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United Blood Services is a next-door neighbor to my psychological clinic, The Hope Center. One morning this week, a Blood Services representative appeared on the local television morning show, appealing to people to give blood to replenish the dwindling supply. She shared some of the benefits of blood donation — reduction of bad cholesterol, reduction of excessive iron, regulation of high blood pressure, reduction of cardiac risk, and replenishment of one's own blood. I wasn't surprised. I saw the benefits of giving blood as a powerful metaphor for one of life's blessed paradoxes: giving benefits the giver; the more you give, the more you have.

One of the most powerful actions of a true healthcare leader is to model the spirit of giving and service, not just talk about it. Sure, healthcare is a giving profession, and you spend your life there. By virtue of the profession, you give by your actions. But what about your attitude? Every patient, family member, and employee can discern whether physicians, administrators, managers, and healthcare providers at all levels really care.

How can it be that giving something away results in more, not less? That doesn't add up mathematically, but it surely does add up spiritually. Blood donation is a natural illustration of a spiritual principle: when you make a habit of giving, you'll have all you ever need. Spiritual laws often defy mathematics.

Unfortunately, many in leadership roles (I didn't say they were leaders) have never discovered this secret. In fact, they believe and practice the opposite. Get your own ego fed, no matter how it affects employees or patients. Always be on the lookout for an angle. Sense the weaknesses in others so that you can exploit them. Hoard what you have. Expect others to bow in your presence. For these individuals, it's all about "me." If these behaviors are replicated throughout the organization, what will the culture be? Ego-driven potential leaders lose credibility, perceived trustworthiness, and influence. The more they take, the more is subtracted from their relational ledger. They focus on getting, but as a result, they give up support, team talent, and the goodwill that builds a practice and retains customers and employees in any healthcare organization.

Conversely, as it is in blood donation, heartfelt spirit of giving is a multiplier.

The best leaders, the most effective personal partners, the most valuable friends have learned this. They have discovered that when you have a lifestyle characterized by the passion to make a difference, an attitude of service, and a sense of calling, you become wealthy. Yes, financial prosperity is nice, and there is a definite correlation between an attitude of service and making money. However, I'm also talking about the kind of wealth that really satisfies — rich relationships, a sense of meaning and purpose, looking in the mirror and honestly liking the person who looks back.

When you really think about it, the phenomenon of getting back more than you give is not so strange at all. Consider the process of sowing and reaping. Often cited as a negative warning, "what you sow, you'll reap" is actually a powerful positive principle. If you want to harvest corn, plant corn. If you want to bring some delicious butterbeans from your garden into your kitchen, plant butterbeans. You get back the kind of thing you plant. Further, you get back more than you plant. A seed of corn produces a stalk with several ears of corn and several hundred kernels.

This natural principle also operates at a human level. Whatever you need, plant some of it. Want to feel supported in the goals you are trying to accomplish? Give support to someone who needs it. Need to be understood? Seek first to understand. In a financial pinch? Be willing to share some of what you have with someone in even worse shape than you are. Whatever you lack, give some away. What you sow will be multiplied back to you.

As you invest in someone else's life by giving blood, you reap the dividends of improved health yourself. As you invest in the lives of others in your healthcare workplace, you plant seeds that produce a bountiful crop of camaraderie and service to others.

Think about it this way. You can count the seeds in an apple, but you can't count the apples in a seed.


July 2007

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