Monday morning report

© Imelda Maurer, cdp August 3,2015
ilmcdp@yahoo.com

It’s like homecoming week here at the Pioneer Network Conference.  You know the experience of seeing old friends once again.  And the friends I connect with here at this conference are a source of a special delight because they all have in common their efforts in and their commitment to the journey to Culture Change.

Last evening I had a long visit with Karen Schoenemann.  Karen retired recently from the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services where she directed that part of the agency that wrote nursing home regulations. Karen is also a founder of The Pioneer Network. She tells the story of that meeting, summarizing it by saying that when she joined this circle of Pioneers (truly pioneers for life-giving change for our elders) she was so delighted and uplifted: “I finally found my tribe!” I identify with that too each year as the changing-yet-stable group gathers once again in pursuit of such noble goals.

 Yesterday’s workshop with LaVrene Norton and Megan Hannan was very rich.  Just one thought this morning.  It comes from the book, “Breakpoint and Beyond: Mastering the Future Today by George Land and Beth Jarman which LaVrene pointed to several times.  “The springs don’t push the river. Gravity pulls the river to its future.”

The implication of this the authors tell us is that “when enough people in an organization are prompted by a powerful purpose to commit to a shared vision, they are drawn to it like water to gravity.”