The other day my entry in this blog was prompted by a May 30th WSJ article about Sorrel King, and how the trauma of her daughter’s death due to medical mistakes awoke in her an intensity of purpose to do something about safety in patient care facilities.
Tragic events can certainly promote intense motivation and I’m going to relate another such event. But after doing that I want to move on to the question: “Does it always require trauma?” The answer to that is “No.” And it is the management task to help people develop intense motivation without trauma.
First my story: Hilda Pridgeon went to work for Control Data when her husband Al began exhibiting strange symptoms. It was only a clerical job, but she felt that they needed some additional security. Soon after, Al abruptly quit his job after 25 years. He was only in his late 40s, but something was clearly wrong. Hilda went to the family doctor and said, “I feel like I’m losing my partner.” After other possibilities were ruled out, Al was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
Hilda was faced with a number of dilemmas – building security by having her own career, raising her children (the youngest was 12), providing care for Al, learning to understand and cope with a disease she was told was “rare.” When Al was denied disability benefits because he had voluntarily quit his job, Hilda called Employee Advisory Resource (EAR). EAR did more than listen. They took Hilda to the company’s own law firm who assigned a lawyer, Paul Hannah, to her case.
Paul went beyond getting Al the disability and retirement he had earned. He successfully pursued other avenues like Social Security and mortgage disability insurance. With Al’s financial issues being solved, Hilda, with the encouragement of her manager, completed her college degree while working in shareholder relations.
Having an Alzheimer’s patient at home-required more than financial security. She met other women dealing with the same issues. Five of them pooled $25 and ran an advertisement in the Minneapolis newspaper inviting families of Alzheimer’s patients to a support meeting. The group got materials from the National Institute of Aging, and Control Data provided a conference room. The response was a standing-room-only crowd. “I knew then we needed to have a national organization,” Hilda said. With her business background, Hilda began working nights and weekends to organize a family support group.
Then opportunity knocked in the form of an interoffice memo about Control Data’s social service leave policy. Hilda wrote a proposal requesting a year off with pay and benefits to form a national organization. On August 1, 1979, her year began.
Hilda turned a room in her home into an office. The National Institute on Aging told people what she was doing, and letters began to come in from all over the country. She did public service announcements at the local CBS affiliate. By August 28, she had registered the first non-profit – 501C(3) – organization for Alzheimer’s in the U.S. Her cofounders made public appearances; Control Data printed the newsletter and helped build a computer-based mailing list, and gave Hilda access to a WATS line for the burgeoning number of calls.
The need for a family support group was made deeply obvious by many calls. Hilda recalls one call from a desperate man in Virginia. His wife couldn’t stop screaming and he wanted to kill her and himself. Hilda called the governor’s office; spoke to a legislative assistant who then got the woman into a hospital. Such calls happened often.
Technically, the group was still a Minnesota organization. The National Institute on Aging invited Hilda and others to Washington where they agreed to form a national non-profit group. While many wanted to focus solely on research for a cure, Hilda kept reminding them that family support was equally important. The national Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association, Inc., was registered in 1980 with Hilda Pridgeon on the board of directors.
The national group began quietly, but a letter to advice columnist "Dear Abby", who many years later was diagnosed with the disease, brought a surge of 25,000 inquiries. The computer-based mailing list developed by Control Data helped answer the inquiries.
In June 2002 the Alzheimer’s Association published a report-Alzheimer’s Disease: The Costs to U.S. Businesses in 2002, which concluded that “the total cost to businesses of workers who are caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s disease is $36.512 billion. The cost to businesses of healthcare for people with Alzheimer’s disease is $24.634 billion." The report went on to note that these figures combined are “equivalent to the net profits of the top ten Fortune 500 companies."
After her one-year leave, Hilda went back to work at Control Data, but her work with the Alzheimer’s Association continued. She was on the board for 17 years, during which time she traveled to chapters all over the U.S., met with researchers, doctors, nurses, social workers, members of Congress and even presidents and first ladies. In a company that thrived on innovation and a culture of social responsibility, Hilda’s caring activism thrived. Needs awareness - whether a computer designer’s deeply felt understanding of the need for the best possible computing engines, or Hilda Pridgeon’s first-hand experience with the needs of those dealing with Alzheimer’s in a loved one - is an attribute which can be created by enlightened management.
This, like Sorrel King’s story, is a moving and touching one. But looked at more deeply, there were three management policies that provided the infrastructure within which it could happen at all. First is EAR, a confidential, on-demand counseling service that assists employees with personal non-work related problems. Second, was a policy called “Homework” which allows employees to work at home where they can tend to personal limitations such as Hilda used to care for Al. Third, is the Social Service Leave policy which allows people like Hilda to pursue a larger innovation - in this case assisting in forming a national organization to meet a staggering need.
Motivation comes from within us. What triggers motivation is caring intensity. What allows caring intensity to find fruition in innovation are the management policies and practices that support administrators, as well as product designers, process operators, marketers and management (such as Wendell Weeks - see my blog on “Corporate Culture of Innovation”).
What gets in the way of all this is the needed polices and practices frequently run counter to “the way we’ve always done it,” and even more what gets in the way is “fear of failure.” More on that subject on another day.
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Technorati Tags: Innovation, Healthcare, Alzheimer's Disease
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Posted by: Smith Corona Ribbons | April 20, 2010 at 12:05 PM