 Training is an home key and I'm the faith liaison for the city, which is still a fairly new effort of the faith-based initiative, almost going on two years. So I will be co-facilitating this with Bill Neely over here. Bill is an AmeriCorps VISTA with the faith-based initiative, a highly skilled program tech guy, but he is amazing when it comes to compassion training. I think you're really going to enjoy this, I hope. So why we're here, besides the fact that Rhoda won this. I like to give door prizes, and I do have one for today, by the way, but you'll have to wait for that. But I like to do door prizes when there are gatherings, and I like to give meaningful door prizes. And so one event that she came to the door prize was this training. And she had an option, just so you know, so she had some compassion and choice here. She had an option, this training that we're going through is actually 27 hours long. And we have taken those 27 hours of full training and put them into three. When Rhoda won this door prize, she had the option of going through the full training and then potentially becoming a trainer, which is still an option, or pulling a team of people together and going through this three-hour training. So she made that choice to share with everybody in this room. Thank you, Rhoda. So she's spreading the compassion. So besides Rhoda winning the door prize, what really brought us into the room. Within the faith-based initiative, and I do have brochures just about the initiative and how that was formed, we have eight community concerns that we focus on, generational poverty, homelessness and hunger, immigrants and refugees, literacy, mental health, public health, children and foster care, and religious discrimination. So you will also start to see where our connective points are, say, like with mental health. And what we're trying to do is strategically leverage one of our largest natural resources, the faith community, into action and civic engagement and working together with the city in partnership. So those might be some conversations we have afterwards. About six months into that formation of the faith-based initiative, a resolution was signed by our city council on the very first day of the new city council. It was their first resolution that they signed into action unanimously. And that was to become a compassionate city. There are about 430 compassionate cities now around the globe. This small booklet, and there's tons of information, but this small booklet puts it together as succinctly as we possibly could. If you open it up into like page two, it gives just a very brief history about how that compassionate movement came about around the world from a TED talk given by a British female theologian, a real TED talk where they vote like the voice and the audience votes which idea has the most potential to change the world. And so in this particular year, 2008, it was won by a theologian. And her idea was if there was more compassion in the world, it would change everything. With her $100,000 award, she then worked with a group of faith leaders globally and they formed the Charter for Compassion, which you will find on the back of the book. I think it's one of the most powerful statements that we have in our world today. And I invite you to read that at some point. Back to page two, you'll also see some links at the bottom where you can find out more information through the city, but also there's a grassroots effort that goes along with this, as well as the Charter for Compassion, which is global. So if you really want to research that some form, you can do that. You'll also see like on pages three and four countries that are involved. You'll see on four, some of the other cities. And then if you flip one more time, you'll see in gray, gray, yellow, that San Antonio is officially one of those as well. There are like 11 cities now in Texas that are compassionate cities. All of Compassion is based on the ethic of reciprocity, which is also known as the Golden Rule. To treat others the way you wish to be treated yourself, as well as not treating others the way you wish not to be treated. It's both. And so it's like the common, highest denominator of all the world religions. And you'll see some of those listed on the inside of the back cover. Now what brings us to this room, other than this really important work globally, is that on the inside of the front cover, you will see the results to that resolution that was signed in June of 2017. Within that, I didn't put all the whereases. It's like two big pages, right? The whereas, whereas, whereas, the spurs, it's the most compassionate NBA team. But I just put in the results. Like what are we going to do? It recognizes that we're already a compassionate city, but it also challenges us to be more compassionate, and what that might mean. So it basically says that section one, we recognize that we already are. Section two, though, is about education. Very young until our last day, that we will be learning about compassion. While the resolution was being signed, literally, the mayor and I had a conversation about education and what that might look like. And maybe it would be a wise thing if our leaders modeled that. And so it was decided in that moment that our civic leaders, the mayor, council, their staffs, the city manager, city staff, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, go through compassion training. Amazing. We were the first city in those 400 plus cities to do this. And we were recognized as this last November at the Parliament of World Religions in Toronto for doing that. We've had a dozen other cities come here to learn that so that they can take it back to their cities as well. We're doing, as a city, I think, some really phenomenal work. And I'm proud of that. I'm proud of you for being here. I'm proud of our leadership to take that step. And in that step, then, we started to look for some compassion training that we thought would really work with civic leadership. And there's some really excellent trainings across the country. There's one at Stanford that is on compassion and health care systems, for example. There's another one in Michigan on compassion, but business. The research shows that companies that utilize compassion, both among their staff as well as those they serve, they will make more money. It's good for the bottom line. There's tons of research, so that one in Michigan is about that. This particular training, which we found out of Atlanta and Life University, is based on systems. All of those trainings will first, and we will, too, look at how compassionate we are towards self. If they all look at them, how are we compassionate towards others? But then, again, they look at health care or business, but this one looks at systems. And so health care itself is a system, so are businesses. So is my body and my person. So is my family. So is wherever you work, right? So we really thought the systems approach would be the one that would be most helpful to our civic leaders. It helps them to make policies and decisions based on compassion. How are we treating others? Would I like to be treated that way in this decision? Make sense? Are we treating people in this thing, in this decision, in a way I wouldn't want to be treated, or have my children treated? So it sounds very simple, but we're going to be going, we had to boil it all down. I mean, we even had to stretch it, getting civic leaders to come for three hours, right? So, and if that ended, maybe a half a dozen times, and I think it's gotten better every time, and we're learning as well. So we're taking you through the very streamlined Readers' Digest version. And in hopes that you will even walk out of here with one idea, that you'll be able to take back and utilize within some system that you're a part of, because we're all a part of lots of different systems. The rest of these sections, three, is about how this isn't just owned by the city, this compassionate San Antonio, its grassroots, its nonprofits, it's partnering, it's everybody, right? Universities and colleges, so it accepts support there. It was placed under the faith-based initiative. And so everything that we're doing in the initiative, as well as all the work that you're doing, are compassion and action. And it's a matter of looking at our work that way. We celebrate acts by also scouring media every day. We're now over 4,000 stories since June 2017 that we've collected just from local media on acts of compassion in San Antonio. We're also then part of that larger network. Not only is it a part of Unicross or city. We are now a part of those 430 cities across the world, which they estimate will soon be 1,000 in not a very short period of time. So that's what brings us into this room. So what will help get us started? So these are glossaries. I'm going to show you. The actual training looks about like this. In fact, it does look like this and a bunch of other things that go with it. But that's the size of it. The one thing that some of us realized or noticed when we went through it, we now have a little over 30 San Antonians who have gone through the pool training who are working towards being facilitators. So we have people across the city able to do that. But the one thing that we noticed in the curriculum is that it didn't have a glossary. And it was, we thought it'd be really helpful. So we started to design one