Preface: Liz Jazwiec is an internationally renowned speaker, strategist, and author who has shared her passion for leadership, engagement and service with audiences across all industries. Attendees at EntreCon® 2018 were graced by her presence as she served as a fun, motivating and uplifting keynote speaker.  The story below is written by volunteer Content Curator, Tracy Crowell, and presents his takeaways from her presentation titled, "Creating Excellent Experiences - Perception is Everything."

I’m an ER Nurse at Heart.

Funny, acerbic, blunt, unafraid to share her many opinions – her words not mine. And I immediately liked her. A lot. High energy, big personality – my words.

A few decades back, as an ER nurse in Chicago, Liz was a colleague of Quint Studer’s at Holy Cross Hospital – if having the power to fire her made them colleagues. And firing her is exactly what Quint wanted to do because Liz resisted buying into his vision of friendly service. Liz told us that “I didn’t like change. I resisted for the sport of it, and because my belief was that I was there to save the patient’s ass, not to kiss it.” I’m liking her more.

But when Quint moved her future replacement into her office to share, Liz – and her team -  took that as a sign that it was time to change and make friendly service a priority. It was "play nice" or you’re gone. As Liz put it, “I liked my job and if that what it’s going to take to keep it, FINE!”

Hello Change, You’re Not So Bad After All.

Change is seldom easy; it takes time…and practice. And as Liz and her team started “practicing” friendly service they immediately learned that “people will respond to insincere kindness. Hey, it’s a start!" As this change became an everyday way of being (sincere), Holy Cross moved from the fifth to the fourteenth percentile in service. Six months later they climbed to the 94th percentile – 3 months ahead of an AGGRESSIVE goal set by Mr. Studer.

While improving their ratings, Liz and her team saw that once they started treating patients and visitors better, these recipients of their kindness treated them better. This staff at Holy Cross was becoming heroes by doing small, unexpected, nice things. 

What’s the Big Deal? Explaining Heroic Wows.

The things we work so hard at, the things we become really good at - our specialties -  are often underappreciated, if recognized at all. Why? Because these are the things that are usually expected. 

Let’s look at Disney World. What’s their top priority? Go ahead, guess. Profit? Creating memories? Happiness? Fun? Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. And wrong again. The answer? Safety. Who guessed it? No one guessed it because we expect Disney to be safe. It’s a given that we don’t get excited about it. It doesn’t really wow us.

Liz next opened our eyes to what a WOW really is and led us through examples of WOWS that made a difference in the lives of others.

1. A mother of a boy who was in the hospital with appendicitis wrote a letter to the hospital where she went on and on, not about the treatment her son received, but about the technician that lent her his phone charger. She was relieved.
2. An uncomfortable chair that grandma slept in the first night at her husband’s bedside was changed that next morning for a more comfortable one, without grandma asking for it to be done. She was thrilled.
3. A visitor asking the front desk where she could the find the Cath Lab didn’t get directions, she got a personal escort to the lab. She felt important.
4. A dripping faucet fixed not because the patient complained, but because the nurse thought it might bother him. He smiled.
5. A woman sitting at a patient's bedside with a Diet Coke in her hand was asked if she’d like some ice to go with it. Which she did and which the nurse delivered. The nurse became a hero.

These were all wows that made a difference. Not the setting of a broken bone, nor the suturing of a cut below your little brother, Rory’s, left eye that happened when you swung a garden hoe at a butterfly just as he stepped into its path (my brother, my story). Nope. These big things were expected. For the wows that mattered to the recipient, no superpowers were needed and no miracles were received. Minimal effort and caring are often all that is required. 

The wows that make a difference don’t always seem like wows to the giver or to someone looking in from the outside. Wow is not always a big thing. Wow is a personal and, often times, a little thing that will matter to the recipient and makes a hero of the giver. That last sentence is important – you should read it again. I’ll wait.

Perception is Everything.

So, what’s wrong with today’s workforce? Well, it’s a loaded question with so many possible answers. Luckily, Liz provided a good one. 

The problem today is: most people do not like their jobs. And this is, in part, because people no longer feel heroic. They have been deceived into thinking that heroes do big things that will change their community, their country, their world. They don’t realize that heroism is often about the small things. We need to teach this. We need to practice this. We all need to experience the healing powers of giving and receiving the small wow. 

Liz recommended that we create a checklist of 5-to-10 things that will make our day better. It could be something as simple as, I made someone smile. And if we only check one box off, well, we’ve had a pretty darn good day and we probably helped somebody else have a good day too.

That little wow, that’s what went right today. 

The reality is, it only takes little things to make people happy, to improve their day. But their perception of these little actions is that they are huge, timely, personal, and caring. We need to remember that and realize that it doesn’t take much time out of our day to make someone’s day better. And who doesn’t have a little spare time to give a little happiness by providing a little wow?