The Invisible Mentor

Archive for March, 2011

Interviewee Name: Roger Dacre, Medical Doctor

Company Name: Dr. Roger I Dacre

Website: http://www.doctordacre.com

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

I was born in London, England and when I was about six years old my parents moved to Barbados. A year or so later they sent me back to attend boarding school in the UK. I attended medical school in the UK, in London, England and then I emigrated to Canada and did residency or specialty training in family medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. After that I worked for 10 years in my own family practice in Cambridge, Ontario and moved to Toronto about 16 years ago. I opened the practice that I am practicing in now and was practicing there initially alone, and subsequently over the last 10 years with Dr. Lise Paquette.

Avil Beckford: What’s a typical day like for you?

Usually I try to get to the office before 8 o’clock in the morning and I do the electronic and fax paperwork that is needed to be checked before starting to see patients around 8:30 in the morning. I generally see patients between 8:30 and 12:30 pm and I stop for lunch. My ideal day involves taking a 45-minute walk and then I restart seeing patients at 1:30 in the afternoon and I continue to see patients until 5:00 pm or 5:30 pm. The rest of the evening, unless I’m on call, is spent either for personal time or about twice a week I attend either a medical training meeting or medical administrative type meeting.

Avil Beckford: How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated?

I embrace the ethos of providing quality care. It’s a very conscious attempt to continue to motivate myself through continuing education. Either learning things that I don’t know or teaching things that I do know to people who wish to learn them. When I’m looking at the same problem for a subsequent time, I try to place it in a context that’s specific to that person to make it different and knew to me as well as to that person.

Avil Beckford: If you had to start over from scratch, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

I would try to avoid moving practice after 10 years. When I moved from Cambridge to Toronto, I basically had to start again. It was if it was the first day of work again. Family medicine like many personal service industries is very much based on the trust and relationship between myself and in this case the patient and that just isn’t something that you acquire overnight. You only acquire that over the passage of a number of meetings and the development of the relationship. That is something you can’t buy from someone else, so you have to earn it for yourself.

Avil Beckford: What’s the most important business or other discovery you’ve made in the past year?

It’s kind of a business and personal discovery. I’ve always been proud of the way I treated the staff in my office and I see it as a matter of pride for me that I treat my staff with kindness and respect. I always assumed that this would produce a good outcome. I found that doing that does not always produce a good outcome. There are factors in the staff rather than in me that might indicate that the outcome wouldn’t be good.

Avil Beckford: What’s one of the biggest advances in your industry over the past five years?

It’s difficult to single out one particular thing because this is an industry which is crawling with innovation. It really is. I tried to think of three of the ones that affect me, but there are many in the industry as a whole. They are treatments for anticoagulation, the treatment for obesity with bariatric surgery (you are operating on obese people to help them lose weight), and treatments for diabetes. If you were to look at five years ago and look at now, these three areas are completely different than they were five years ago. I have to completely relearn all areas on a regular basis.

Avil Beckford: What are the three threats to your business, your success, and how are you handling them?

1. I’m in a business which is funded by the government and consequently one of the big risks to us is government whims or changes in government policies as a result of elections and the fact that governments are fighting with how to use limited resources.
2. The second issue is organizational fads. There seem to be an unlimited number of ways to organize the delivery of medical care and none of them seem to be superior to the other ones and you get people either civil servants or government ministers, or academic people all trying to impose their own particular fad on the rest of us.
3. The third thing is regulation which is both good and bad. Regulation in our industry seems to result in shortages of lots of things, and it stifles innovation because anything that’s outside the normal range is suspicious to regulators.

Avil Beckford: What’s unique about the service that you provide?

I can’t claim that the services I provide are unique, but I try to be noticeably outside the norm in terms of my commitment to providing not just good diagnostic care, but efficiency in the way the office is run.

Avil Beckford: What do you observe most people in your field doing badly that you think you do well?