here in San Antonio to help them in Atlanta. And they have since added it to the curriculum. There are a couple of words, though, that I want to look at that will be more informative for today. So quickly looking at the front, and I even want to look at the image because what the research is showing us, the neuroscience is showing us that, one, compassion is literally a part of our DNA system. And two, and some of you I know know this already. We can literally rewire our neurology by repetition, by doing things. So we can, that's great news, at least for me. That means that I can continue to practice and grow in knowing how to be compassionate towards others. I recognize that I, too, am compassionate, but I also recognize I have a lot to learn. And the good news is that science says that that works, it can happen. And it also means like within systems it can happen as well. So I wanted to point that out. Right below that, our kind of our one and only ground rule today, is to treat others the way you wish to be treated yourself. To listen to others the way you wish to be heard. To speak the way you wish to be spoken to. All those things, just keep translating that same ethic of reciprocity. To engage the way you like others to engage. And at the very bottom, you will see all the different skills that are covered in the full curriculum. Basically, we are going to be covering skill five today, impartiality and common humanity. And skills nine and ten, in terms of our interdependence. And then how do we make those decisions, engaging with discernment within a system? So maybe that'll help you a little bit, right? On the very back page, a word I want to look at, and these are in alphabetical order, secular ethics. So I keep talking about the ethic of reciprocity. But secular ethics are a set of values that transcend one cultural or religious system. So the ethic that we're looking at crosses humanity. A religious answer to the world's problems can never be universal. Because there's no one religion that all the people in the world can agree upon. Can we agree upon that? Okay, there are two pillars within secular ethics. Common humanity, we're all humans. And interdependence, we all depend on each other. These are two very critical elements that we're going to be highlighting today. The one I want to, that I want to talk about in the center, empathy. I want to talk just two basic definitions, empathy. The ability to understand the emotions, thoughts and motivations of another. And to resonate with them. Science has shown, and I know many of you heard the term compassion fatigue. But science has shown it's not compassion fatigue, it's empathy fatigue. So empathy is this, not just an understanding about how someone else feels, but it's also an energy flow and a feeling with another. So if I encounter somebody who's in pain, right? And I can empathize with that. And I do, right? So I recognize that, and I also feel it. And I have this empathy that goes this direction, right? And it also could come this direction, right? But it's by extending that understanding and that energy, that's where the fatigue comes, right? You're extending, you're extending, you're extending. It's our common humanity that we're experiencing. But in the neuroscience, they have watched the dynamic. And that's where the energy gets overextended. It's in the empathy. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be empathetic. And it's also part of who we are, we are empathetic. The antidote, so if we turn over to compassion under the seas, right? Is the desire to address the needs of another grounded in care for their well-being? Compassion is actually the antidote to the fatigue. It's the action or the care that is then as extended that if your work in the right direction, that's the way we're headed today, you will actually gain energy through compassion. This person, if there's a good movement of compassion here, you're gonna gain energy and some healing in the pain. And at the same time, neuroscience shows that it's same thing will happen with me. We're better people in the act of compassion. That's really important, I think, to know that. So, you know how the girls magazine quizzes that you can take, so you know how great a lover you are. So we have a survey that we have been issuing and we will continue to do it around the city. I don't know what our number is now and I'll tell you the results that we're seeing, but I'm not gonna do that until after you take this very quick survey that helps us to assess how compassionate we are towards ourselves and how compassionate we are towards other people. So if you remember when I talked about the different types of training that they all look at, how compassionate we are here, but how compassionate we are then with others. So that's what this survey is for. So if you wanna take a moment and complete that, I'm just curious if there was anything in that when you were doing it that surprised you. I will tell you the very first time we did like this. It was with the Working Group of the Faith-Based Initiative, which is a sample representation of the different faith expressions we have in Senate terms, so faith-led as clergy. But one of the clergy, as well as one of our elected city officials, that weren't in the same room, but they both said this at separate times that they're taking it. Basically, they said, I didn't realize that I actually wasn't always doing what I thought was of value to me and that I believed in. That's a significant thing for a clergy to say in front of others, a clergy, or a civic leader to say in front of others, right? I didn't realize that I wasn't totally doing that. So what I wanna invite you to do is just talk to two other people so I can try it, just turn around at the table or whatever, but just to take a moment to look at the survey and maybe something did surprise you to be willing to maybe share that. How it made you feel to take the survey? You know, what was going on inside so that's a feeling thing, how did it make you feel? And maybe you might even have I want to after taking this, I want to do something. I don't know. I just feel like that's the point. Try to help me out. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But basically what the numbers are showing us from this really growing survey that we're taking across the city is that San Antonians, but I don't, I think it's just human. We'll say that. I don't think we're unique, but that we tend to be more compassionate towards others than ourselves. Our numbers reflect that. So I think we also just heard that in one form or another expressed, right? So those needs of other people, you know? These two steps are really important in terms of compassion work in our work or with our family wherever that system might be is that self-awareness of how much we all need compassion ourselves, but how we also interact with others when it comes to compassion because systems are made up of people. So that was like the first whole two sections of the training. Two days work, two full days. So, but it's critical. And to keep that in mind as we move forward and we'll come back to it again. I'm gonna turn it over to Bill now and we're gonna start working on systems. So thank you for having me and I'm looking forward to this. And so my background, I'm a software developer by training. So software is really just systems and it's not really a technology platform. It's really about people because people use software. And so this, so even though, you know, doing a training on compassion doesn't seem like a likely pivot for a software developer. It's really almost the same thing. So in my mind anyway. So here's what we're gonna do. So we have over the next hour and a half, two hours or so, we're gonna walk through an exercise on decision making. Okay, now why do we do this? Everybody in here makes decisions every single day, right? Everybody has to decide what to do at work. Everybody gets a problem on their desk and they have to do something about it. They have to interact with their team. They have to interact with the organization. They have to make the decision. So why are we gonna spend three hours modeling how we make decisions? Well, I'll tell you a story a minute ago. A long time ago, I decided that I should play golf because I worked in business and that seemed to be something that was the right thing to do. So I went out and I played golf and I took lessons and I did all this work. And I finally decided that what I really liked about golf was being outside. And what I really didn't like about golf was how expensive it was and how terrible that it was. And so I decided to, at that point, to just be outside and not play golf anymore. But during that golfing process, I took some lessons and the instructor that I had would set up this video camera behind me and I would swing the club and attempt to, so I fall appropriately. And then we would, and I'd do that five or six times, and then we would go through each of those over and over again in slow motion and you can slow it down and think and talk about it. So this is what we're doing today is we're doing a slow motion decision-making process so that we can really break down the process into its components, think about each step, really study and practice each one so that the next time we go to do this, we have thought about it a little bit and we're better prepared. All of you