direction, or a new external factor comes into play that makes things possible. The community recognized that this was the right 'idea' and supported a major bond election, after just passing a major school bond election! The path of hospital has not been easy, but it has been right.
The second mile is a mystery. You do not always know when you are entering into it. What you do know, is that things are not right. Something else is needed. Again that voice continues to echo in my soul, "What more do you want me to do? I am doing everything I can to help this hospital!" That is the voice you hear as you enter the second mile. It is the voice of whatever it takes, failure is not an option. Being March Madness, if you look closely, you will see basketball teams and coaches reaching deep to pull out everything they have and go the second mile. The second mile is more effort, but how much more? So much more that it drains all of your resources and you tap into that reservoir and draw out new strength and wisdom to meet the needs of your world. It is a mystery, but people do it all the time, especially moms!