Embracing the Quest Mentality: How to Bust through Blocks as a Healthcare Leader

When we embark on a Leadership Transformation initiative with our healthcare clients, one of the foundational mindset shifts we promote is embracing the Quest Mentality. 

This concept comes from author Arthur W. Frank who outlined "Narratives of Hope and Despair" in his book, "The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics" 

Observing terminally ill patients, Frank witnessed three key mentalities that patients would take and saw consistent outcomes in each of the three groups:

1. Restitution

The first mentality patients exhibited was a "Restitution Narrative."

Patients with this perspective were aching to return to the life they had before their diagnosis. They were constantly yearning to go back to the way things were. 

This is certainly a natural state for many of us when we encounter something that's devastating and threatens our state of comfort and well-being. We can spend our time wishing and waiting to go back and can feel angry and disappointed when things aren’t as they used to be.

We start to think, if only we could go back to how things were before, everything would be okay, things would once again feel under control, and we could restore some sense of peace and order to our everyday lives.

As leaders, we can experience this panicked desire to control the outcomes and restore what existed before a major operational change or shift in policy. We can also fail to make progress and keep up with the reality of a wildly changing healthcare industry—thinking old methods and habits of achieving our goals will still work if we just keep pushing harder on that same, old approach. 

Unfortunately, the reality will eventually set in and, no matter how much we long for what once was, we simply can't continue as we did before. The longer we wait to embrace that reality, the harder our lives and work will continue to be. 

2. Chaos

The second mentality experienced was that of the "Chaos Narrative."

Rather than doggedly sticking their heels in the ground or proactively taking a step forward, these patients seemed to simply float along and get swept up in the current of everything happening around them. 

They weren't actively engaged in improving their situation or even fighting to restore what they had before, rather they were stuck and struggling to figure out what was next.

Patients under the Chaos Narrative had lost sight of the past but couldn't yet see a way through or imagine the future. Like those with the Restitution mentality, things still felt out of control, but these patients were lost in the middle of the storm, stuck in the heat of the fire, and unable to find peace or direction about what to do next. 

As leaders, even if we have the best of intentions to build a solid plan for what we need to do next, we, too, can get swept up in the chaos and storm happening all around us. We may know deep down that eventually we'll have to figure out a better way, but may have been hit too many times with one new crisis after the other that we no longer have the mental fortitude or stamina to proactively create a better way. 

Regretfully, the longer we wait to take back control, the more unmanageable the chaos becomes, causing us to become even more hopeless and stuck than before.  

3. Quest

The third mentality Frank saw in his patients was that of the "Quest Narrative."

Even in the face of the grief and trials they were facing, this subset of patients was able to find a kind of transcendent hope, rising above their circumstances with a positive outlook for what their lives could become. 

Embracing the Quest Mentality allowed these patients to operate with an internal determination to face uncertain circumstances with peace, power, and a sense of purpose. 

Rather than run from their challenges or get lost in the fog of unpredictability, these patients walked into uncertainty head-on, confident that something positive could be gained from the experience. 

In our work, we get glimpses of inspiring leaders who have somehow mastered this Quest Mentality and forge ahead through the chaos and confusion, confidently guiding their teams to what's next. These leaders don't shy away from what's difficult, but rather rally their teams toward new strategies and approaches that can help them adapt to the changing times and stay pliable in the face of transition and change.

Adopting the Quest Mentality consistently can help keep you and your team positive, motivated, and dialed in with what you need to succeed.

Why we Must Strive to Embrace the Quest Mentality

Embracing the Quest Mentality will be essential to maintain our resilience as leaders. The sense of agency and control we'll gain from our shift in perspective will allow us to hold on to a sense of possibility and hope that will fuel us even in challenging times.

It's also vital that every leader adopts the Quest Mentality on behalf of their teams and their communities. As a leader, you're responsible for guiding your team forward and encouraging them to continue growing and evolving. 

Think about the number of leaders in your health system and the number of employees each leader will impact through their role. Those few hundred leaders may impact thousands of employees who can serve hundreds of thousands of patients and touch an entire state or region. 

Our impact as leaders is immense and we must strive to maintain an outlook that lifts our teams higher and helps our organizations fulfill our most impactful goals and live out our mission. 

How to Move Your Team from Restitution and Chaos to Quest

To embrace the Quest Mentality, we have to believe that we have the power to affect change within our environment and believe that we have control over what happens in our lives. 

Even if there are continual changes and shifts in our external environments—shifts in our work place, community, or the entire healthcare industry—we must claim our power to adjust our response to those circumstances and trust in our capacity to refine and rework our approach. 