I think that many of them have very poor office organization and pay little attention to customer service. I have colleagues who think it’s a matter of pride about how long people have to wait in their waiting room rather than a matter of shame.

Avil Beckford: Describe a major business or other challenge you had and how you resolved it. What kind of lessons did you learn in the process?

I had a critical employee who left suddenly. We were left with having to recreate the skills that were needed for that role. In small businesses I think that sometimes you can have part of the process knowledge of the business in the hands of just one employee, and if that employee is gone you have to learn it all from scratch and sometimes that’s difficult. When this employee left we realized that we had invested too much in one position in terms of the process knowledge of our practice. We have replaced that role with two people doing part-time work, and my partner and I have decided to take a more active role in running certain parts of the business for the future.

There was a lot to learn from that. We realized that we needed to have little manuals. We already had manuals to describe all the little functions that are needed, but we realized that we needed to be more careful and that those manuals were kept up-to-date, and that we had multiple staff members who are able to perform the different functions.

Avil Beckford: Tell me about your big break and who gave you.

In a way, it’s a bizarre story in that I don’t remember who gave me in what I consider in retrospect to be my big break. But I was at a social function, and I had just failed to get into medical school, and one of the people at this social function was describing the name of one of the teaching hospitals in England, which had a particular interest in people who were applying for the second time to medical school. I used that information to put that particular medical school at the top of my list of five places that you are allowed to apply to at once. And I actually got into that particular medical school the following year. I don’t know who it was, and it gave me the opportunity to get what I considered to be my big break, which was my chance to learn medicine.

Avil Beckford: Describe one of your biggest failures. What lessons did you learn, and how did it contribute to a greater success?

It’s similar to the other question in that my failure to get into medical school the first time, I consider to be my biggest failure. I had been predicting that I would get in and it was a big surprise that I didn’t. What it taught me is that I’m responsible for my own successes and I need to believe in myself and in my ability to pick myself up when I’ve had a reverse and make the thing happen.

Avil Beckford: What has been your biggest disappointment in your life – and what are you doing to prevent its reoccurrence?

Probably my biggest disappointment at the moment is the way I’ve been handling my employees and certainly I know when I had a small practice there used to be a blurred line between the boss and staff relationship and friend relationship and as the office got bigger, we’ve made an effort to keep it more professional, not unfriendly, but just not the same way. I always thought that good behaviour would be rewarded with gratitude and I realize looking back at everything that went on this year and three years ago when a similar thing happened that it is my lack of inattention to the signs that this is happening. I’m trying to learn to be more objective in the way I look at the relationships with my staff. We have not taken the annual review as serious as we should and so we are going to put a lot more effort into doing that in a more professional way in the future.

Avil Beckford: What’s one of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make and how did it impact your life?

There were two really. One was the decision to emigrate to Canada from the UK and the other was to move from Cambridge, Ontario a small town of 120,000 to Toronto. They have had a very big impact on my life because they completely transformed the environment in which I practice medicine.

Avil Beckford: What are three events that helped to shape your life?

1. The most significant was qualifying as a doctor.
2. The second was choosing and qualifying as a family physician as opposed to some other type of doctor.
3. The third one was a personal one, which was coming out as a gay man.

Avil Beckford: What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?

I think it’s a dynamic accomplishment in the sense that it’s the accomplishment of bringing freshness to my practice of medicine.

Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?

Looking back on my life I didn’t realize that the first three of the mentors I would describe were mentors but they were. The first was one of my teachers in primary school, I say primary and middle school. His name was Mr. Arthur and I think he taught me that it was okay to be inquisitive, and it was okay to be an individualist outside of the mainstream. So that was a very important lesson to learn. The next mentor I had was Keith Warshaw who was my tutor in high school and he taught me that the world works in a certain way and you have to look at how it works and you can’t break the rules without realizing there will be consequences. He wasn’t saying the rules were right or wrong, he was saying they are there and you have to pay attention to them. I then had a mentor in medical school and she really taught me that it’s really important to do the work that needs to done rather than to think that you can take short cuts to it. And finally Dr. May Cowan, who was my professor at McMaster University who I still turn to for advice even today, and she just taught me so many things about how to be a good family doctor.

