I have been on the road a lot since my last travel update, presenting the leadership lessons from Goal Play! to diverse audiences.  Some of these talks are to people in health care settings, but more and more are to other audiences interested in exploring how to improve the leadership capabilities in their organization.  Or, who knows, maybe they just enjoy the stories from coaching girls soccer!  (Reminder, you can find the book on Amazon here.)

You have read below about my appearances in Columbus, Ohio, first to the Neonatology Conference run by Nationwide Children’s Hospital, where conference organizers distributed the book to all attendees, followed the next morning by Grand Rounds at Nationwide Children’s Hospital itself.  Those talks, focusing mainly on how to achieve quality and safety and process improvement in hospitals, bracketed an enjoyable evening with the MIT Club of Central Ohio, where we had a general discussion about leadership of complex organizations.

Again, in the hospital world, I was asked to present at a seminar in Baltimore for a group of nurse managers and other folks from the University of Maryland Medical Center on the topic of financial decision-making in health care.  As in Ohio, the conference organizers distributed Goal Play! to all attendees, and much of our discussion centered on the topic of “servant leadership,” a view that your job as an administrative leader is an organization is more akin to a coach or teacher than the traditional hierarchical leadership model.

The last two weeks have also included two corporate settings.  The first was Draper Laboratory, the nation’s preeminent independent not-for-profit laboratory in applied research, engineering development, education, and technology transfer.  This was part of new education speakers series.  Director of Education Stephan Kolitz wrote me afterward to say, “Thank you very much for coming in and giving a great talk.  I have received very positive feedback from a significant number of people who were there.”

He then added, joking,  “Of course, you have made it difficult for me, because everyone now expects me to find other speakers who are outstanding…”

The second corporate setting was at Arcadia Solutions, in Burlington, MA.  This is a health care IT company that does excellent work reaching beyond the boundaries of computers and data systems.  It was founded in 2002 and in that short time has emerged as an innovative and nationally recognized leader in the healthcare consulting industry.   The company works with clients to design, develop and implement business strategies and health IT solutions that improve the quality of care, reduce costs, and advance the industry in this new era of reform.

Finally, I have to mention that this week ended the season for our local soccer league.  I have been coaching an under-10 team called the Cheetahs since last fall, and I am already sorry to see them go.   I told them that they could organize their own warmup for this last game, and you see below how seriously they took on the task, inventing a whole new set of warmup exercises.  It worked!  Our last game was an exciting and rousing 2-2 tie, with the girls playing their best game ever.