Jackie Liebowitz
Episode 32

Narrator:

Welcome, friends, to another episode of The Story & Experience Podcast. Join your host, Japhet De Oliveira, with his guest today and discover the moments that shape us, our families, and communities.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Well, welcome friends to another wonderful episode of The Story & Experience Podcast. We have a brand new guest, as you can imagine, as we do every single time and she's smiling already. And I'm excited about you meeting her. If you haven't met her in person, you have to meet her in person, because she has so much energy and so much love and so much creativity. And so you're going to hear a little bit in this just short window that we have together here.

Japhet De Oliveira:

The way it works if you're brand new to podcast is that I have a hundred questions. The first 10 are really easy, 11 and onwards it gets a little bit more progressively vulnerable and open. And our guest gets to choose which numbers they wish to dance around and engage in as they share stories and experience that shaped them.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Well, without much further ado, I'm going to dive straight in and begin with the first one. What's your name? And does anybody ever mispronounce it?

Jackie Liebowitz:

My formal name is Jacalyn Leibowitz. I usually go by Jackie. And Jacalyn, everyone mispronounces. I get the French Jacaleen and I get Jacalynn. There's no Qs in it at all, but for some reason you add anything past the Jac and people mispronounce it. And Leibowitz gets messed up all the time. It was funny when my daughter was little, she couldn't say Leibowitz. She'd say "little bits". So I answer to Little Bits too, as well.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's fantastic. You know, that's not going to go away now when people listen to this.

Jackie Liebowitz:

Oh, I know.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I know. That's great. All Right, Jackie, what do you do for work right now? Thank you for sharing that, by the way. What do you do for work?

Jackie Liebowitz:

So I'm the Chief Nurse Executive for Adventist Health. And what that means is I'm really over all of the clinical practice and clinical care delivery for nursing across all 23 of our Adventist Health hospitals. And that encompasses everything from education and competency, to clinical outcomes, to professional licensing, through development of new programs and being able to add to people's skillsets.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's brilliant. Fantastic. It's a very small scope I see.

Jackie Liebowitz:

But it's great.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I know.

Jackie Liebowitz:

We have great people to build on, so.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yes. And you have great people that you work with as well.

Jackie Liebowitz:

Excellent team.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Excellent, excellent team. I've seen some of your teams that you've pulled together and they are amazing people as well. So great to see. How long have you been-

Jackie Liebowitz:

We're only as strong as our teams, right?

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's true. That's very true.

Jackie Liebowitz:

We're only as strong as our teams.

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, absolutely true. How long have you been in your current role?

Jackie Liebowitz:

So I have been in my role 21 months. So I started with Adventist Health in January of 2020, right before the pandemic started.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Great timing, Jackie. Great timing.

Jackie Liebowitz:

Oh, timing is everything. But you know what? For me, it has never been more clear to me that God put me in a place at a time where my skillsets were most needed, meaningful and impactful. And talk about really adding value to an organization and being there to serve. This was perfect timing for me.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yes. For our listeners, you have to at some point go to our story website and just read some of the amazing stories. You'll see some of the amazing films that Jack is part of. You'll see from the onset dealing with COVID when it first began and the frontline. It has been transformative to see the stuff that you have led, and all of your colleagues as well. I mean just beautiful, Jackie, so thank you for that. But yeah, no. Great. Hey, look, as I said, these are pretty easy, the beginning ones here. So in the morning, what's your drink of choice? Is it water? Is it coffee? Is it tea? Is it one of those green liquid smoothies?

Jackie Liebowitz:

So I'm a coffee drinker.

Japhet De Oliveira:

OK.

Jackie Liebowitz:

And I usually allow myself one cup of the real stuff.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh, the real.

Jackie Liebowitz:

And then decaf from there on out. So it's coffee, coffee, coffee, and more coffee. The rest of the day.

Japhet De Oliveira:

And when you say coffee, is it like coffee with additives, like milk and sugar? Or is just the jet black?

