Page 47 - May-June-July Life In Naples Magazine

DOCTOR’S CORNER
“In this age, I don’t care how
tactically or operationally brilliant
you are, if you cannot create
harmony on the battlefield based
on trust across service lines,
across coalition and national
lines, and across civilian/
military lines, you need to go
home, because your leadership
is obsolete. We have got to have
officers who can create harmony
”across all those lines.
all those lines.” Yes, this has a military slant; but just think about success. Assessing the incidence of tobacco users, the number of
collaboration and cooperation to accomplish any task or achieve
any goal in any organization which has size or complexity. We
need to have harmony. Being able to get along with those around
us is probably more important than having an outstanding
skill and not being able to function within a team. Learning
to play in the sandbox early in life is the characteristic we call
“harmony” in adulthood. Come to think of it, being able to
harmonize in families and get along across generations makes
for a much richer and longer life. Over generations, families,
tribes, and nations which harmonized flourished whereas those
which were caught up in internecine warfare perished. Think
how devastating the Civil War was for America and how well
the three nations of North America—Canada, Mexico, and the
United States—harmonize (most of the time), enabling all three
to be more successful as commerce and culture cross borders.
“We need to come out from our reactive crouch and take a firm,
strategic stance in defense of our values,” General Mattis stated in a brought along a small library. We don’t have to create all new
Senate Armed Services Committee two years after he officially
retired from the military. Well, we are not in the military but we
do need to take firm stands on values directed to health. Keeping
folks healthy, preventing illnesses, and avoiding problems has
not been in the realm of the typical “repair shop” healthcare
businesses which thrive on sickness. Locally we are taking a
firm stance as we embrace the Blue Zones Project for the next
decade which will increase our longevity. Individuals will team
up, take the pledge, change habits, sustain gains, and objectively
through a third party auditor document improvements from
added years of life to lower healthcare needs/costs. Along with
Life in Naples | May • June • July 2015
these positive changes our weight
will come down, smoking rates
will drop, and exercise patterns will
improve across all of southwest
Florida.
“You don’t take anything off the
table up front.” Knowing what your
resources are and having a pretty
good idea of what other capabilities
exist either in the environment
or possessed by others is a huge
advantage if you want to accomplish
a significant goal. Although this
might sound adversarial, in any enterprise—be it public health
or cultural awareness or education—understanding who has
what at any time during a project makes for a higher chance of
children who have easy and frequent access to the public library
system, or how best to stabilize a home environment are just
top of mind examples of understanding your resources and your
starting point.
“Ultimately, a real understanding of history means that we
face nothing new under the sun.” This pithy statement parallels
the thought that there is no original sin, it has all been done
before. Understanding people’s motives, societies’ actions, and
civilizations’ responses all help predict our future. Appreciating
that everything goes though cycles with ups and downs helps
frame our expectations. Overreacting one way or the other
generally is not as productive as looking at the whole situation
long-term with a balanced view. Understanding history helps us
with that long view.
General Mattis is an avid reader and on his deployments he
ideas but rather learn best practices from others and use them
in new ways. In one of the General’s emails on the importance
of reading, he wrote that reading “doesn’t give me all the answers,
but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.”
We all can and should learn from those around us. There are
more parallels among disciplines than there are differences. Our
esteemed military leaders have skills which have been honed in
the most difficult life and death situations. Fortunately, most of
us are not playing for such high stakes every day. Nonetheless,
in healthcare, education, service and manufacturing industries
we can and should all learn best practices from others.
General Mattis and all those who have served our nation
should be admired for their sacrifices and leadership. Along
with his leadership, his thoughtful observations have helped our
nation immeasurably.
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