know how to make decisions today. I'm not going to, you know, there's no golden trinket that comes out of this, although I think this will help us all to improve our work. So for this time, we're gonna do the study on critical thinking and decision-making process. So first, I'm gonna go back to the glossary. There's a four-step critical thinking process that we're gonna talk about. And this written down on this piece of paper, but I think it's important to read it and get it out in the open because this is very, this is the four steps that we're gonna follow through the next two hours or so, okay? This is called, this is a four-step process for critical thinking and decision-making. So step number one, check your motivations by asking yourself, do I truly have others well-being at heart or am I under the sway of any afflictive mental states such as free jails or anger, okay? So this is our self-compassion. Am I really in the right state of mind? Am I thinking clearly? Am I clear about what I'm about to do? And am I free from any bias that might enter into my position? Step number two, if the motivations are sound, then bring to mind your understanding of interdependence and ask what is the broader context of this problem? What are the various causes and conditions that have given rise to this problem? Now we're talking about compassion for others. How do I see how other people are involved in the system that I'm looking at? I'm bringing to mind the system's perspective. I'm starting to educate myself a little bit more about what's going on. Even if I know these components, I'm gonna think about them a little bit and maybe do some exercises or some work to help my understanding and make sure that I have a clear picture of what's going on. Number three, based on your broader understanding of the context, ask what choices do I have and what are the likely outcomes of each choice? So now we're getting into a process of discernment. I've done some work. I've put myself in the right position. I've tried to increase my understanding of the problem in front of me and now I am thinking clearly about coming to a decision and I'm going to discern how to move forward and what steps we take. Number four, finally ask yourself which solution will cause the least harm and enable the greatest amount of role in me, okay? So at this point, we're going to act. We're going to make a decision. We're gonna do something. We're gonna take action that will affect the system that we're talking about in a net positive way is the goal, okay? So let's walk through this a little bit. I'm gonna, I wanna talk a little bit about those last two and I wanna talk about some definitions and then we're gonna do an exercise. So first on the last two, number three, I'm gonna go back and read that one again. What choices do I have that are the likely outcomes of my choice? This is likely outcomes. This is not every possible outcome, okay? So we have to think about what's likely and what's the probable outcome and think about what are the negative consequences of the things that are likely to occur and not the catastrophic end of the world doom and gloom, okay? And then number four, I wanna say, ask yourself which solution will cause the least harm and enable the greatest amount of role in me? Notice that in that phrase, it's which solution will cause the least harm. The question is not say which solution causes no harm, okay? And we're gonna talk about harm in the second half of this and what that means, but anytime you make a change in the system, in a system that's as complex and intricate as the ones that all of us are working on, somebody walks away with something less than what they have over here, okay? That is technically a harm, but if the offsetting benefit of that to someone else is greater than that, then you have to consider that as a net increase. It's important not to dwell on these, that somebody receives harm out of the change that we make. That's not our goal, obviously, is to do as little harm as possible. But again, we have to be looking at the greatest overall good, okay? But we need to be cognizant of how individuals that may feel harm by the system or may be harm by the system will receive the change in the work that we're doing, okay? Here are our four steps. And so I'm just gonna write some words that I think we'll be talking about as we do each of the four steps, okay? So here's number one. Once your crew remembers number one, what was the first step in critical thinking? Self-compassion. Self-compassion, what is the process of, can you read it in the time frame? Check your illustrations, I'll ask you. Do our two, we have this well-being at the top, or am I dissuaded at the brunt of space, such as greed and the genesis of it? So these are from our glossary, okay? So these things are dealing with putting myself in the right state to make this decision. So let's talk about those a little bit, heedfulness, which is not a word you hear very often, but I think it's a good word, it means a lot to me. So the heedfulness is a recognition that one has the capacity to harm others, both intentionally and unintentionally, and the cautiousness that follows that in order to not do so. So what is this? Heedfulness, when I come home from work and I walk into my kitchen and my wife has been at work all day and she starts complaining about something that happened at work that was really significant to her. And I'm tired and something happened to me too. Right at that moment, something could go terribly wrong, right? And so I'm keyful of that, that right now in this situation, I need to stop and slow down, check my motivations and listen and wait and be part of that partnership. Where resilience is this point where I'm in a point where I'm aware that I'm under stress and I'm aware of the stressors and the pressures that are coming in to my environment and my decision-making process right now. And I put them to the side and I'm kind of in the middle. I'm in that calm space in the middle. Even though I've got problems that are flowing into my office coming on top of me and my kids are calling me at home and the dog needs to go to the vet and it's raining and all that, but I'm still in that middle where I'm saying, okay, I'm focused on what I'm doing and I'm not letting these external issues cloud my judgment. Okay, I'm in my resilience. I'm run making calm, thoughtful decisions. Okay? Last one is self-inquiry. This is the process by which we examine our motivations, our motivations and behaviors and see more clearly the kinds of motivations and behaviors that leads towards genuine happiness for ourselves and for others. And also the kinds of motivations that lead toward greater difficulties in suffering for others. So this is me putting myself in this mode of making a clear headed decision recognizing my biases, recognizing the stresses that are coming in my life, being evil of those, finding my resilience and doing my work, okay? Bias is an important part of the self-inquiry and we'll see this come out as we do our systems work. Coming forward, it is not possible to eliminate bias for your decision-making process. It is possible to recognize the bias and to try to accommodate that and to listen and to give you have a significant bias to find external input from your teammates or from someone else in your group to help you be heedful and give it to that resilience out. Okay? Okay, number two, who wants to read number two? Somebody on this side of the room. Number two, if your motivations are found from the perspective of individual candidates, what is the broader context of the problem? What are the various causes and conditions that have given rise to the problem? Compassion for others. So here's three more words, interdependence. Okay? Interdependence, this one's kind of, this one's an easy one, right? A recognition that individuals are part of a vast ecosystem where they're dependent on other individuals, institutions and the environment to survive and thrive. Okay? So let's talk about a little bit of interdependence that we've already experienced today. So when I, how many of you drove yourself here in a car or got yourself here in somewhere? Right? Where was that process of you driving work today? Where does the interdependencies on other systems? Why has it given me directions? You had to get directions, right? I had to find a map, right? I had to find somebody that knew how to read a map. Right? Or learned how to read a map. I had to buy gas. Which means I had to find a gas station. Which comes from elsewhere. Which comes from elsewhere and which comes from, you know, there's a whole vast network of gas production, right? Right? That's probably the most significant interdependence of all in driving. Is that, is that everybody follows the rules and I trust that you're gonna follow the rules mostly when, when we're driving next to each other. Somebody wants to read the surname. Now we're back. The process of rapidly deciding the most effective means for making up this contribution to the problem being considered. Also known as wisdom. So the process of rationally deciding. So four steps of making a rational choice. So this whole process is critical thinking but it's really a discernment. We are, we are doing the work, educating ourselves, understanding the problem so that we can come to a solution. So, or to a course of action which we hope is a solution. The