One of my favorite responsibilities in my role, is to gather all the stories of our FP family living our values.  I love to see how everyone interprets living the values of Responsibility, Relationships, Passion, Commitment, Innovation, and Self-improvement.  I think nurturing that culture is a responsibility we all share.  You spend almost half your waking hours in your work environment.  When we all live the values, that environment is vastly improved.  I know when I wake up each morning, the thought of going to work is very positive because of the people I work with.  When I am on vacation, I find myself wondering what my “other” family is doing.  I’m blessed to have that kind of work environment, but it’s not blind luck.  I know each one of my colleagues continually challenges themselves to a higher level of accountability by living the values.  When that happens everyone is more pleasant to be around and the positive energy feeds on itself.  It does take some work holding yourself to a higher level of accountability, but the benefits are well worth the effort.

I’d like to share an example of our staff holding each other more accountable to our value of Self-improvement. Our department at Harbor’s Edge challenged each other to commit to this value in 2014 and focus on the intellectual component of wellness. They decided to do a reading challenge each month of 2014. They challenged each other to read a book for pleasure, and then read a clinically appropriate journal article, to help improve their clinical skills. They put together a board that will track each person’s progress for an entire year. They each have committed to providing a lunch and learn to present the topics they read about so everyone can get the information.  If you think about it, that means they are reading 12 articles on their own, and 12 articles are being presented by EACH team member.  That’s a lot of Self-improvement.  Plus they get the benefit of making time to curl up with a good book.  Sounds like my kind of people!  Thank you all for living the values!!!