Jackie Liebowitz:

It is just straight up pure coffee. Pure caffeine. There is no additive. No cutting it down. It is the good stuff.

Japhet De Oliveira:

The good stuff. That's beautiful.

Jackie Liebowitz:

The good stuff.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Jackie, where were you born?

Jackie Liebowitz:

I was born in Detroit, Michigan.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Huh? OK. I went out there. I've been out there. I know it. Oh, beautiful. It's fantastic.

Jackie Liebowitz:

You know, Michigan's a great place.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh, it is.

Jackie Liebowitz:

It is all water based, and so I grew up kind of on the water. It's an amazing, amazing city.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It is. It really is actually. Good. And when you were a child, what did you imagine you were going to be when you grew up?

Jackie Liebowitz:

I wanted to be a nurse.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh.

Jackie Liebowitz:

My grandfather was in the hospital when I was probably about 10 and ever since then I saw the impact nurses had on him in the hospital and I wanted to be a nurse since that point in time.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh.

Jackie Liebowitz:

So it was very formative young age. That's what I wanted to be.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh, that's beautiful. When your friends describe you, and the people who know you, would they describe you as an introvert or an extrovert? And would you agree?

Jackie Liebowitz:

I think everybody who knows me would describe as an extrovert.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Really?

Jackie Liebowitz:

And I would agree. We were just at a family wedding. And one of the people at the table that we were sitting with said, "Are you ever actually going to sit at the table with us? Because you're like just circulating the room?" And I'm like, "That's me." Right? So I love to see people, talk to people, hear people's stories, meet them.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah. You do. You do. You're in the room. You do walk the room. And you're on the stage. Jackie has great presence. It's fantastic. It's good to watch. It's good to see. It's great, great personality. All right. Fantastic. Tell me about habits. Are you an early riser or a late night owl?

Jackie Liebowitz:

Oh, I'm a late night owl. So it was always for me, you could ask me to stay as late as you wanted for a meeting. But please don't make it a 7:00 AM meeting. So it's interesting because part of my career, I worked nights, straight nights for probably three years. And I just got into this habit where you could ask me to be at a 6:00 AM meeting, and if I was coming off nights, that 6:00 AM meeting was great. But if I had to wake up for a 6:00 AM meeting, it was torture.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Exhausting.

Jackie Liebowitz:

So I'm the person who can stay up all night and do really, really well. But just the waking up early, ooh, painful.

Japhet De Oliveira:

So then this morning, what was the very first thought that went through your mind?

Jackie Liebowitz:

I was just returning from vacation. And so I had to figure out how I was going to get myself back into the groove of meetings and making sure that I was up to speed on everything. And so I was running through my day.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Well, I appreciate you making the time for this as well. That's great. This is great. As a leadership question here, are you a backseat driver?

Jackie Liebowitz:

Ooh, Ooh. A back seat driver. I do a little front seat and I do a little back seat. If you ask my husband, he will tell you I'm a back seat driver, literally. So I have to say that. But I usually like to be able to give parameters, give some guidelines and let people go. And then come back and talk about it and give some more guidance on it. I would prefer them to be in the driver's seat and coaching.

Jackie Liebowitz:

And so when I look at backseat driver, I guess it all depends on how you approach it. But I look at part of backseat driver is coach. And so I do like to coach and let people go through and be able to make their own judgements. And then, how'd that work for you? Would you have done? And the only real time, I really feel like I'm a backseat driver is if I think we are going to critically hurt somebody, damage the organization. Then I really will intervene. But the rest of it is I'm sitting beside them as coach.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's good. I like that. That's a good descriptor. All right. So you see how easy that was. That was fantastic. Now we're into the 11 to the hundred and you get to pick wherever you'd like to go. So what number would you like to go first?

Jackie Liebowitz:

Oh boy, let's start with 12.