process of discernment. Okay? Let's talk about systems and systems perspective. So who knows what a system is? We won't read the definition on this one but who knows what a system is? System to name one I think it's like I'm saying as a mechanism of interconnected cars. Yeah. Kind of like the interdependence. That's right. More structure. System is a collection of interdependent components. Right? We've talked about them a little bit already. The system of your car has to all, there's a lot of smaller subsystems in that car that make that overall system work. The system of rows and transportation networks. Right? Yeah. So systems perspective and understanding of all the causes and conditions that contribute to the benefits and harms of the society. So systems perspective is looking at a system breaking it down into its components and then trying to discern how those components interact with each other. And then if I'm going to take action in that system how should I do so to improve the overall benefit of the system? So this is a systems perspective. And that's what we're going to study. That's the process we're going to follow today. Okay? So we're going to do three and four later. We'll read those and we'll do some more of a category because I don't like the category. Okay, so let's talk about the system. So what we're going to do is we're going to choose a system. Our exercise today is we're going to choose a system. Okay, we're going to have one in our minds is to be thinking about a system that maybe you're engaged in, in your work, whether it's your work, your professional work or maybe some volunteer work or some system that you're engaged in and you need to take some action. Okay? And so, and we're going to do the process. We're going to map out that system and then we're going to follow a process of discernment on what is involved in that system. We're going to identify a compassionate ourselves and compassionate inside that system and then we're going to come up with a course of action to take. Okay? This is not binding. You don't have to go back to the office after lunch and look at this. Okay? Unless it's really good and then you should definitely do that. But that's the process we're going to follow. So now for our example process, we need to pick a system. So somebody think of a system. What systems do we have? We talked about one already, the transportation system, right? So that's an option. We could do the transportation system, right? We have our own family systems. We have families, right? These are pretty big. Transportation, families, education, healthcare. Do you think that in 30 minutes we can like map these out and then build that into smaller and, right? So these are definitely systems. But for today, we need to pick smaller ones, okay? For the example that we're going to do. So let's think, instead of transportation, let's think of, say, we could do, what about how our sidewalks or street lights maintained in the city. In our family systems, we can think about, what about, how does childcare come into play or after school care? So let's think about, so for the work that we're gonna do, we definitely don't want these as our system to pick. We want maybe one of these and maybe we even want one of these, okay? Even smaller than this, okay? So as an example, I'm gonna map out a system, okay? And so I'm gonna pick a system and I'm gonna draw a little map and then we're gonna break into groups and you're each gonna draw a map of your system, okay? So we're thinking about kind of what the system is that you think you might want to work on. And then when we're done with our example, we're gonna break into groups and we're gonna find like-minded people who maybe want to work on something similar and then we're gonna dive in and do work, okay? So the problem I have is, and we do a lot of, and I do a lot of work with congregations, faith communities and small nonprofits or small groups of compassionate organizations that are looking to start a program or getting engaged in something, okay? So I'm gonna jump out and say that the system that I'm concerned about is the system of, so I could pick, I could do the system of dental care because we have that, you know, right? And so people need dental work or we could do the system of Project Worth which deals with teen self-worth and teenage pregnancy and other educational components of my life, okay? So I'm gonna say that my congregation, and I'm gonna use the term congregation to mean a group of people that have an interest in the same thing, my congregation is interested in addressing the public issue of teen pregnancy and child care for those young women, okay? That's the problem, that's the system that we wanna get engaged in, okay? But that's a huge system, okay? So I'm just gonna break it down and say that what I wanna do is I want to start a healthcare clinic in my congregation that will help young women and young families with better experiencing early pregnancy or child care after pregnancy. It's called that local women's clinic. So I want to, I'm a congregation and I want to start in my congregation either in my building or close to it with the people in my congregation, I want to start a small local women's clinic, okay? This is what I wanna do. So what are the systems that I'm gonna have to engage with in order to do that? So this is my congregation, it's a group of maybe there's 400 of us in my congregation and we're say we're in the Woodlawn Lake area just to pick one comment down, okay? I wanna do this, okay? So what are the systems that I'm gonna have to engage with? Medical systems. So I'm gonna need the medical professionals, medical and legal systems, okay? What other systems am I gonna have to interact with? How about the 400 members of my congregation, okay? So my congregation, this is really all part of the city this is really all part of the city probably. So here's inspections. For real estate, I'm gonna have to have a place, right? So I'm gonna have to have, so let's call it building, building, parking. So I have other clinics. Parking houses. Yeah, I'm gonna have to get the girls there. I have patients, let's forget them, right? We'll call them patients, but really there are constituents, right? Or some of our constituents. I have, how about the people that live around the clinic? The neighbors. You know, the neighbors, supplies, pharmaceuticals. So now, so this is called a system map, okay? So this is helping us to develop our systems perspective, okay? And so we start with the system that we're working on in the middle. And so we've, the change that we're talking about a change of that we want to create this, or maybe we have one and we want to modify it in some way, or maybe we want to make it bigger or make it smaller or add or remove a program or something like that. So this is in the middle, is the system that we're trying, that we want to make a change to, okay? And so here we look at how can we make these changes? Probably the change that we're gonna make is gonna be inside the system somewhere, but it's gonna require collaboration or a new connection or a disconnection with one of these existing systems or maybe the problem that we're trying to modify is actually being caused or contributed to by one of these other systems or a lack of one of these other systems, okay? So this is helping us develop a systems perspective of what we're talking about, okay? So now, everybody gets to draw their own beautiful systems map, okay? It's a hard choice. I know, but does the almost smaller you make this? The more effective it's going to be. So I'm gonna give you two examples that have been used prior, right? One was from the mayor and his team. And they chose communication between the council members. Communication between the council members. We did another one at our offices and the system they looked at was the reception desk and the lobby. So if this is gonna be real beneficial, I really encourage you to also be in teams where you can think of something very real in the system where you work, that how you work together in that office within that system or within that particular program what role does education play and how is that going? And is there something that needs to be tweaked and it becomes more compassionate? Are you following me? We almost have taken too big, I mean, we talked about health care systems. One of the smaller systems that I look at up here is how is this congregation gonna feel about it? I mean, I would, from my perspective, right? I would even want to be looking at how this conversation is gonna work towards this and I would be maybe looking at that system and mapping it. A mini system even within a larger system. That's right, that's right. I don't think we necessarily need that system. So this is part of the process. Again, we're following a process of systems perspective by recognizing the broader system that we're in and the smaller components and how huge it is, and then we're following this process of discernment, okay? So, let's talk about our systems. I want to share a little bit. So, everybody's gonna go around. I want you to take maybe 60 seconds or so to kind of say what your system is and kind of give us a break out of the different subsystems that you've identified, okay? In our group, we had this reoccurring the rare accord, if you will, of stigma and people's reluctance to take advantage or