National Training Meeting
During this summer, we have been incredibly lucky with the timing of our internship. First, we were graced with the opportunity to hear Marlo Thomas speak, something that my supervisor said had not happened in her time at the company and is very rare. Her personal appearance was an excellent display of the type of leadership ALSAC encouragers: leaders who lead by inspiration, are mission driven, and can talk to a room and make you feel like they are speaking directly to you. Additionally, we were able to participate in the National Training Meeting that takes place every year at the end of July. The meeting serves as an end of the year update, a time to bring together the “ALSAC family” (of all 1,400+ employees around the country), and a celebration of all our hard work during the fiscal year. To me, it was a showcase of how much ALSAC cares; about its employees, about the Memphis community, and about the patients and families that we all work hard to support.
\We started off the first day with a service project. I entered a huge room filled with tables of 8 to 10 people that were participating in handwritten service projects, such as anti-bullying posters, campfire safety rules to be displayed at campgrounds in the area, and military appreciation cards to be sent to veterans and families. While we were partaking in indoor service activities, employees were spread out all over the city setting up classrooms for summer school, cleaning local gardens, and repainting a basketball court. To unite the entire workforce to serve the community of Memphis is exactly what ALSAC and St. Jude stands for. During the CEO’s opening remarks on the state of ALSAC, he noted that our job is to raise money and awareness for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, but that the the answer to our mission reaches WAY beyond our job. And part of that is ensuring that all community needs are met.
To officially kick off the two days, CEO Rick Shadyac got up to speak about the state of ALSAC. He updated us that we officially raised 1.5 billion dollars in FY18, a feat which few charities have ever accomplished. I believe that the reason ALSAC is so successful is that the leadership does an excellent job of advancing the company, staying ahead of the trends, and inspiring the employees to embody the mission. And the reason that Rick is so successful is because of his acknowledgement and embracement of change. The majority of his speech centered around transformation. He stated that transformation is not only important, it is fundamental to the organization. Something that stuck with me from his speech was that when Danny Thomas founded ALSAC, he shed light on inclusion, diversity and using philanthropy to create change. Not only would the hospital he opened treat children regardless of race, religion and ability to pay, but Danny Thomas would lobby the restaurants and hotels to integrate so that patients families could stay and eat there. Rick stated that “Our founder, with a 10th grade education, literally transformed the world.” He was right, St. Jude was founded on the idea of transformation and the only way the organization will continue to thrive and bring in donor dollars to support the growth of the hospital and the raise in the survival of childhood cancer not just worldwide is if they continue to transform. Rick has gotten very interested in the new digital transformation of the world and has worked tirelessly to not only keep up but keep ahead of the trends. He also said that “studies show that diverse, inclusive and passionate teams achieve better results.” One of my favorite things about the CEO is that he has a leadership coach in order to constantly grow, transform and learn about how to be the best leader possible. He is one of the most passionate people I know which clearly drives the organization and the team of thousands of employees to do the best job possible. His spirit and motivation to continue transforming to keep ALSAC relevant and able to support the hospital has helped the growth rate of ALSAC grow to 10.7%. The growth rate of all charities nationwide is 5.4%.
There were many other amazing speakers that I will include in a supplemental blog posts in order to remember them and reflect on what I learned. Overall, NTM was an amazing experience and I quite literally felt like a sponge trying to soak up all the information that I had the opportunity to be presented with. I am incredibly grateful for the experience and feel like I learned so much about life and leadership from some incredible people.
It sounds as though this experience was transformational, in keeping with the tone you’ve described for the organization. Not that the organization doesn’t embody and live its values everyday, but this experience enables them to once again embody their values with the WHOLE organization – which really punctuates their authenticity. If indeed you are suggesting Rick is a transformational leader (you are certainly talking about the organization being transformational) – once again, you may think about behaviors and actions he takes that embody the four factors (idealized influence, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation). I think you actually have provided some examples here (and in other posts), but I think the key is connecting those examples to the elements of the theory – again, mostly in preparation for the academic assignments this fall. As for Marlo Thomas – love her. If you are not familiar with “Free to Be You and Me” – check it out. It is an album she made in the 70’s, which was later converted into an animated special, that deals with gender issues (and other diversity issues – but mostly gender). It’s really great.