"Bard-isms"

I gave a talk for leadership at Miami Cancer Institute yesterday.  There have been some great people doing some great work on data and reports, and for some time I've realized that leadership has not really been aware of this, or the significance it has for MCI, just beginning to get some bark around its base.  So as I put the presentation together, I knew it had to be short -- 10 minutes, 10-15 slides max.  Just the high points.  Bard-ism #1: "it has to squeak!"  Meaning, for those of you who didn't grow up in our house, every sentence had to have impact - no wasted space or words.

Here was the first slide:

"MCI has a concerted effort underway to develop an enhanced reporting infrastructure and reports capability."

One of the worst thing you can do in a presentation is to read slides to people.  So coming off the title slide into slide 1, I told the group:

"My Dad was a professional journalist who started in newspapers.  So I learned at a young age, as did my brother and sister, that about the worst thing you can do when you write something is 'bury the lead.'  Hence, slide 1."

By the time I was done with this, the group had read the slide of course, and so bam: on to slide 2.  But the beauty was, if they slept through, or smart phone obsessed through the next 12 slides, it didn't matter, really.

Thanks Dad!

My other favorite "Bard-ism" was ... "go sleigh your dragons."  Increasingly as he got on in years, after a good call in which he got the update on of course, the kids, but the career goings on, whether it was seeing patients in the office, seeing patients in the ED, writing material for ED software, decision support algorithms to keep doctors and patients out of trouble, or optimizing Oncology software for busy Oncologists ... he would sigh and finish as he knew it was time for me to move on after a good update and say: "go sleigh your dragons."

I never thought about it much initially.  But as we got closer to the end, I began to think about that from his perspective.  And even today I project forward to a day when I'm talking to one of my own about her day in the veterinary clinic, the psychiatric facility or office, and as yet undefined on the wild card 3rd child -- and they need to move on with their day and I'm headed for the pool, the garden, the book, the laptop, the ocean ... I'll surely say to them "go sleigh your dragons" ... and smile as I release them back to what seems as if it's the be all and end all for them.  As it should be.  And I'll smile, think of you Dad, and one or all of your beautiful grandchildren, and get on with my "Outrageous Older Man" day ...

Happy Birthday Old Man.  Today was for you.  We love you, and remember you --always.

Pistol