utilize care, regardless of the chronic disease, illness or services that's being offered at Mitchell Hill. And so, in order to prevent that, working in a little bit, we decided to address stigma against PrEP and banked communities. And some of our teachers- And what is PrEP? PrEP is a medicine that you take to prevent contracting HIV or AIDS. And so, we decided to use that more because we know that it's- That there's a stigma? It's controversial. And there's a stigma in the bank community. So, we said that some things that would be needed is education, family support, research, funding, clergy, counselors, support groups, ambassadors, folk persons living with HIV to kind of say, you know, I've dealt with this and I would do it this way and you should do it this way. And you should be open and community leaders and medical professionals. Yes. Very good, that's great. So, we talked about communication within the oral health division. And so, pretty much there's three different teams or groups within the oral health division. And so, just talking about the communication piece of that, so what does that look like with staff and how it involves management, front-line supervisors, also with our partners. So, that would be external. The dental clinics that we work collaboratively with, internal, which would be like legal, IT, kids, parents, or the people that we're serving, and then departmental. So, that would kind of be like HR and other areas there. Just different types of communication. So, there's obviously verbal communication and what that comprehension looks like when it's received, how we're directing the messaging. And then, communication styles through emails and then, of course, the meetings, how we collaborate our meetings and then how they get kind of cycled down. So. That's great. So, I think that's awesome. I think when you sort of start talking about staff and emails, I think you also have to get into the different communication preferences of individuals' emails versus maybe a texting platform or a chat type of platform, like Slack or something like that. I don't think that, you know, what is the natural process of communication for each of those people? So, that's very good. All right, good job. So, we thought we were gonna take off something really bite-sized and it was about the lack of storage of supplies, right? So, I thought this would be the perfect size fitting. However, so what we identified really and some contributors to this is, you know, just the building the space, the office space for others, the organization of supplies, the access and safety, the communication among staff using our own purchasing and fiscal operations into purchasing those supplies, our funding sources, such as the grantees, such as city councils, such as how state allocates, such as how federal allocates are, how the stocking of supplies and utilization of them, the expiration date of supplies, our schools, our head starts, our families of our children, the risk management facilities of that. So, there you go. So, that's the great start. So, now the next two pieces we're gonna talk about, we're gonna go through a process of discernment and self-inquiry and thank you so much. Are you trying to do that or are you trying to do the influence? You are so, I'm trying to do that process. I'm looking into these subsystems and kind of trying to, with a lens of compassion to try to understand them more as we begin to make a change to our system. So, the ultimate goal here is we want to change the system in some way that does the least amount of harm and the greatest amount of good. Okay, so the next sets of exercises are gonna be more inspection of our systems and then some discussion of changes and then one change that you wanna make. So, in order to make one change, you need to think of a few that are candidates and then you'll settle on one. So, that will be the rest of the conversation that we do, okay? With bill. Well, with bill. So, okay? So, we're gonna go through that in two steps, starting, good work. So, we're gonna let those simmer a little bit, and so we're gonna come and kind of layer a little bit more into this, right? So, the next thing that we're gonna be talking about is our common humanity, which I think we also somewhat experienced just now by listening at the complexity of these systems, right? Like we get anything, right? All over a woman. So, I'm gonna invite you into an internal exercise. So, I wanna invite you to a memory, a real memory, and you're not gonna be sharing this with others. So, try to get to the realist one that you can think of, right? To a real memory when, when, and it could have happened five minutes ago, five days ago, five weeks ago, five years ago, whenever in your life, right? So, some encounter, experience in your life where you felt, where you experienced that you weren't totally seen as you. That could have been with another individual. Could have been at work, could have been at home. Could have been one of those traumatic moments when you were much younger. I don't know, but where it was something rough happened in your life. And it impacted you on a very personal level. It was your experience. Now, to think for a moment, you could get into that experience. I remember who that was with, what was happening. And then I'm ready to think about how are you feeling inside of your body right now? And so if you could maybe share just the feelings. What are some of the things that you're feeling? Fearful. Fearful. Inadequate. Inadequate. Grudge. I'm sorry? A grudge. A grudge, resentful. So, now I invite you to another internal experience. Again, five minutes, five days, five years, whenever. But another specific experience in your life, personal, where you were seen for who you are. And again, to think about that experience in its fullness. Who was there? Maybe what was said. Joyful. Value. Valued. Competent. Competent. Confidence. This is what happens to humans, right? This is our common humanity. And so we know what that feels like when we've not been treated well. The way we wish not to be treated. Or when we have been treated, the way we wish to be treated. That, see where we're headed with this? That we all experience that. That's part of our common humanity. You'll notice, I mean, we introduced ourselves. Just pass these around and take one. We did introduce ourselves. And we, yes, are going to do our name tags. But this is gonna be an exercise. I invite you on that name tag, just to write your first name in, you know, fairly large letters. So I'm gonna make my name tag up here. Labels generally aren't always helpful. Can be helpful. I don't know, you know, what your name is because I can see that on your, that's helpful, right? But when we label each other in one form or another, it also impacts us. I can't impact us in a very long-term way, right? So some labels, the next part of the exercise is to write on your name tag all the many labels. And if you don't wanna write them all out, you can always, you know, just for yourself, you could always put like a first letter to a word in a space. So you know what that label is for yourself, right? Because there are some things that we don't always wanna share, right? And they're not gonna be sharing, but it's gonna be on your label, right? It's gonna stick to you. Because that's kind of what labels do. For better or for worse. And so it's labels here, but it's also the labels we can give others. Both stick, right? So some labels that I've heard in my life along the way. And so, you know, if I really do this exercise, I'd probably spend, it'd be endless, right? You know, so I'm things like a label. I'm mom, right? I love my grandkids. They call me Grant, and it's a play on words because we like words, so, that's funny. Could also be descriptions. I've been told I'm creative. I've also been told that sometimes that I'm too much for a room. You get the idea, right? What we're looking for. So both positive and negative? Yes, because that's part of our humanity, right? Labels that you've heard other people say to you or you've been told, or this is your thing, right? But this is also your life and part of common humanity is that we receive labels, those kinds of things, negatively, positively. They can stick with us, they can go away, I don't receive them, then they show up again. They do show up, you know. So as many as you can think of around your name. So if you remember, too, at the beginning, you talked about, again, compassion and the importance of knowing this. So that's what that exercise is about, knowing all of that. But now, the next step, as you recall, is that compassion towards others. So you've got these little tablets around there. On this piece of paper, we're gonna take 60 seconds. And we're gonna see who can come up with the most on this list. Every negative label that we give to other people or you have ever heard. So, you know, like, how did it feel to be doing that? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. How did it feel? How did it feel to be doing that? Embarrassing. Embarrassing. Embarrassing, yeah. There's this, I got it. Okay, next piece of paper. You guys can do so much better than this. Come on, 16 is nothing, all right? We're doing another 60 seconds. All the most wonderful labels that you can think of that we've ever given another human being on this planet. Ready, set, go. So how did that make you feel when you were making that list? Happy. Happy. Energized. It was easier for those to roll off the top. Some of you ever missed it? Huh? In fact, you ever made it to the top. It was also cute, you were right. So those labels that weren't positive, that was harder, it probably took more energy, right? But then when we came back with the positive levels, you just experienced that energy flow that we're talking about. Got it? Right, now, that's common humanity. We all got that stuff going on, all of it. It happens to us, and we also do it to others. We're all in that same mix. We hold those things in common. Now the other thing, and I know that Bill's gonna talk about it a little bit, but I wanna give you two images of impartiality. And if you look at your glossary again, under the eyes, the eyes have it, under impartiality, as Bill has already mentioned, there's no way that we can totally get rid of our bites, right? But when we're making these kinds of decisions and systems, impartiality is essential. Which, this one's probably the biggest step you'll ever take, is to be impartial like with your own family system. That's a tough, that's a tough one, I know that. So these are the two images, so I kinda invite your imaging machine up here a little bit, but imagine, let's say a field of a garden. Okay, just imagine a garden, and it has rows of planted carrots. Do we have any gardeners in here? We have some gardeners. So when a gardener is taking care of this garden of carrots, does the gardener have one favorite carrot? Or, is the gardener doing their best to have all these carrots like, row, right? Right, so there's you know, like weeding, and watering, these things that are happening, impartially for the greater good of the garden of carrots. So that gardener wants all those carrots to be beautiful and perfect and wonderful and young. Now that might not happen to all of them, right? Because we know things happen, harm happens. Rabbits happen. Rabbits happen, things happen. But the gardener, the map maker, when you're looking at a system with compassion, it's to look at it as a whole system and care for all that are involved there, to be as impartial as possible. That doesn't mean that you become sterile about it. It's not like that. But it's like going for the greatest of good for the whole system, impartiality, it's essential. Another image is the sun. So when the sun shines, no matter where it's shining, it's like shining on everyone impartially, right? It's shining on everyone, same image. So when you look at that system, for better or for worse, I mean, back in the day, it was always a demand. It was part of the system. It's the system's problem. Only the system, but the system is made of people. And whether we like it or not, we help create systems, we participate in systems, we can be complicit in systems, we can make that we're part of it. So that whole look of impartiality and recognizing that most people, because it's a part of our DNA, most people are giving their very best effort into making that system something good. But stuff happens that are rabbits. Stuff happens. But when we're looking at a system to enter compassion into it, the look is to be as impartial as possible. What is the greatest good that we can be about here? That doesn't mean it doesn't end up coming with some harm and some sacrifice. But the greatest good, where as many people as possible and the outcome can be most positive into the world. So, going back to our critical thinking process, our four steps. Which step were we just working on when we were talking about coming to man? One and two. One and two, right? So we're looking at this common humanity. We're being evil, we're getting our resilience on, we're recognizing our own bias, we're recognizing when we're putting negative labels and when we're putting positive labels, we're putting undeserved labels or deserved labels on these systems. So we're recognizing our bias and we're trying to put ourselves into the right place, with the right motivations to make the change. And then we're also getting further into the interdependence and how these systems are involved. All right, so we're gonna do more terms, but real quick, we're gonna do real quick exercises. We're gonna count the number of people that are involved in our system, okay? And so this is, you don't have to be perfect. There's not the senses, right? So we're gonna count the number of people that are engaged in our system. So in other seminars we've done, when we've done this, we've had some really great outcomes. So the mayor sits on the council, there's 11 of them, and the mayor and 10 council members. And he was talking about communication between the mayors, between the council people, the mayor and the council people in that council chamber. And so we asked him, talk about how many people are involved in and activeized communication. And so obviously we were on top, there's a lot, right? And then they asked to have a lot of fun. So we think the number was that he came up with at the end. How many people are involved in the communication of those 11 individuals in that room? Two, there are a lot of individuals. 300,000. 1,000? No, no, no. He said 1.2 million. He said there are 1.2 million that are either benefit or harm from the communication processes that we follow in this room. That's a recognition of interdependence. We did a similar story where we talked about, we talked about a program for assigning mentors to high school kids. So one school assigning mentors to high school kids and they had like 600 people just to get mentors to maybe 40 or so high school kids in this one campus. That's a lot. So I tried to count mine. So everybody's gonna do this on yours. So I'll show you what I did. I just went through real quick and just kind of all parked it. So my congregation has about 400 people in it. It's a big congregation. I figure in the city of San Antonio that I'm gonna interact with maybe 10 people in co-compliance. Maybe there's 50 people in the licensing department. Maybe 25 people that are involved in the inspections of medical facilities. Maybe I'm gonna have 20 medical professionals and maybe another 20 staff members that come in. Maybe I'm gonna serve 300 patients a year and 6,000 people that I'm either going to interact with I'm going to potentially help. I could potentially help from what I'm doing here. So 6,000 people. So now I invite you on your list in 30 seconds. So go through on each box and write down a number. Just come up with a reasonable guess. Okay, so let's go around. So let's start here off the top of your head. So you're talking about stigma around PrEP and faith communities. How many people do you think are affected by this? At least 500. 500, at least 500. And that's okay. 16,500, okay. And you're talking about communication inside the department of family. How many people are working in the department of family? So you have the department of 50. Because they serve a lot of people. And so yes, and those, the communication between those 50 people. Impacts. Or requires the input of or potentially benefits or harms 16,500 people. So tens of thousands easily. So now we picked really small systems, didn't we? To map out where we tried. And we already found out that thousands and thousands of people. Now as we begin, this is part of our discernment process. One, we are now beginning to recognize that these systems, this bubble calls email and meeting and communication and storage room and building maintenance and legal department. But these are really people inside there. And we need to humanize and individualize these systems a little bit. So that we can introduce, make sure that we're introducing compassion that we're acting in a way that we, if we were those people that we would want to be treated. And the flip side of that, that we do not treat them in a way that we don't want to be treated. Okay. All right, so that's the count. So let's go back to some terms. And then we'll go on to the next exercise. So terminology. So number three, if we talk about number seven, number three in our critical thinking process was based on the broader understanding of our individuals, we're in a resilient place. We are free from bias and harsh thinking. We've started to understand our system and the interaction of those systems. We started to humanize and individualize that system. And now we're saying, what choices do I have and what are the likely outcomes of each? And so now we start talking about terminology of we're going to go back to discernment again. We're going to talk about epistemic humility, which I include this just because I think it's a cool phrase, but it's very useful. Epistemic humility, we're talking about ferrito. We're talking about contentment. And then we're going to talk a little bit about harm, okay? So first of all, epistemic humility. Who wants to read the definition? Humility with regard to our own point of view and all we know is we can never know, including an openness to new ideas and perspectives. I don't know everything. I don't even know what I don't know, but at least I know that I don't know, all right? This, everybody get that? Should I say it again? Cause I don't think I can. So this is epistemic humility. We're engaging in a system that we don't fully understand, that we can never fully understand, but we're going, we have to act. We have to do something. And so we have to come