Avil Beckford: What’s one core message you received from your mentors?

The message was that quality and achievement comes from honest work.

Avil Beckford: An invisible mentor is a unique leader you can learn things from by observing them from afar, in the capacity of an Invisible Mentor, what is one piece of advice that you would give to readers?

I would say to people, you need to decide what you want to do and aim to learn and practice this with integrity.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Chester Carlson is in an IBM boardroom explaining his invention. He does a demo for them, but these men in suit don’t understand his concept, neither do they see any value in it. Chester Floyd Carlson invented the photocopying process. He is not daunted by this rejection, he pushes on, and today we take the photocopier for granted.

Name: Chester Floyd Carlson

Birth Date: February 8, 1906 – September 19, 1968

Job Functions: Physicist, Inventor, and Patent Attorney

Fields: Electrophotography, Xerography

Known For: Invented the Photocopying Process

Timeline: Invented Xerography in 1938 and first machine became available in 1959

Problem

Chester Carlson tried to typeset and publish a magazine for science minded students like himself while he was in high school, and became aware of the limitations of available duplicating techniques. This got him thinking about how to do it better. At the time, you had to create a master copy before you could make copies, which often proved very expensive and time consuming.

Solution

He had vision and wanted to invent a machine that would take an existing document and copy it directly to a piece of paper.

The Long Journey

Carlson always carried around a notebook with him because he never knew when an idea would strike. While working at Bell Labs, he wrote 400 ideas in his personal notebook, but he kept on thinking about printing which was his passion. While working in the patent department at Bell Labs there was a constant need for copying documents but there was not an easy way to do it. Typists had to retype the documents and use carbon paper to make multiple copies.

He was fired from Bell Labs which turned out to be a blessing. Carlson subsequently landed at electronics firm P. R. Mallory Company, founded by Philip Mallory (now known as the Duracell division of Procter & Gamble). He was promoted to head of the patent department. Life was not easy for Carlson and he was living from paycheque to paycheque.

He enrolled at New York Law School studying law at nights. Because he couldn’t afford to purchase the text books he copied the information by hand. This strengthened his resolve to find a solution to the duplicating dilemma. One day while he was at the Public Library he found an article in an obscure German scientific journal written by Hungarian physicist Pál Selényi which showed him a way to invent his photocopying machine. The light bulb went on for Carlson.

He experimented in the kitchen until his wife convinced him to conduct his experiments elsewhere. Along with Otto Kornei, an out-of-work Austrian physicist who he hired as an assistant, they worked and had some breakthroughs, but they weren’t enough for Kornei who dissolved the partnership. Carlson was not daunted by the desertion and kept at it. After a long journey filled with many failures along the way he tasted success.

He tried to sell his invention to IBM but they didn’t understand the concept and saw no value in it. He didn’t have any luck with RCA or GE. Battelle Memorial Institute took a chance on the invention and acted as agent for his patents.

They signed an agreement with the Haloid Company to license electrophotography for a commercial product. Haloid changed the name of the process electrophotography to xerography. And in 1959, the Xerox 914 was introduced. The journey to market took close 21 years after the original invention, but success was sweet.

Chester Carlson never forgot the help he received from his previous partner Otto Kornei so years later, when Xerox’s stock was soaring, Carlson sent him a gift of one hundred shares in the company.

Key Lessons

• Success seldom occurs overnight
• Carlson understood how patents worked so he documented all the steps he took along the way, and registered the patent when it was the right time.
• He was persistent, picked himself when he failed, got rejected for funding and got turned down when he tried to sell his invention.
• He appreciated those who helped him.
• He believed in himself and what he was doing. His passion got him through the tough times
• Most inventions are a result of problems that need resolving. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention.
• Carlson didn’t have a privileged background. He was the main financial supporter of his family at age 14.
• Read something everyday, you never know what you might find.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Sources Referenced

Wikepedia

InventHelp

The History of Xerox

Chester Carlson and the History of Xerography

The Idea Finder

Image Credit: Google search.