Japhet De Oliveira:

12. All right. What is your favorite movie or book of all time and why?

Jackie Liebowitz:

Oh, all right. You're going to laugh at this, but I love Weekend at Bernie's.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I'm not laughing. It's just something funny came by at that moment. Really.

Jackie Liebowitz:

So I know, right? I mean, there's all these great classics. I love National Treasure because I love history, and I love mysteries like that. So National Treasure probably is my number two for that reason.

Japhet De Oliveira:

National Treasure because of history?

Jackie Liebowitz:

I'm a history geek.

Japhet De Oliveira:

OK. Yeah. Yeah.

Jackie Liebowitz:

National Treasure is about history, and I'm a history geek. So I love National Treasure. But I have to say Weekend at Bernie's because it is one of those movies that I can laugh at. And I love to laugh at movies and I love pure, not sad, not angry, not violence. I love just pure laughter and it's one of the movies that I can watch time and time and time and time and time again and still laugh at all the silliness of it. It gives me just happiness watching it. And so when I just want a pick-me-up or I'm looking for something light, that's probably my go-to.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's beautiful. That's pretty funny. Oh, that's really funny. I understand though, because there are some times you just want to laugh, like I mean laugh out loud. Yeah. Really well.

Jackie Liebowitz:

Right. Exactly. And you just look at them and you go, "Yeah. OK. That could go wrong. Yeah. I've had things go wrong but not quite like that. But yeah, I get that." It's just silly.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It's good. It's good. Good. All right. Where next after 12?

Jackie Liebowitz:

How about 21?

Japhet De Oliveira:

21? Brilliant. All right. Share the best compliment you've ever received.

Jackie Liebowitz:

Ooh.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Ooh.

Jackie Liebowitz:

Best compliment I've ever received.

Japhet De Oliveira:

You've ever received. Yeah.

Jackie Liebowitz:

It's probably that my coaching led to somebody becoming a chief nurse officer. And so this was somebody that I had identified and said I thought that they had talent, and had coached them and given them opportunities. And they actually left the organization I was with and we continued a long distance kind of coaching relationship. And that person, when they received their promotion to that role wrote me this beautiful note about how I made the difference. I was the factor that helped motivate them to see the potential in them, and that I helped cultivate them.

Jackie Liebowitz:

And so that for me is probably the best, I believe, part of our role is what I call, pay it forward. We all have received the benefit from those that we have interacted. With whether we learned from what they did well or we learned from what they didn't do well. Right? But we learned. And so we've been the benefit of that. And so to me, the ability to pay that forward is a huge obligation for leaders. That's one of the things that motivates me, and to get that as a compliment back, and to see that happen was probably the best compliment I've ever received.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I need to take that answer as the opener for this entire podcast series and to explain just how important it is, right? Because you're right. Even difficult things and good things, both of them shape us and we can learn from all of them. I love that. It's really true. Oh, that's beautiful. That's really beautiful. I'm glad that she wrote something as well. That's really nice.

Jackie Liebowitz:

Right? Because it could have happened and I would not have recognized that. But this person took the time to realize that they were the beneficiary of building blocks, and we are all the product of the building blocks that we have been the beneficiary of through our careers. And as you get deeper into your career, you have greater responsibility to be able to pay that forward organizationally.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yes. True. No it's good. Good. All right. Where would you like to go next?

Jackie Liebowitz:

Ooh. How about 34?

Japhet De Oliveira:

34. All right. Tell us about a moment that a person's kindness made a difference in your life.

Jackie Liebowitz:

I was at a point in my career where I was overwhelmed, overloaded. And I was at an organization that had kind of a group of individuals who would post things that were not very kind. And so this person that I worked with who was a colleague saw posting before I did, and she brought it to me. She sat me down and she said, "Have you seen this?" And I said, "No, I have not." And she said, "OK. So let me tell you first, in leadership you are going to make decisions sometimes that are unpopular. But if they are the right decisions, if they are the decisions that are fundamentally core to you and what you really believe and you do in the best interest of the patients and the employees, you will always be right. And there are going to be people who disagree with you and people who disagree with you in professional ways and unprofessional ways. And the first time you see that unprofessional way, it is going to eat at you."

