A brief break, then -

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/19/business/media/jimmy-breslin-dead-ny-columnist-author.html

(RIP Jimmy Breslin. This blog post is in his memory: finding a paperback copy of _The World of Jimmy Breslin_ for sale in 1968 at the Marion Parlor drugstore in Greenville, Mississippi, changed my life.)

For many reasons, we sometimes need to step back from the job and regroup, recharge and refocus. The late writer Jimmy Breslin needed that hiatus from his New York newspaper column, after witnessing the killing of Robert Kennedy in June 1968. Breslin completed his first novel during this hiatus, when he needed to discover if he could go back to the routine of newspaper work.  Too much information to manage, until the novel was out and had its own life. When it was time, Breslin would have said that no one else in the news business was telling the news as they should. As he would.

Spring baseball is progressing as it should, with the opener for the 2016 World Champions of Major League Baseball away in St. Louis. The rivalry remains fierce, for the Cards got Fowler one year after the Cubs got Heyward. Spring games in the Arizona Cactus League are not only entertainment for the faithful fans, needing an early respite from Winter, but for the players - an initial respite after respite after respite. After one game, you decide you had better choke up more when there are two strikes. After another game, you saw that you had better catch the defensive signs signaled from the bench. Every respite after a spring game lets you collect and assimilate the motor memories you'll need, once the regular season starts and it is a wild ride until game #162.

If you're in a university training program in SLP, you may have either started or completed your spring vacation. If you are employed in a clinical position, you're collecting your thoughts today for the work week to come. "Should I have given that stimulus so quickly after the first series?" "Why didn't I make a note about the paraphasia on that part of the Boston?" "They ask me to attend all these meetings, and then they criticize my productivity numbers!" One lesson learned with time in the professions, as in life, is that an omission can't be un-omitted, and that you have to discard with a respite, regrets and recriminations about what has happened. Herbert Simon indeed remarked in 1971, that the growth of information to be processed in our daily life, occurs at the expense of attention required to process it.

Once the new week engages, the communication game with persons served begins again.

 Engage.

Lead Every Day

Thanks go to Walter Isaacson, author of THE INNOVATORS, for an inspiration to this final post in the blog series, "In Case Sally Is Right". Isaacson described in his book, the triumvirate leadership of Intel Corporation as an example of great qualities necessary to effectively lead a group. Noyce, Moore and Grove were portrayed in the book as the big picture visionary, the inspiring scientist and the disciplined project manager, respectively. Wouldn't you really rather be led by just one of them? I wonder if leadership training in our field of speech-language pathology, can encompass all those traits.

Our 2016 national convention had leadership as its theme, and one perspective on leadership was offered by the Convention co-chair for SLP: "Leadership is always a team sport". That is to say, being your best at leading people is a product of the quality of the group you are allowed to lead. I can buy into this concept, for the reason that my best work teams have always  made me look very good. I think there is a middle ground, or synthesis of all the best qualities of leaders, that gives all of us in the CSD field, from undergraduate observer to seasoned researcher, leaders and trendsetters in what we do.

On the surface this seems counter-intuitive;  how can I lead? I barely know what I'm doing! That was the initial reaction I had during the first week of rehearsal, the summer the USA School Band and Chorus toured the UK. The late Col. Arnald Gabriel, Conductor of the US Air Force Band, told us after we struggled to master a symphonic piece, "You're PROFESSIONALS! Play like it!". My Spider Sense, my crap detector and my obsessive geek mind - they all screamed in my head, 'Colonel! No!!'. But soon, I knew what he meant.

 Professionals master their work and become a priest(ess) of its mysteries. Leaders learn to see the way to success, break down and highlight the steps to success, then set out on a relentless push to that success. All of us in the field of CSD are primed to be leaders, and there are steps to be taken for us to grow in leadership skills:

* Study. Read, take courses, attend talks and lectures, and learn from people who discuss in depth you need to learn the competencies for leadership.

* Listen. Watch. Who are the models of leadership skills whom you admire? What do the good leaders you have known over your life span -what do they have in common?

* Dare. See those opportunities to share the big picture, to have the mechanics for bringing solutions to problems, and guide your peers, your persons and their stakeholders to the finish line.

"Everyday leadership. Lead, every day".  How'd I do, Sally Brown?

Tell Their Stories

We are who we are because of the persons we serve. We can extol the virtues of our professors, our mentors, the vendor guy who found a 'just like new' test kit for you at a Walmart price, former Sen. Tom Harkin, or the staff at your school who make the coffee - but our customers/clients/patients are not just sufficient to give us identity, they are necessary. Through our work, we speak for those who do not speak for themselves. We need to tell their stories.

When we tell and share their stories, the larger public comes to know: these people are a lot like me. I can help them - or are they helping me? If what happened to them someday happens to me, will I adjust to this condition better than they did? What can I take away from my experience that might help another person? Caveats abound with this task, regardless of the audience for these stories, or the purpose you intend for their publication.

It is the law where I live, that you do not ever, forever, now and always...no confiding protected health information about persons served, unless the person or the legal representative has given written permission for its expressed uses. A law is not a 9900 pound aggressive animal that kills hundreds of humans each year, but its power and reach is to be respected. When you attempt to tell the person's story, respect their rights to privacy while telling a great story!

HIPAA protections assured, you are at an advantage at storytelling with your finely honed powers of observation. Your writing chops are continually toned, by the saily grind of what we do! There are then, numerous professional and commercial venues to lift up your persons served; whether the stories are in the form of case reports, first person diaries, feature stories in periodicals and websites, investigative news reports, documentary films, applications for AAC device funding, testimonials by the person's circle of support, books written by the person to teach others about their life journey, or school newspaper stories the person may write....there are so many good stories to tell!

Who benefits from telling the stories of persons served? The clinician, the person, the support circle, the community naive to the field of CSD, and the professional community - continually benefiting from the laboratory ' s connection to real life - they all hunger for the stories to be told. Will you hold the pen?