To help us adopt that healthy perspective and make a strong plan that will lead us out of chaos, we can look to four key elements: 

1. VISION

The most impactful thing we can do as leaders is cast a clear and compelling vision for the future. 

In the midst of chaos and difficult change, we must give our teams something hopeful, inspiring, and motivating to work toward. Without a vision that pulls them forward and helps them see what more they could achieve, our teams can get lost wandering aimlessly in the chaos and crisis or stay stuck looking back to what was. 

Vision helps our teams embrace the Quest Mentality because it helps them see that any pain or discomfort in shifting their habits, adopting a new way, or reworking their approach will only be temporary and a positive and meaningful outcome is available if they only stick it out through the process of change.

2. Focus

Once we've established where we are going, we must narrow down our focus to help our teams understand their role along the way. 

With a clear goal in sight, setting a specific focus will help your team channel all of their effort and strength into achieving what matters most. Working unreservedly toward their goal will help them see quicker wins—bolstering their hope and motivation and desire to continue pushing on. 

Setting a clear focus for your team pulls them out of the chaos, where—because everything is urgent and important—nothing becomes important and priorities are ignored. With so much coming at them and no ability to make progress toward anything meaningful, our teams can shut down, lose hope, and give up on pursuing their goals. 

Giving the gift of a clear focus allows our teams to elevate their mindset and remain attentive to the favorable results they'll see on the other side of the change.

3. Alignment

After declaring a clear and simplified focus, we can begin removing everything that no longer serves us or helps us achieve our biggest goals. 

To lead our teams through the chaos, we must help our teams realign their efforts to do what most supports our vision and focus. Tactically, it may look like removing excess meetings, delegating tasks to other teams, deferring competing projects to a later date, or quickly clearing out any outstanding to-dos to make room for what's ahead. 

Getting our team into alignment helps ensure that everyone is rowing together toward the same outcome and not haphazardly scattering resources and attention across too many goals. 

Achieving organizational alignment can help your team maintain a Quest Mentality because they'll most certainly see great positive gains by working together, will begin building camaraderie, and will be encouraged and motivated being buoyed by a supportive team.

4. Action

With all of the pieces in place, we can finally jump into action.

Action at this stage, however, will be far more meaningful than any action our teams may have taken on their own while in the Restitution or the Chaos stage.

At this point, we'll have successfully declared a clear and compelling vision, simplified the focus to help our teams see a specific and achievable win, and removed all of the distractions and barriers that may have delayed their success. 

When our teams launch into action now, they can be certain that their hard work will finally pay off. They'll have no trouble embracing the Quest Mentality as every small win will continue to bolster their hope and excitement. With a proven history of success, they'll eventually become unstoppable with a trail of victories to keep them charging ahead.

Busting through Blocks as a Healthcare Leader

As healthcare leaders fighting to keep up with a rapidly evolving industry—and frankly, as smart, compassionate humans trying to navigate the last few years of chaos and change—we can easily find ourselves stuck and struggling with a Restitution Narrative, clinging to an old way that doesn't work, yet stubbornly pushing up against the same challenges and walls time and time again. 

We can continue to hold on to what we know even when it's no longer serving us, helping our teams, or driving growth because it's what we were trained to do years ago, it's all we've ever done, and we're so overwhelmed we can't take the time to try to find a new way forward. 

When we're not clinging to the past, we can still be swept up in the immediate and the urgent—lost in the Chaos Narrative, failing to ever make time for what matters most, and never charting a course forward towards a more meaningful and impactful future. 

No matter what we've done until now, we don't have to stay stuck in these unhelpful narratives of despair. We can find our way to hope. 

With a bit of help, guidance, and strategic realignment, we can get back on track, set a vision for what's next, and elevate our role and our mindset to a Quest Mentality that sees nothing but hope and possibility. 

You Don't Have to Do It Alone

At Level Ten Healthcare Advisors, our role as a Strategic Advisor is to help you see the potential for impact and a more meaningful future in the midst of a situation that seems un-winnable.

When you're stuck and struggling and fighting the old way, we provide strategy and insight that can help you embrace best practices and begin moving forward toward your goals. 

No matter how long you've been stuck in the struggle, 2024 can be your fresh start. Let this be the year you break through these barriers, start embracing hope for a more healthy and sustainable future, and begin gaining serious traction on your personal and professional goals. 

Join us November 9 as we kickoff a free, 5-part webinar series on Creating Your Plan for 2024. We'll help you cast a clear and compelling vision, establish your core focus areas, teach you how to gain team and organizational alignment, and offer you essential tactics and strategies each quarter to launch you into action.

We'll help you make a plan to win around the key culture strategies of recruitment, retention, leadership, and innovation.

Click here to register for the first event!