forward recognizing that we don't necessarily have all the facts that we may need to make a decision, but we're going to move forward, okay? And but we're going to follow our critical thinking process to make sure that we are recognizing that and letting that influence us in a positive way. What about the Pareto? Here it is, I'll read it. It's named after the Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto. The principal states that approximately 80% of the effects of the results of 20% of the costs. So this is the 80-20 world, right? So again, here we're after probably 20% of the system that we've mapped out is causing 80% of the impact of the system, which means we've identified a lot of components that are involved, but we're looking for the ones that are most involved. This also comes down to the issue of likely to occur, because remember in number three, if you read number three again, it says based on our broader understanding, ask what choices do I have and what are the likely outcomes of each choice? So we're back at the Pareto principle. Me being in a terrible car accident is not likely. So this, we're probably in action that I take is not going into that. So 80% of the impact is coming from 20% of the system. So we need to keep that in mind that even though all these people are involved, some are more involved, some are less involved, but everybody's involved. Let's talk about harm. Where do we say harm? What comes to mind when we say harm? Pain, sadness, right? It could also just mean that I had something and now I don't have it anymore. So maybe I had a parking space in front of the building and now I don't have a parking space in front of the building. That's technically harm. That's not significant harm, unless I struggle to walk and now that's maybe significant harm. So, but that's harm or maybe I used to, I only had used to only have to wait in line for 15 minutes. Now I have to wait in line for 25 minutes. That's harm. Okay, so you have certain types of harm. So we have direct harm, which is a harm that is directly caused by the system. So me having to wait in line for twice as long as I used to, that's a direct harm. So we can talk about harm in more visceral ways as well. I mean, actual injury, actual physical harm, mental harm. Those are relevant in all of the work that we do. I don't wanna dwell on those. We need to consider those as part of the work that we're doing, but I think the conversation gets a little dark when you start talking about those. So I think we need to remember that physical and real emotional harm can come from these changes as well. You want to minimize and avoid all of the physical harm that you can, but it's not possible to do that. And then you're also looking at the notion of equity versus equality, okay? I mean, if I, if I, if my, we all park in front of the building, but I can't park close to the door anymore, but now we all park the same distance away. I mean, that didn't really hurt me. I can walk. I can make that trick, because I'm healthy, I can walk easily. But some, but another individual who maybe can't walk that distance that now, now we are all equal because we all have to park 1,000 yards from the building, but that's less detrimental to me than it is to someone else. Okay, this other person really needs that more than I do. Okay, and so, so we're not, we don't have the same thing. We were both harmed in the same way, but the harm was, was inflicted worse or more at a greater degree on that other individual than the family. Okay, so now we're both equal, but we don't have, we don't have the same access to two of them, okay? Harm can be direct to an individual. It can be, this system caused me to be harmed in some way. The harm can also be structural. So the system, you know, I can go and I can walk up to you and I can pinch you on the shoulder and that's a direct harm on my arm. So that's a direct harm. That's me harming you. Structural harm can be the system. So the system can harm me. The referral system is a collection of people that put together a process that are trying to refer individuals to a resource that they need, but that system itself can inflict harm. That's not an individual. There was not an individual who said, we're gonna increase the referral time by two hours and as a result, we're gonna hurt someone. That was not the choice that an individual made. That was the system, the structure of that system that caused that, okay? But we have to recognize where the origins of these harm are. And then we have this notion of cultural harm. These are the much broader systems in our culture that kind of allow us to accept a system that could cause harm like that. So this comes into the notion of stigma. Stigma is a cultural thing. So stigma towards people that are in need of mental health care, it allows us to support a referral system with less money and fewer resources that can cause harm and we're okay with that as a culture because we have this stigma against that. So harm can come from all of these places. One, a single individual causing direct harm against another person. A system just through its kind of inhuman, less than individual nature causing harm or the culture or the society that allows an inefficient and harmful system to go without being changed, okay? So we think about harms. They come in many forms and many shapes. They're unavoidable but we can mitigate them and we can work to reduce them. Also keep in mind it's not a zero sum. The referral system, individuals can, in part of a change there, individuals might experience harm or less effective service. But you can, but it's not a zero sum. There's not a fixed amount of harm or fixed amount of good in that system. You can change the system and increase the harm or decrease the harm and increase the good, hopefully not decrease the good in different proportions. So we can make a change that lowers the overall net harm that comes out of the system and increases the overall positive benefit that comes out of the system. So these are not zero sum, okay? So that's important to keep in mind that just it's not the balloon. You squeeze it one end and the other end gets bigger, okay? We can increase and decrease at different proportions, okay? Lastly is contentment. So if we read number four, the last step on the decision-making process is which solution will cause the least harm and enable the greatest amount of well-being? Cause the least harm and enable the greatest amount of well-being? And I have to make a decision and I have to arrive at a level of contentment that I have done this to the best of my ability and that I have followed my process and that I am free of bias and free of judgment and free of improper thinking. I've recognized the interdependence, I've humanized this, I've been honest about the benefits and the harms and I'm gonna go. Okay, so at some point you have to decide. The opposite of contentment would be what we call analysis process, right? Where I'm so afraid to make a decision that I don't do anything, which by the way is a decision, okay? All right, so we counted our, everybody got this, any questions about this or comments, right? Okay, so now we're gonna do two steps. We're going to come back to our systems and we're gonna individualize and humanize each of these systems. Cause these systems are really full of people and then we're going to come up with a change. How are we gonna change the system to improve the harm or to decrease the harm to improve the benefit, okay? You can edit that last mistake. Okay, so let's talk about, let's humanize, okay? So let's talk about, now let's just pick one. So let's talk about my congregation. Let's, when we humanize them, we talk about their desires and their fears and the benefits and the harms that they are gonna receive from this system. So let's talk about desires. What do they want? They want to be helpful, right? They wanna be helpful. So I'm just gonna write here and you won't be able to read this, but you'll get the idea from where we're doing. You'll be able to read it at your tables. They wanna be helpful. They want to live. They wanna be good neighbors, right? What else? Supportive. They want supportive, 400 of them. So maybe they're not all that way. Some of them are generous. Maybe they're also worried about what this is gonna do to their neighborhood and to their community. They have some fear they're concerned about. Maybe they're concerned about people coming into their neighborhood that weren't there before. They just are afraid of change. Even though I'm generous and I wanna help, I'm fearful that something bad will happen here. And maybe the congregation is generous, but maybe I struggle personally. And I'm not, and I don't have anything extra. So maybe my congregation wants to be generous, but I'm struggling and I want to appear generous, but I can't be. And so I have that conflict. What do you think that they, how do you think that they are benefited by having a health clinic? There might be some women in the congregation that may not support now or may have needed it in the past. So they may feel compelled to help now. Compelled. Maybe they have empathy or maybe they even have direct experience with this themselves. So they have first-hand knowledge. How are they benefited? So they're benefited because maybe they get, maybe they are patient so they can receive care. So maybe medical professional