I intended to review Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert today, but I have not finished reading it. It’s taking me a lot longer to read because it’s not an easy read for me. On Saturday, I suspected that I wouldn’t finish reading it on time so I thought that I would instead review Keeper of the Light. The problem is that I kept going back and forth as to whether or not I should review it. I tend to over-think some things too much, and sometimes care too much about what others think about me.

Keeper of the Light is a romantic fiction, but it’s embedded with lots of lessons that we can apply to work and life. It makes a great case study for why it’s important for us to be transparent and to operate with integrity at all times. It also drives home the point that each of us needs a trusted advisor.

I have read about five books so far by Diane Chamberlain and she writes very well. Her books are often about web of lies and deceit, some of the characters really suffer, and Keeper of the Light is no different, except it also has an element of obsession. It’s a story about love, loss, betrayal, forgiveness and starting over.

As I was reading this book my heart ached and I decided I wasn’t going to read any more of Chamberlain’s books for a while. The story plots and characters are well developed and Chamberlain loves to use flashbacks to tell her stories. In Keeper of the Light, there are many characters, but four main ones, two couples: Annie (stained glass artist) and Alec O’Neill (veterinary doctor), Dr. Olivia Simon (surgeon) and Paul Macelli (journalist). All the characters are flawed which make them human.

Paul Macelli has done a profile on Annie O’Neill and has become obsessed with her. He tells his wife Dr. Olivia Simon about his love for Annie, but stresses that it’s one-sided on his part and a platonic relationship. Paul starts to withdraw from his wife.

In the beginning of the book, a husband goes to a shelter for abused women where Annie volunteers and points a gun at his wife. Annie steps in the line of fire and tries to talk the man out of shooting, but he pulls the trigger. Annie is rushed to the hospital where Dr. Simon works, and she is on duty that night. She works hard to save this gun shot victim and at midway through trying to save her, she recognizes that her patient is the woman that her husband is in love with.

Despite that, she fights to save Annie’s life, but she loses the battle. When she goes home and tells her husband Paul that Annie was shot and died, he completely flips out and packs his bag and leaves. The story unfolds, and many people have put Annie on a pedestal and even call her Saint Annie. Dr. Simon tries to be more like Annie, volunteering at the shelter, and taking stained glass classes because she wants to know what this woman had that she doesn’t have.

A Tale of Two Women

Annie O’Neill came from a life of privilege, but lacked the one thing she yearned for – the love of her parents. Her parents were very wealthy and showered her with money. She grew up to be a damaged woman searching for love and happiness in the wrong places. She gave freely, and was selfless to the point of stupidity. Who steps in the line of fire, what about that fight for survival. However, she was a talented artist. Are the best artists messed up? She didn’t learn that happiness comes from within.

Olivia Simon came from poverty, raised by an alcoholic, single mother, came from poverty. Her mildly, mentally challenged twin brother, Clint and older brother Avery had to raise themselves. Olivia always felt responsible for Clint. One day Avery and Clint held her down while a neighborhood boy raped her – she was payment for some favor. She was 14 years old at the time, and after the rape she ran away and lived with her science teacher who placed her in a different school. She never looked back, and focused her energies on her education. She too is very talented, she is a talented surgeon.

It’s not where you start out in life that’s important, it’s where you end up? What are the critical elements that drive people to succeed, to make something of themselves?

Alec, Annie’s husband is devastated by her death, and is completely bereft. He is zoned out and neglects his two teenagers, Lacey and Clay. Alec meets with Olivia because he wants to understand exactly what transpired in the emergency room. They start to meet and talk regularly to each other since both of them are mourning losses. They are frank and open with each other, except that Olivia cannot bring herself to tell Alec that her husband Paul who she is separated from left her for his dead wife.

