Book Excerpt June 12, 2009, 2:15PM EST

Book Excerpt: The Purpose Linked Organization (Part 2)

In an excerpt from their new book, The Purpose Linked Organization, Alaina Love and Marc Cugnon relate the story of a professional who finally was able to align purpose and passion

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A company with a well-defined purpose and passionate employees who share it can unleash a megawatt boost of employee enthusiasm that can only be born when purpose and passion align. Unfortunately, this is a resource that most companies are not tapping into nearly enough. And, as we'll see in the coming pages, it's a widely available asset that requires nothing more from the organization than an outlet for its expression.

Karen Bankston, Ph.D., is the senior vice-president and head of the Drake Center, a specialized long-term acute care hospital that is located on the same site with a skilled nursing facility and an assisted living center on a 42-acre campus in Cincinnati, Ohio. Drake is part of Health Alliance, the largest health care system in the area, which owns seven hospitals and has 15,000 employees. Dr. Bankston is among a growing number of talented individuals who have struggled with finding a role in their organizations in which their purpose and passions could flourish.

Having begun her career as a nurse with a hospital in Youngstown, Ohio, Karen spent her early years working as a healer. She enjoyed interacting with patients at the front line of health-care delivery and worked well with other members of the medical staff. Because of her talent for managing people and projects, Karen matured into a capable administrator and later achieved the coveted role of vice president, working for Health Alliance. Along with each change in position came more recognition and more responsibility, as well as the financial independence that the additional compensation resulting fromadvancement provided for Karen and her family.

But after spending a number of years at this level, Karen became increasingly aware that her accomplishments had come at a price. Working in administration had, over time, disconnected her from what mattered to her most. "I began to realize," she said, "that I had lost touch with what attracted me to medicine in the first place. My purpose, I've discovered, is really about connecting people who need healing to the resources that can make healing happen. And I know that because I'm passionate about it. The role that I was playing in the organization pulled me further and further from my purpose."

At this phase of her career, Karen found herself spending more time managing politics than she wanted to and less time building relationships that impacted patient care. While politics are on the daily menu in the diet of most executives, Karen had gotten her fill of witnessing important decisions being made based on political favoritism. Those decisions, Karen believed, ultimately impacted the quality of patient care that was so central to her purpose. Coupled with this, she felt that management espoused values of integrity, honesty, and respect for everyone, yet they failed to walk the talk themselves. The organization was in turmoil, experiencing great change and facing huge financial challenges, but the team rowing the raft through the white waters of the river wasn't behaving in concert with values that put patients and employees first.

After a period of intense introspection, during which time Karen focused on the toll that her work was taking on her life, she realized that the job was no longer for her. In addition to dealing with the chasm that existed between her current work role and what she felt was important to accomplish, Karen was also trying to manage fallout caused by a boss whose abusive behavior was fracturing the organization. She found herself saddled with healing the organization and helping others to stay afloat emotionally, while at the same time trying to counsel her boss about his behavior. And the more difficult things became financially for the hospital, the more his bad behavior escalated.

The environment had finally become too toxic, and Karen had reached her breaking point. Despite years of hard work delivering results for Health Alliance, she arrived at a pivotal moment in her career when she thought, "I have to get out of here!" Reflecting on it later, Karen realized, "I was getting physically sick, and I began to understand that what was making me sick was my job. The environment in the organization was not allowing me to do what I believed I was there to do. I was running two-thirds of the hospital, and I had gotten big awards for my accomplishments, but I was miserable."