Jackie Liebowitz:

And she said, "So I'm going to show you this. And I need you to know that this person is not correct. You did what was in the best interest and you need to know that. But knowing that doesn't take away the pain. And so I'm here to give you hugs and a shoulder because you need that to be able to continue to do what's right and not do what is popular."

Jackie Liebowitz:

And so that was probably the kindest words I've ever had and most supportive words I've ever had from a colleague. And anytime I think about a tough decision, and I think about what people are going to think about me because of it, I weigh in all the factors. But I go with what's the core most important and realize this isn't going to be popular, and I may hurt personally because of the feedback and the back blow from it. But I have to take stay true. And I always remember, she's going to come to me and give me a hug with it.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's so true. What is right is not always what's popular.

Jackie Liebowitz:

Correct.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It's so true.

Jackie Liebowitz:

And it's really hard because it's easier to do what's popular, right? It's more comfortable. People like you more for it. That doesn't make it right. And that may not make it right for-

Japhet De Oliveira:

Everyone.

Jackie Liebowitz:

Our patients and for our staff. Right?

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah.

Jackie Liebowitz:

And so that can be really, really difficult. And you can be out there as a leader on a branch, and it's a lonely place sometimes.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah. That's very good. That's very good. Thank you. All right. After 34, would you like to go next?

Jackie Liebowitz:

Ooh. OK. That one was a little bit more difficult. I'm going to back down. I'm going to go to 26.

Japhet De Oliveira:

26. All right. Tell us about one thing that you love that most people do not.

Jackie Liebowitz:

Whoa. One thing-

Japhet De Oliveira:

Weekend at Bernie's?

Jackie Liebowitz:

I'm not going to live that down.

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, it's great. It's great.

Jackie Liebowitz:

What do I love that most people do not.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah.

Jackie Liebowitz:

That one's a tough one because I love a lot of things. The question is what don't other people love. So sculpting. So I love to sculpt. I love to work with a chisel and hammer on stone. And that is not something that a lot of people like or fully appreciate. And so I would say that that's something I like that maybe not everybody does like.

Japhet De Oliveira:

OK. So this is actually question 26-A.

Jackie Liebowitz:

Wait a minute.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I know. I know. Have you ever sculpted something, and then it's nearly finished, and that last piece, it broke?

Jackie Liebowitz:

I have never done that. When I've messed up, it's been early on. Right? So I hit a vein. I hit it and it fell apart early on. What I have done though is I have a couple pieces that I have sculpted, and when I got down to the last piece, I decided I didn't want to do the last one. And it was because perfection is God's realm. Perfection is not my realm. And so I leave it really, really, really good. It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful. And so I have left a number of items uncompleted in that fashion for that reason.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I'm just going to write a lot of these answers that you're sharing, Jackie, and just like tweet these little nuggets of gold that you're sharing. That's great. This is great. That's fantastic. Beautiful.

Jackie Liebowitz:

Thank you.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Just soundbites. That was great. Thank you.

Jackie Liebowitz:

Oh, you're cheating because 26-A didn't exist.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I know. It's fantastic. I mean, this is the privilege of being the host of the podcast.

Jackie Liebowitz:

Oh, there you go. I like that. Does that count as a number though?

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh no.

Jackie Liebowitz:

No. No.

Japhet De Oliveira:

It's the bonus round.

Jackie Liebowitz:

It's the bonus. It's the bonus.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Where do you want to go next?

Jackie Liebowitz:

Right. How about 38. I'm going to get more up there.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh, okay. 38. If you needed encouragement, who would you call?

Jackie Liebowitz:

Oh, well, if I needed encouragement, the first person I would usually have called was mom, but my mom died four years ago. So I think my second person is my husband, who is my greatest champion, who will listen to me, who's always supportive of me and that is my person. I also have a professional colleague, Claudia [Grobel 00:21:07], who I've known for probably almost three decades now. When I'm going through a rough patch, she is also a nurse. She actually is a nurse educator and researcher, and professionally we were nurse managers the same time in an organization together.

