Journal of Sacred Work

For some, ambition fuels achievement. Caregivers are called to be ambitious about continuous excellence because their work is sacred. – Erie Chapman

    How many of us grow up with the ambition to achieve excellence? The American school system certainly seeks to imbue this in us from an early age. Our performances are graded, we are coached, and, if we fail, we are threatened. We are surrounded with images of success in all fields. The message is, excel!
   I fell hook, line and sinker for this message. As I child, I read biographies of the famous and dreamed of being one of them. Toward the other end of my journey, my dreams have been trimmed dramatically. This may have happened because my ambitions have always been so large. Now that I’ve lived most of my life, I find myself living more in admiration of everyday caregivers than I do of politicians or movie stars or other famous folks…

   One ambition remains that I’ve been unable to shake – to ground America’s hospitals and charities in loving care. I have not been able to get used to why so many health care leaders tolerate average performances by both themselves and many of their staff when the work they are doing is so crucial.
   By definition, health care involves an invitation BY the ill to trust us with their care. In thirty years of running hospitals, I never thought of the delivery of a baby as an average thing and I never thought of a death, even though it might happen twice a day in a large hospital, as an ordinary event.
   I know that ambition can be about ego. And I also know that ambition can drive meaningful accomplishment that has very little to do with ego. I refuse to believe that Gandhi’s crusade to save India or Martin Luther King’s campaign to integrate the south were merely ego trips.
   As for health care, the idea that people in a place where I was working might be suffering left me feeling that the hospitals I ran should be offering the very best care. When I felt they weren’t, it kept me awake at night wondering how to solve this problem.
   How can we offer the very best care if we, as leaders, are willing to tolerate average, or even below average, performances by staff members?
   It took me a long time to realize that lots of people lack the ambition to be excellent in their chosen field of work and are not interested in changing. This might be acceptable if the work didn’t matter. But, can any nurse say that her or his work doesn’t matter? Can any social worker say that caregiving is something that should be relegated to so-so performers?
   As I write this, I have a feeling that some may think I’m sounding overbearing or, even, overly ambitious. As one audience member said to Tom Peters, author of the book In search of Excellence, "Hey, give us a break. After all, we’re no worse than anyone else."
   "What a great motto," Peters replied, "Come buy from us, we’re no worse than anyone else."
    And that is why I hold on to this one remaining ambition in my life: that hospitals and charities should be staffed exclusively with caregivers who have one standard, excellence, and one way to reach that excellence – Loving Care.