Category Communication

The Meeting That Had No Idea Why It Existed

Meetings without a clear purpose are a waste

Physicians already run superb meetings. A code has a leader, defined roles, one goal, and a decision at the end. So does morning rounds. So does tumor board. Then the same physician walks into a 2 p.m. committee meeting and forgets all of it.

This post tells the story of a clinic executive committee that met for years without anyone asking what it was for. It had no governance structure, no minutes, and made no real decisions — and when it kept running over, the group solved the problem by making the meeting longer.

Meetings earn their place on the calendar only when they do a specific job. Name the purpose before you gather the people.

Leading Peers: How to Influence People Who Don’t Report to You

Leadership is about influence, not about authority

When I became chief resident 25 years ago, the title came with a $1,000 a year increase in stipend and authority over the call schedule — yet I still spent the year asking peers for favors. That paradox opens a hard truth about medicine: authority rarely works, even when you have it. Every physician is independently licensed, and replacing an unhappy one costs a fortune. So leaders at every level run on influence, not authority. Drawing on a spring-break scheduling standoff between two psychiatrists I once supervised, we see how to move people who don't have to move — asking before telling, letting facts speak, reframing the stakes, and let them find their way. And when influence fails? Protect the relationship and try a different key.

Why New Leaders Shouldn’t Trust Their First Instinct

Rushing to judgment is a big mistake a new leader can make

Early in my first leadership role at a state psychiatric hospital, I learned that a patient was sitting on a locked ward, psychotic and untreated, because her physician had never filed a court petition for involuntary treatment. My first instinct was discipline — the union process, the medical staff committee. A mentor stopped me with four simple questions, and those questions revealed the truth: the doctor wasn't indifferent, he was inexperienced, having never petitioned a court in his long career. A verdict reached in anger became a conversation, a learning moment, and a treated patient. This post uses that story to show new leaders why a verdict reached early may be wrong, and why having a mentor is a necessity when stepping into leadership.

How Telling a Hard Story Can Change the Storyteller

Last week, for the first time in my life, I sat at a table and promoted something to strangers — my late wife Uzma's memoir. I'm not sure I could have done it two years ago, even after five years of grief counseling. What changed?

Years of therapy prepared me to write an award-winning speech about lessons I learned from Uzma. And the act of crafting that speech became its own form of therapy. A virtuous circle. Here's what I learned about what happens when you finally tell the hard story you've been carrying, and why it matters for every leader who has a story they haven't told yet.

Why Your Speech Must Reveal Something About You

Whatever your message, someone has said it before. And someone will say it again. But when you say it with your story — your thoughts, your memories, your joy, your pain — that's when it becomes unforgettable. The final installment of this series covers the last two lessons: show yourself, and have fun. Together, they explain why ChatGPT can write a speech about your topic but can't write your speech, and why both showing yourself and having fun are indispensable to becoming a voice that moves.

Why You Can’t Practice Your Speech Without Saying It Aloud

Someone told me they practiced their speech while walking their dog. "Do you say it out loud?" I asked. "No," they said. That's not practicing — that's thinking. Part 3 of the series about lessons I learned from my Toastmasters contest last year covers two lessons about preparation: practice aloud to find the words make you stumble, and rehearse with real people to find out if your message actually lands.

How Saying Less Can Make You More Persuasive

Would you pay four people to do a job one person could do better? So why do we do that with words? Part 2 of this series covers two tightly linked lessons: make every word earn its place, and tell the truth without being boring. Together, they explain why cutting 44% of the words from one paragraph made it hit harder — and why a CMO's no-brainer proposal to imrove care took a whole year to make happen.

Your Speech Has Only One Job – Serve The Audience

Last year, a 7-minute speech took me to the semifinals of the World Championship of Public Speaking. Along the way, I learned seven lessons about communication that apply far beyond any contest stage. The first and most important: your only obligation when you speak is to the people listening. Not to your ego, your thoroughness, or your desire to be complete. This is Part 1 of a four-part series.