Excellence to Eminence

December 2011

Living Our Values

Empathy and Compassion

Empathy and Compassion are at the heart of the work of The Ohio State University Medical Center. Practicing Empathy and Compassion means being caring, respectful, and encouraging to patients, visitors, and colleagues. It also means being sensitive to individual needs, and actively listening and seeking ways to improve the OSU Medical Center experience.

While the Medical Center values list includes “Empathy and Compassion,” practicing this value can benefit everyone. Developing strong, caring relationships improves the experience for students, patients, and visitors, creates positive interactions with colleagues, makes collaboration easier, and leads to stronger results. Read more

Additional Resources

• Peer Coaching Guide-Empathy and Compassion: Suggested activities to discuss and practice Empathy and Compassion.
• Aligning behaviors: What Empathy and Compassion looks like in practice.

What Success Looks Like

When the quarter ends, the cooking begins

Students who stay at OSU bond through food 
Empathy and Compassion

Graduate student Huyen Nguyen gets homesick at this time of year, thinking about how she should be with all her family in Vietnam instead of immersed in her biophysics studies. This is her third consecutive December spent at Ohio State, but this year is harder since she had her newborn son in August, and he’s too young to travel on such a long flight to the other side of the hemisphere.

Her parents are in Columbus to help care for her son while she studies, but her younger sister and other relatives are still in Vietnam.

“We are very, very close,” Nguyen said. “That makes it so tough to live away from home during the holidays.”

But Nguyen refuses to let herself get all “bah humbug.” She enrolled in a cooking class — Party Appetizers on Dec. 8 — that the Ohio Union Activities Board established especially for graduate and professional students. A second class, Holiday Baking, is Dec. 15, and both are expected to be full. Read more

Culture Shaping Updates

New program helps mid-level leaders strengthen leadership skills, network

The Leader Series will help mid-level staff leaders explore leadership issues, engage with other leaders on campus, and experience enhanced personal growth and effectiveness. Each quarter, the program will offer variety of leadership development experiences around leadership themes such as relating with others (winter), building and sustaining an engaged, high performing team (spring), and leading change effectively (summer). 

The program leverages workshops, discussion groups, and webcasts to offer a variety of experiences. In workshops, participants will explore ideas, resources and advice to help solve organizational challenges. Discussions around leadership books and articles offer the opportunity for relevant, robust discussion with other staff leaders, and enhance networking and relationships. Webcasts featuring world-renowned leaders, including John Maxwell, Marshall Goldsmith, and David Rock, are available on Carmen for anytime learning.

A schedule of workshops, webcasts, and discussion groups, as well as registration details, is available online.

Now scheduling culture retreats for winter

There are still openings for culture retreats for intact teams during Winter Quarter. For information about planning and scheduling a retreat, visit the Culture Retreats section of the Excellence to Eminence website. Contact the Culture Consultation Team today to reserve space for your team.