Jackie Liebowitz:

I went the administrative route. She went the education leadership route. And when I'm really stuck professionally, I will just bounce things off of her and say, "I'm stuck." And she'll say, "Okay, you can do this. You've done this before. This is nothing that you can't tackle. Here's perspective." And, "Who have you reached out to? What are you doing?" She just is a great cheerleader in just keeping me from getting stuck in something, because sometimes it's easy to get stuck. Right? And so having somebody who can help you have perspective and to help you get undug from something is really important. She's one of my go-to people that I can just go to and she helps me to unstick.

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's beautiful. Good. Love that. All right. Where do you want to go next?

Jackie Liebowitz:

Ooh, I'm going to go-

Japhet De Oliveira:

You're doing well.

Jackie Liebowitz:

50.

Japhet De Oliveira:

50. All right. Share about who has influenced you professionally,

Jackie Liebowitz:

Oh, professionally.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Yeah.

Jackie Liebowitz:

So I think that there are two people who really have had professional influence on me and I will start. The first one is Florence Nightingale. OK. Don't laugh at that.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I'm not,

Jackie Liebowitz:

When say that sometimes nurses roll their eyes like, "Oh my God, Jackie, please don't do that. We've heard enough in school about it." But I really loved reading her, what she wrote. Because what she wrote back in the Crimean War, right? We're talking 180 years ago, is still applicable today. Like one of my favorite quotes from her is she believes that in the future, the care of the patient ultimately will be in the home. How's that?

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's fantastic.

Jackie Liebowitz:

She was working on setting up hospitals, and she saw the value of the hospitals, but she thought it was home. And she believed in numbers and statistics. And by that, I mean, she looked at data to be able to make decisions. And she looked at what that meant relative to research to be able to make a difference. And she would put a change in and see if it made a difference in an outcome. Those fundamentals still work today. They're critical. So her views on a lot of this was really, really important. And I believe that at people underplay what her knowledge level was, and how it transcends history to be important. So she was one of my influencers.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Good.

Jackie Liebowitz:

And then Edward Deming, Edward Deming is considered one of the founders of performance improvement. He's in that group with Dr. [Jurasik 00:24:47] and a number of others. And I had the opportunity when I was at Henry Ford Health System to work with Dr. Deming. The Ford Motor Company had brought him in to do a lot of work on quality as job one. And because the Henry Ford Health System and Henry Ford Motor Company were like cousins, we did a lot of things together. The board was the Ford Motor Company family, and they kind of cross-pollinated between the two, which was great. And I had a lot of exposure to Dr. Deming. And he would always ask me the why. So "Why Jackie? Why are you doing that?"

Jackie Liebowitz:

So why, why, why to the point of nausea. I was like, ready to say, "Stop it! I've answered enough whys." And he kept digging and digging and digging. Because oftentimes we go to superficial answers. So it's the easiest, it's the most convenient. And we forget to keep saying, why? Why is this data like this? Why is this number like this? Why, why, why? And it's one of the things that I try, between the two of them, to emulate when I'm doing that backseat driver front seat coach is why did we do this? What are the outcomes and why did that happen? If we made this change, why do we think it made a difference in the outcomes?

Jackie Liebowitz:

And pulling that out of people, it's simple. It really is very simple. But it's very hard to do because when you get a improvement, you just want to go "Whoo. I did it. I achieved it. We're done. We're good. And we're moving on." And if you don't understand why, you are doomed to that failure coming back and having to repeat history again. And then it's a weekend of Bernie's where we're doing it over and over again. Right? And so I think those two probably had the most influenced career-wise

Japhet De Oliveira:

That's beautiful. I am going to find you. I'm going to try and find it, but I did see a pretty beautiful, it was made in England for the NHS on the history of nurses, kind of thanking nurses movie that they did on the British TV. And it had had a story in there about Florence Nightingale and it was historically set. I think you're going to love it. It's beautiful. Yeah.