Chamberlain’s skill as a writer shows, and her clever use of flashbacks unfolds the story at the right pace. Right before your eyes you discover that Saint Annie is no saint, and as the story develops we discover that Paul and Annie were sweethearts in college. Their bond is a lot stronger than we first thought.

There are a few unexpected twists in the story as well. The big loser in the story is Paul Macelli who left his wife for a dead woman because of an unhealthy obsession. In the end, he comes to his senses and wants Olivia back, but she no longer loves him after his deception and lies. In Jamaica we have a saying that you never know the use of half of a knife until you lose it. This story is something like that.

How many times have we taken people and things for granted until they are no longer in our lives? How many times have we placed people so high on pedestals that when they fall off, which they will, we are devastated. No one is perfect, so these people who we “worship” will screw up.

What’s your obsession? What products and services do you offer that you are so obsessed with that you cannot see that it’s time to lay them to rest? What things are you yearning for that are out of your reach, but you are so obsessed with them that you cannot see the goldmine that is readily available to you?

I recommend Keeper of the Light by Diane Chamberlain. How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Other Diane Chamberlain Books That I have Read

• Breaking the Silence
• Summer’s Child
• The Courage Tree
• The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes
• The Lies We Told

I recommend all of the above Diane Chamberlain books that I have read. The most difficult one for me to read so far was Breaking the Silence.  Though her books explore very difficult subject matters, there is always hope amidst despair. Book links are affiliate links.

Over the past six months I’ve seen the word infographics coming up a lot in blog posts, articles and so on. Looking at the word combinations and the way it was used I had a clear idea of what the word infographics meant. According to Wikipedia, the definition of infographics is “Visual representations of information, data or knowledge.”

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is an infographic of how to generate great ideas, which is a combination of the steps from Graham Wallas and James Webb Young models. It’s a topic we have covered a few times so it should be familiar if you have been reading this blog for a while. The process to generate great ideas is a four-step process: Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification/Implementation.

What are some ways you can use infographics in your work to make complex ideas simpler to digest? How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Further Reading

The Anatomy of An Infographic: 5 Steps To Create A Powerful Visual

How to Create Outstanding Modern Infographics

InfoGraphic Designs: Overview, Examples and Best Practices

10 Awesome Free Tools to Make Infographics

The Formula for Generating Great Ideas

How to Generate Creative Ideas

Summary of a Technique for Generating Great Ideas by James Webb Young

Related articles

• Infographics could be a cool solution for information overload. What makes them cooler and eye-catching are of course, the nicely done visuals. Information graphics (i.e. inforgraphics) takes boring data and statistics and dresses them up with graphics (makeuseof.com)
• Keep An Eye On These 10 Blogs For Stunning Infographic Collections (makeuseof.com)

Interviewee Name: Janice McDonald

Company Name: iStyle Originals

Website: http://www.istyleoriginals.com

Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Janice McDonald: On twitter, I describe myself as a serial entrepreneur with mild superpowers. On LinkedIn, I also include that I am a volunteer, as I am involved in several different organizations, including Canadian Women in Communications (CWC), as a volunteer.

Avil Beckford: How do you integrate your personal and professional life?

Janice McDonald: My personal and professional life have always been integrated. My business partner is also my spouse. We have always worked together. It works very well for us!

Avil Beckford: What’s a major regret that you’ve had in life?

Janice McDonald: Don’t have any regrets…is not how I approach life.  Always want to learn from my mistakes and then, move on, let it go.

Avil Beckford: What are five life lessons that you have learned so far?

Janice McDonald: Lessons I have learned so far… Enjoy the journey! Take time to both re-group and recharge as well as stop and celebrate the successes. Reflect and think about what you could do differently.  Always have goals you are working toward. Help others.