can provide service and becomes fulfilled. So they receive that benefit out of that. How can they be harmed? Maybe that medical professional, maybe something goes wrong and they, and someone is injured or dies in their clinic. And so now maybe there's a lawsuit. It could be perceived as a financial drain on this. It's financial drain, right? They have less money for other things that are going into their congregation. We're gonna have about 10 minutes and I want you to pick a couple of the bubbles and I want you to humanize them. And probably be thinking about the changes or the improvements, the changes that you want to make to the system and maybe work on the bubbles that are around those areas, okay? So let's take another one. Sometimes they'll want to tear it back. Okay. There's the annoying time period again. Okay, so this practice, you would normally go through as deeply as this as you can. Okay. Once you humanize, take away the inhumanity of the system, trying to be impartial to the people that are in the system, recognizing the way that you see them is the way that others might see them. That when it might be different from you, recognizing what their fears are, how they are potentially harmed or benefit from the system as it is. And then as from the change that you were gonna make. Okay. So now, so now is the end. So now that you have gone through one, we've put ourselves in a good place. We've mapped out the interdependence, we recognize that. We've thought through the individual people in the system, the potential harms, the potential benefits. So now we're gonna talk about changes. So your assignment for your last assignment for the exercise, which we'll do in maybe, we're gonna do it in maybe five or six minutes. I know it's not long, but then, and then we're gonna share these back, okay? What is one change that you want to make to the system? And what benefit will it cause to the people in the system? Benefit will it provide? What will it provide? How will it improve the system? What benefit will it, how will it benefit the system as well as the people in the system? And then what are the potential harms that might come from that, okay? So one change. So my change in this, for example, I think instead of going alone, I think I'm gonna form a partnership with someone. So instead of starting from scratch, I'm going to find a partner and I'm going to open as a satellite of their clinic in an agreement for maybe two years, okay? I think that's the change I'm gonna make. The benefit I get is that I get started faster. I reduce the potential that my congregation is gets into something that's bigger than they bargained for. And it will give them more confidence. I have more confidence. I have easier access to people. I have easier access to learning. I'm just better because I'm benefiting from someone else's experience. That's that, what's the potential downfall? Is that I wind up doing it the way that this clinic is doing it and that my congregation has something else in mind and now they don't want that or maybe this clinic focuses on something slightly different. And we were trying to help a particular kind of patient that now we're not helping. That's a potential harm. But that's my choice. That's what I'm gonna do. And I've arrived at that through a meaningful process of discernment and reflection and I'm content that that's the right choice that I'm gonna do. All right, so five, six minutes, one change. Can we give you one more example? Yeah, one more example. That's really small. Remember that reception desk in the lobby? What would happen sometimes or does happen sometimes is that people have been routed there from other places like that's the place they're supposed to be and they've taken buses to get there. And then of course you know what happens then. So what they decided to do was get bus passes so that when somebody was routed incorrectly and then they were frustrated which also didn't help the person who's working at the front desk, right? Not fun, right? That the apology can come and helping where they really need to be. And here's a bus pass that's gonna be more than you actually need to get to that next destination. So those one things can be a partnership or a bus pass. I know that that was not nearly enough time and we kind of ended our three hours together. You can only leave that. And so I wanna have a chance to kind of hear some of what started. And then just point out that we did this work and we came up with the first change, one change. The work would typically be let's come up with several of those and then let's decide. So this thing that we did once if you want to keep going on this do another one, do another one. Go deeper into one of the individual systems identifying the people and the human beings and that make another change. And then you have some things to choose from. You don't know if you're choosing the best thing if you did not choose something, right? So let's real quick, we don't have a lot of time. I wanna hear in three sentences what's the change you're gonna make, what is the benefit and what is the potential harm? Who wants to share? I don't think we can get everybody to do what's due. Let's do office supplies, not office supplies. Supplies for the organization. I think if we just delegate one person to organize then that'll be their responsibility, not everybody's looking for something. We're gonna have a supplies arc. Okay, and what is the potential benefit of that? Yeah, to organize. Okay, people are gonna get what they need, it's gonna be cheaper. What is the potential harm that we're gonna be doing now? So just off the top of your head, maybe I'm not in charge so I can't buy a particular brand of thing that I like anymore. So we've standardized across the agency, but now the thing that I was using in my department is no longer made available to me. I have something else that should be just as good. Okay, who else? And the one change was nurse led counsels. Okay. And one benefit to that would be consistency and support staff and also in clinic health. The downfall would be taking those staff away from their physicians or jobs that they're doing every day. But because it would be one nurse to every committee, so that it's led by nurse. That's what it should be. So you have more, a professional that's engaged in the system that can open up the insight. If we get more buy-in, if it's a nurse led versus I'm leading it, I'm just one person on a challenge. If we get the nurses to lead a council, they'll buy in, they'll get more staff on board and get more participation. But we may be pulling them away from other, when we have these council meetings, but we have lots of meetings in our hospitals. So I don't know if it will be perceived as much of a harm as because committee meetings are pretty normalcy. So that's a real harm. I'm a nurse and I spend less time nursing a patient. That's a verifiable harm, but the overall benefit is the time that I'm there, I'm more effective because I have more support structure behind me and I'm able to spread that across dozens of more individuals. Okay, very good. So if we had another hour, we could really dig into a couple of options here. But I think the idea is planned, okay? This is a process, I would hope that you would continue to, if this is a project you're working on, continue to work on this, come up with other potential changes, other potential ideas, and maybe take action on this. All right, any questions? Thoughts? Okay, I'll turn it back over to Angel. One, again, we know that three hours just were like scratching it, right, the surface. We're gonna give you, here we go. I'm gonna pass these around. This comes from, again, an organization out of Atlanta, and this is a very small flyer, and I'm not trying to sell you on it in any way, I'm trying to help. One thing that they have, they've done actually two things. In January, they are going to start an online course that will be weekly, and it'll be 10 weeks long. And so you can go through the entire training online, in depth, the full thing. Is the website on there? This should be a website. How many hours? It's a total of about between 24 and 27 hours total. You do two hours every week. But you can look at that, you can go online. The other thing that they do too, that anybody who's gone through that, they can also become a facilitator, and they also have online, and when I say online, it's interactive as well. They're using Zoom, so you interact. So you can also become a facilitator through that model. We're still building that locally, so that we can do that, but it's also a fast track to get there, because kind of the beautiful thing that could happen. So how many people do you, just in your... Let's say 50. 50 people. So although we could plan a time for 50 people, we could do this three hours. I think we could do it with 50 people, but we have to kind of think about it. But you're gonna get so much more, I think, if you had, say, several somebodies in the department who have become facilitators, and they can move that as broadly as you want, whenever you want, continually, and run it, you know, those two hours for 10 weeks, and you just keep doing it all the time, right? That could be huge. So I encourage you to look at that resource and what it might offer. I hope that you have really great days. Thank you, Rhoda, for sharing. To expand compassion. Thank you. Thank you.