Jackie Liebowitz:

So it has nursing and it has history. I would love it. I will tell you a funny story related to Florence Nightingale. When my husband and I went to England, there's a museum there and you know how there are the circuses that they have, those orbits where you drive around. It was under construction, and so here's me in a skirt crawling over these construction barriers so I can get to the statue of Florence Nightingale so I can get a picture with Florence Nightingale.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Did you get arrested or anything though?

Jackie Liebowitz:

No, I didn't get arrested, but it was pretty darn dicey there for a while. So.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I can't wait to see those pictures as well. Pretty choice. We have time for two more. So your final two numbers. Can you believe that?

Jackie Liebowitz:

All right.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh my goodness.

Jackie Liebowitz:

All right. So we're going to go to even more difficult. Give me 60.

Japhet De Oliveira:

60. And what will be the number after 60?

Jackie Liebowitz:

Ooh, it depends on how bad 60 is.

Japhet De Oliveira:

OK. All right. All right. Do you want to just address 60 first?

Jackie Liebowitz:

Yes. Let's go to 60 first.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Here's 60. When in life have you felt most alone

Jackie Liebowitz:

I would say the death of my mother. I told you she was, I felt my greatest cheerleader champion. And when I lost my mom, I was surrounded by people who loved me and who bolstered me, but I talked to my mother every day, and it was hard because who did I call? You know, that time was not there. And that was really, really hard. So I always knew it was important and it was special, but I never realized how you felt until it really happened. There's an expression about empathy and sympathy and in the death of my mother I learned the difference between the two. So all right, now you've brought me the tears.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh, hey. But that's beautiful. I'm glad you called her every day.

Jackie Liebowitz:

I did. I did. All right. I'm going to go up to one. Be kind to me here, Japhet. 61.

Japhet De Oliveira:

Oh no, absolutely. All right. Tell us about a time in your life, Jackie, that required incredible courage.

Jackie Liebowitz:

Oh, all right. So I was in my first chief nurse officer role, and we had bought a piece of equipment. And with that piece of equipment, we had brought in the company to do education, and this was going to be better for our staff. It was going to have them less risk exposure to chemicals and all good for patients. All good for staff. Right move, awesome. This is great.

Jackie Liebowitz:

So I had approved this. Six months into my role, I had a nurse who sometimes rotated through that department, come into me and say, "Jackie, we're not hooking up this one thing." And I'm like, "Oh, okay." She looked at me and she said, "Jackie, we're not hooking up this one thing. Do you know what that means?"

Jackie Liebowitz:

And so I had to think it through and I went, "Oh, that means it could not be completely clean. Right?" And so I started delving into it. Long story short, we were one of the first organizations that notified patients that there was a risk exposure to them in the cleaning of the equipment that was used in their surgical procedures. We had to notify 800 patients. And this is back in 2000 and it was before anybody did that. And it was for me, it was my decision to do this. It was all under my leadership. And I felt like I could have just said, "Okay, thank you so much for telling me." And it would've left it there.

Jackie Liebowitz:

But my conscience, my doing the right thing, that's not always popular, said, "There's a risk." It's infinitesimal. It's very small, but there's still a risk and that's not right. We owe it. People have trust in us and we owe it. And so I went to my boss and had to explain what this meant, what the consequences were, and the fact that we were going to have to notify so many.

Jackie Liebowitz:

This was a huge discussion in this organization, and I was so proud of the board chair who walked over to the mission that was written on the wall and said, "What does our mission tell us we're supposed to do? What do our values tell us we're supposed to do?" And so I was scared as anything to do what I did, because I'm six months into my first role as a chief nurse executive. I'm thinking, "I've moved to this town. We are building a house that's 90% done. And I'm telling them that we're going to have to notify patients. It's going to be big news in that town. It's going to undermine the credibility of the quality of that organization and I'm going to get fired."