Avil Beckford: When you have some down time, how do you spend it?

Janice McDonald: I love to walk my dogs in my neighbourhood. I have two cute bichon frise dogs and wandering through my neighbourhood with them, is always a pleasure. I am an avid reader so I always have a bunch of books on the go. Also, I love to listen to music and see live music.

Avil Beckford: What process do you use to generate great ideas?

Janice McDonald: I don’t have a specific process that I use. I love to talk to people and share ideas and as I mentioned, I read widely and I find that that also generates great ideas. I research all kinds of topics too and see where it leads me.

Avil Beckford: What’s your favourite quotation and why?

Janice McDonald: From The LIttle Engine That Could…”I think I can, I think I can…”

You have to believe in yourself.  We all face challenges everyday and belief in yourself is critical.

Avil Beckford: How do you define success?

Janice McDonald: For me, it’s living the life that I want to, with enough time for my different pursuits and with passion and energy for it all.

Avil Beckford: In your opinion what’s the formula for success?

Janice McDonald: The formula for success is to follow your own unique path.  Stay open to opportunities and welcome challenges to grow and change.  Do things that excite you.

Avil Beckford: What are the steps you took to succeed in your field?

Janice McDonald: Steps that I have taken to succeed include getting out of my comfort zone by accepting new challenges and welcoming them even when it is scary.

Avil Beckford: What advice do you have for someone just starting out in your field?

Janice McDonald: Volunteer and get involved…in your industry or in something that you are passionate about.  It offers wonderful opportunities to expand your network, increase your skills and for me personally, I have found it to be very rewarding.

Avil Beckford: If trusted friends could introduce you to five people that you’ve always wanted to meet, who would you choose? And what would you say to them?

Janice McDonald: Would love to meet my now deceased grandparents again because I would like the chance to get to know them from an adult perspective and hear their advice, lessons learned and unique perspectives.  I think that Steve Jobs would be very interesting to talk to. Bill and Melinda Gates for their foundation work which is transforming the world and Belinda Stronach who I think is a very dynamic Canadian.

Avil Beckford: Which one book had a profound impact on your life? What was it about this book that impacted you so deeply?

Janice McDonald: Right now I am reading a very interesting book called: The Next 100 Years…A Forecast for the 21St Century and it has me captivated.  The author is a well-regarded futurist and I find his predictions fascinating and eye-opening. What he is saying about what lies ahead for the USA and the rest of the world are ideas that I am not seeing anywhere else.

Avil Beckford: If you were stranded on a deserted island, what are five books that you would like to have with you and why? Summarize the book in two sentences.

Janice McDonald: Since I always have a ton of books on the go at any given time, I would likely have 5 different books with me: a biography of a historical figure, a great fiction, Rumi love poems, a book on current affairs and The Magic of Believing.

Avil Beckford: What one music CD and movie would you like to have with you (on the deserted island) and why?

Janice McDonald: Having been in the music industry for 20 years, am not sure I could pick just one CD to have with me… but if I had to, I would probably pick 3Eb’s (Third Eye Blind) first album for nostalgic reasons. Instead of a movie, think I would like to have a limitless amount of paper and pens so I could write and write and write!

If you cannot view the YouTube video of Third Eye Blind click here.

Avil Beckford: What excites you about life?

Janice McDonald: Everything about life excites me! The future, new possibilities, change, new ideas!

Avil Beckford: How do you nurture your soul?

Janice McDonald: I love yoga, time alone, time with friends and family, nature, meditation, reading, exercise, live music and good stand-up comedy.

Avil Beckford: If you had a personal genie and she gave you one wish, what would you wish for? Or, if I gave you a magic wand, what would you use it for?

Janice McDonald: I would wish for summer vacation with my family to last longer and for time to slow down so we could savour it even more.

Avil Beckford: Complete the following, I am happy when…..

Janice McDonald: I am spending time with my family.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

All book links are affiliate links.