In the flow of the day there hundreds of opportunities in the moment to moment unfolding of life. These are made up of smiles, winks, waves, embraces, touching a shoulder, thumbs up, singing, stories, names said, and many other brief moments or bundled ones. These memories, at first, might roll off the person’s or group’s heart as meaningless. Yet, in time, these accumulate like a the threads in a quilt and begin to form individual and collective memories that grace us with increasing self-esteem and other-esteem.

Many of today’s business management practices sometimes cannot conceive of the value of these moments. They want goals and objectives, outcomes and data, cubicles and bursts of paper work. In a care giving model we want softness and kindness, tenderness and whispers, laughter and warm gazes, and hope before the measurement of outcomes. In a sense, today’s person-centered plans need to be designed by those who carry out the service rather than cubicle people. Our task is to be in the moment and our leaders must help us do just that.

As we move from individuals to the group the process is similar, but more complicated. A culture of gentleness asks for a collective feeling of safe and loved. So, our attention also needs to include:

Accidental encounters that recognize everyone present and their goodness;

Two or three intentional group gatherings in which some will actively participate, and others, in the beginning will be more passive.