Perhaps the main difference between an epiphany and an epiphanami is that an epiphany happens to one person, and an epiphanami happens to a whole group. A really good public health business plan idea often looks to me like an epiphanami:
- It makes a whole team of people go "wow" and motivates them toward a big goal
- It changes the way they think: a shared epiphany
- It changes the way they work going forward
- The plan builds its own momentum; it seems to gather strength
- It doesn't hit the beach and meekly return to the depths, it changes the landscape
Business planning provides that important, challenging goal to many of the public health teams we work with. Instead of responding to an RFP designed to meet the goals of others, a business planning perspective encourages you to focus on an issue you think is really important, and then commit to really learning and understanding what's happening. Learning fuels teams as they work their idea into a solid plan. Getting from vision to practical, sustainable plan is the challenge side of the equation. Sustainability is a serious challenge. Starting programs is easy compared to sustaining them. The energy to do that comes from commitment to the goal and belief in a new way of reaching that goal, a way that works now and works into the future.
--Steve Orton