The Four Levels of Happiness^®

Happiness is the only goal that people pursue for its own sake, which makes it an ideal lens for explaining why people and organizations behave as they do. The Four Levels of Happiness model shows leaders how to elevate the powerful drive for happiness and direct it toward shared goals, strong ethics, and great performance. Click here for a full description of the Four Levels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Major Catholic Health Care System DEEMs the “Journey” a Trip Worth Taking

Like any large organization built on a mission of helping people, the Sisters of Charity Leavenworth Health System (SCLHS) needs mission-driven employees to succeed. Towards that end, the Catholic, faith-based network of 13 hospitals and clinics has deployed the Journey to Excellence program to help strengthen its broader employee development strategy.

Winifred Williams, Ph.D.

“We were introduced to Fr. Spitzer’s program about two years ago,” says Winifred Williams, Ph.D., the system’s Director of Education & Organizational Development. Williams was asked to preview JTE to assess how well it dovetailed with existing development initiatives in progress across the SCLHS system. She found that “the Four Levels of Happiness® and the overall concept of Journey to Excellence aligned very nicely with our own initiative called DEEM, which stands for Deepening Employee Engagement and Mission.”

That initial assessment was followed by a pilot program involving 35 participants drawn from the health system’s main office in Lenexa, Kansas, and two other Kansas facilities, Providence Medical Center/St. John Hospital and St. Francis Health Center in Topeka. “As a result of conducting the pilot, we decided that Journey to Excellence offered a unique and wonderful opportunity to strengthen our overall organizational capability,” Williams said. “It also provided a very enriching personal development experience for the participants.”

Smiling Faces and Nodding Heads

Journey to Excellence is a flexible program that organizations can tailor to their own needs and practices. The SCL Health System elected to extract the core messages of JTE and integrate them into some of their existing team training and personal development programs.

“Your ability to lead depends on how well you are centered and grounded yourself,” Williams observes. “It’s difficult to provide coaching, counseling, and a sense of peace and direction to others if you do not have those qualities embodied personally.” The goal of the development programs at SCLHS is to help managers “find peace within themselves, leverage that quality, and focus not on immediate gratification but on moving forward to a higher sense of purpose to fulfill their calling. That is really key for us in the business that we are in. We are looking for those individuals who are focused on mission and serving a higher calling. The Spitzer Center curriculum blends very nicely in supporting that objective.”

Feedback from SCL Health      System employees on the      Journey to Excellence "I thought it provoked wonderful conversations that could be easily adapted to our individual institutions." "Love it! Very thought provoking, yet able to relate it to real life immediately." "A very different look at what makes us happy. It really opened my eyes." "I feel I learned a lot about myself, people in general, and human nature. I truly enjoyed it and plan to study it more." "Excellent – I wish more people could hear this, especially young people in schools." "This program is (hopefully) going to change the way I make decisions. I say hopefully because it might take some time to make this a habit." "Very insightful and helped me to think how I can relate to my co-workers better." "Very helpful in answering questions and identifying solutions for leadership in the organization."   "Excellent program – it really tied together and gave structure to many things I have heard before."

How have the participants responded to the message of JTE?  “As I look across the room, I see heads nodding and faces smiling,” Williams said. “When I ask for feedback, people will often say that they have had similar thoughts and reflections, but they didn’t know how it all came together until they heard it articulated in the training sessions. The Spitzer Center’s framework provides a way to pull it all together mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.”

Williams said that the system’s initial focus has been on the personal aspects of JTE and helping individuals to pursue higher levels of happiness and purpose. “We have not expanded the material to drive cultural transformation to date, but we want to move forward in that direction for the future. We are moving toward integration with another health system, and we want to make sure that our new colleagues are able to assimilate smoothly into our SCLHS culture. The strategy will be to introduce the same framework that we have started to use in SCLHS. Accordingly, we will focus on how the four levels can influence the overall culture.”

The health system conducted a JTE “train-the-trainer” session last year “so that we would have individuals available at each site with the skills to continue to move the program forward,” said Williams. The material is being used in conjunction with other programs or as stand-alone “brown bag” luncheon presentations that introduce employees to the core concepts.

“The entire program is a transformational process, so it requires an appropriate amount of time to understand, accept, and internalize the concepts and then apply them,” says Williams. “We want to take it into smaller groups so that employees have an opportunity to really share what JTE means to them and grasp the concepts. The ultimate goal is for participants to take JTE back and talk among their coworkers to instill a certain level of interest and anticipation.” 

Williams adds that, “The feedback we have received on our survey responses has been overwhelmingly positive. Our employees are attracted to programs that incorporate an aspect of personal development, and the Journey to Excellence program fits very nicely with these expectations.”

By John Keenan, Editor

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Last changed: Jan 25 2010 at 1:38 PM