Old Song Finds a New Purpose

In the Offbeat department, I am inspired by a disco song’s new-found purpose—saving lives:

Under most circumstances, it’s best to keep the beat of the Bee Gees song “Stayin’ Alive” out of your head, but heart specialists have come up with one good reason to remember: It could save someone’s life.

Turns out the 1977 disco hit has 103 beats per minute, a perfect number to maintain — and retain — the best rhythm for performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR.

A small study by University of Illinois College of Medicine researchers in Peoria has found that 10 doctors and five medical students who listened to the “Saturday Night Fever” tune while practicing CPR not only performed perfectly, they remembered the technique five weeks later. See the rest of the story at: http://blogs.usatoday.com/betterlife/

Shake your head if you want; it’s just plain cool to see that the BeeGees served a higher purpose after all.

How does the BeeGees’ CPR thing relate to leadership and training?

Here’s what this has to do with leadership and training. As leaders and trainers, we must find a way to tie new concepts to that which is familiar. Everyone knows the song. Not everyone knows how fast to compress when doing CPR. Add Barry Gibb and POOF, you can make a decent attempt at saving a life.  Does it get more magical than that?

Ah – Ah – Ah – Ah…

Susan Hendrich