Crucial for a protege

If you have a formal spiritual formation process for your team, invite the protégé to participate as early as you can. The protégé may be eager to participate, but they may resist. Do not be discouraged. Resistance does not necessarily reflect a problem with the candidacy. Gentle inquiry into the points of resistance will help you deal with them. People nearly always will give a reason that they decline your invitation, but probe deeper. You might ask if other things about the spiritual formation process concern them. Even those with no particular points of resistance simply will require repeated, gentle invitations before they invest their time. Remember to pray for the protégés, especially at this crucial time.

Proteges Roles

Protégés can also help you recruit physicians to programs. Recruiting is a public statement that they value these programs. Such public affirmations reinforce their personal commitment to the mission. As their activity becomes public, they will be introduced to the spiritual side of many of their physician colleagues for the first time, and they will develop recognition as spiritual leaders in the medical staff. As the protégé begins to recruit, you will need to teach how to manage a database. Find one approach to database management in the chapter by that title. The database is an important tool for recruiting. It helps identify groups of physicians for targeted, personal invitations based on their expressed interest, referrals from other physicians, and other previous exposures to your programs.

The Move to Greater Involvement

The protégé will have participated in some of the programs and activities already, but now is the time to invite participation in all of the programs. Time constraints prevent physician protégés from participating in every iteration of the program, but at least one experience of each of the programs should be encouraged. After experiencing a program as a participant, the next step is to co-facilitate that program. Co-facilitating gives the protégé a chance to develop skills, learn specific programs, and build confidence as you supply modeling, encouragement, guidance and feedback.