EW Tibbs offers up personal strategies he uses to guide himself as a human being and also as a leader.

He explores how using memories and relationships translate directly to:
Improved work ethic;
Commitment to learn;
Having a deep compassion for others;
and a commitment to bring passion and energy into every interaction.

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The question of why some communities and companies grow and prosper, while others shrink or even cease to exist, has intrigued me for decades. Theories exist with no single one applicable to every situation. Two variables stand out to me as “must-haves” to ensure community vitality.

1. Access to high-quality healthcare, and
2. Access to high-quality K-12 education

As a registered nurse I have focused on the delivery of and access to high quality healthcare for the last 28 years. Having cared for patients at critical times in their lives, I have consistently seen how reliable access to affordable, preventive and restorative healthcare services is critical to community health, especially for vulnerable or indigent populations.

My focus on quality and access in healthcare for all populations broadened during my tenure working with large geographies and populations as an experienced healthcare CEO and as a member of numerous boards of directors.

The ability to recruit, develop and retain human talent is essential to the success of any company, and healthcare is no exception. My experience suggests that since 2011, it has become harder to recruit and retain human talent based on each region’s overall access and quality of K-12 education.

In my rural area of Virginia, from a healthcare perspective, recruiting nationally and internationally was challenging for all types of careers, from entry-level professionals, through senior leadership positions. I attributed the recruiting issues to fierce competition over a finite talent pool, but exit interviews and feedback from existing employees and prospective employees indicated that a significant concern was the quality of K-12 education in my area.

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Since the 1990s, I used the nursing process (assessing, diagnosing, planning, implementing, and evaluating) plus a healthy dose of human resiliency in healthcare leadership and my personal life. Little did I know that this training would benefit me when I least expected it. In September 2018, Hurricane Florence made landfall on the coast of North Carolina and with it permanently changed the residents’ lives. Homes were swept away and people feared how they would provide something as simple as the next meal for their families. My family was fortunate because our home only sustained minor structural damage; the only major damage was losing our dock. With hard work, determination and a disciplined process, the dock was transformed into something even better than it was in its previous state.

The nursing process started in the form of preparation. Before the storm hit, we boarded all windows and doors, turned off all utilities and prayed that no one would be injured as we drove away to ride out the storm in Virginia. The process continued as my wife, Angie, and I left to return to North Carolina and assess the damage. We loaded our utility trailer with fuel, building materials, food, water and shelter. By determining safe, accessible travel routes within 24 hours of the storm and leaving the area kept us safe. Constant reassessment of changing travel conditions kept us alert and ready. No planning in the world could have prepared us for the devastation that we would see. When we arrived at our home, we found the lower level destroyed, the main level exposed to the elements, debris as far as you could see, and only broken poles where our boat dock and pier had stood.

Hurricane Florence met the nursing process in North Carolina. Constant implementation of the process (assessing, diagnosing, planning, implementing and evaluating) ensured that the right steps were taken in a structured and manageable fashion. Florence Nightingale is widely known as the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale said “Rather, ten times die in the surf, heralding the way to a new world, than stand idly on the shore.” Over 110 years after her death, and throughout the Hurricane Florence recovery process, Florence Nightingale was a beacon of hope in my life.

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