Jackie Liebowitz:

And I said to my husband, "I know that they're going to keep me, because they need somebody to handle this notification and handle this community PR, but they're going to need somebody as a scapegoat. And maybe not a scapegoat. Maybe I really fully should be shouldering this. And they're going to fire me because it happened under my watch." And I said, "We have to be prepared for this." And he said, "You know you have to live with yourself at the end of the day, and you have to do what's right." Remember I told he's one of my people who supports me very much.

Jackie Liebowitz:

And so we did. And my boss then came to me afterwards, after we had done the notification, and said, "Okay, so what are you going to do with this?" And I'm thinking, "Is she asking for my resignation?" And she said, "This undermined the quality confidence in this organization because it went six months till you had somebody who had the guts to come and tell you. We should be in a different place organizationally. So anyone would feel comfortable day two coming to say that, right? So what are you going to do about it?"

Jackie Liebowitz:

And that became our journey to high reliability and quality in that organization. And we went to a top 100 hospital. And so she pushed me. Oh my God, it was so uncomfortable. And in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, "I'm going to get fired, but I've got to do the right thing. I'm going to get fired, but I'm going to do the right thing. I've got to take this to a different level." And you just have to say, "Okay, I get that there's a risk, that there's personal risk in all of this in leadership."

Jackie Liebowitz:

But you've got to stay with what is that true north for you, that mission, that concrete soul, and play it out. And sometimes you will take a personal hit with that. Sometimes you won't, and it will turn into you're working for a great leader who's going to say, "So what are you going to do now to make this not happen the next time and fix it?" But no matter what, you have to take the chance and keep true to yourself and your core mission.

Jackie Liebowitz:

So my daughter, she graduated in December, but they had the graduation ceremony in person this past weekend. And so we went to it and the keynote speaker said they have children in college and they talked to their children in college and asked them what should they be saying? What's going to resonate with these new graduates. And they said, "Talk about personal mission statement."

Jackie Liebowitz:

And so they talked about it, and they said it doesn't have to be perfect. So when people talk about what's their personal mission, it doesn't have to be perfect. It has to just have some principles. And it evolves and grows and develops over time. So as a leader, you start out with just some things on there. And it's going to grow, but you have to put it down because that's what keeps you grounded for when you get into really, really tough times, and really tough decisions that make you as a leader, and you've got to look back at that. So, sorry, probably more than you wanted to hear with that, but.

Japhet De Oliveira:

No, Jackie. That was worth everything. In fact, you've seen those in LinkedIn where you're scrolling and suddenly it appears and it says, here's an inspirational story of somebody who's changing your life. Jackie, that's the story. That's the story. That's the truth because that's about character. It's about character. It's about what you said earlier about doing the right thing. Not the thing that's politically right, but the right thing. It's about character. So thank you for sharing that. That was beautiful, and I think inspirational, and encouraging to all of the people who are listening to The Story & Experience Podcast today to make difficult decisions the right decisions.

Jackie Liebowitz:

Right. Well, thank you for allowing me to tell my story. And I'm sorry I didn't get past 61.

Japhet De Oliveira:

You did exceptionally well. Thank you so much for that. It's just a real privilege and real pleasure. Thank you for doing that.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I just want to encourage everybody who's listening. You know, we all have stories and we all have experiences. Please share them. Please ask others as well. Through those, you will be an incredible force for good and you will only cultivate and change the world to make it a better place.

Japhet De Oliveira:

I want to encourage you to do that. God bless you, look after you. Again, Jackie, thank you so much for your time.

Jackie Liebowitz:

Thank you. Have a great day, everybody.

Narrator:

Thank you for joining us for The Story & Experience Podcast. We invite you to read, watch, and submit your story and experience at AdventistHealth.org/Story. The Story & Experience Podcast was bought to you by Adventist Health, through the Office of Culture.