• About Me / Contact

Healthcare Leadership: A Discourse

Healthcare Leadership:  A Discourse

Tag Archives: business solutions

It’s the Same Old Story – Everywhere You Go

16 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by Scott Southard in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

business leader, business management, business solutions, communication, health care management, hospital management

blog

Although it is outside of my context, I can’t help but hear Paul Simon sing: “Keep the Customer Satisfied” when I’ve told my teams—regardless of the make-up of that team and their pay grade, status, and job responsibilities—that we all must practice good customer service each and every day.

I remind them in team meetings and individually that by giving all of our patients good customer service that we build relationships, encourage communication, cut down the number of missed appointments, and improve results for everyone involved.

I’m sure that I don’t need to lecture anyone in healthcare that this is one of the three components of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Triple Aim of optimizing health system performance. Many of us feel that this point drives the other two. Specifically stated, we need to:

Improve the patient experience of care (including quality and satisfaction).

In healthcare (as it is in retail and other businesses), the customer who presents himself with a physician’s order or walks into the shop is easily identifiable. What I’ve done in my training is to make my staff aware that everyone—including not just the patients and referral sources, but also their peers at work—are customers. They all deserve to be approached and catered to as valued customers.

This refrain echoes the Golden Rule, but I feel that it rings just as true as ever. And, like practicing the Golden Rule of “One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself,” I understand that compliance is not always easy. The challenge here, however, doesn’t lessen the importance of this goal.

–

Can you teach good customer service? Is it innate? Can you change people’s behavior?

In the military, boot camp goes over and over certain actions that usually do not come naturally to most men and women: think bayonet drills.   It is said that when you are placed in a challenging situation, you will not survive by resorting to your instinct; the constant drilling makes sure that you, instead, fall back on your training.

With this mantra in mind, I teach and regularly review chosen relaxation exercises with my patients. This repetition, I’ve found, assures that my exercises become embedded, nearly second nature, and effective for my patients who are striving to find peace following trauma.

Good customer service training is critical and it is imperative that all of your staff knows what you mean and what is your expectation for their performance.

–

Social workers beware! Being empathic, caring and approachable is not always the same as good customer service. These traits, however, are key in establishing a relationship, but don’t necessarily line up with how your organization wants you to perform.

For many new trainees, learning an organization’s protocols and approaches may feel foreign and so patience and nurturing needs to be built into the education. Written manuals that are distributed to staff to review and be quizzed on periodically in the first three months is pretty standard and can serve as a benchmark for the trainer to know what lessons need more explanation and who needs more education.

The leader/trainer, at the same time, becomes a model of customer service.

Like children, we all watch and imitate senior staff especially in jobs that are new to us. At the same time, if we identify inconsistencies or a loophole, like teenagers, we will exploit it and shrug off the earlier lessons. After all, as a wise man once said, “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”

So here is another challenge in leadership: Walking the talk.

Not unlike conscientious parents, leaders nurture, provide guidance, show patience, and present opportunities for growth to our staff. Furthermore, leaders do not show preference to one staff over another or abuse the power one pay grade or hierarchical position has over another.

–

How do you measure customer service success?

Can it be done with customer endorsement, new referrals, new revenue sources, improved patient satisfaction scores, or low staff turnover?

The answer is yes.

But time, two to three years, is important to pass with the implementation of customer service education to truly determine if it is the leadership approach is making the difference, rather than a slow feedback loop for collecting data or a delayed accounts payable system.

Strive to be that Bridge Over Troubled Waters. (Sorry, Rhymin’ Simon)

Advertisement

Relevance and Resumes

17 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by Scott Southard in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

business, business leader, business management, business solutions, Scott Southard

mm

“Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For indeed that’s all who ever have. ”

― Margaret Mead, The World Ahead: An Anthropologist Anticipates the Future

Margaret Mead, perhaps one of the most popular modern anthropologists, is best known for her work in explaining that gender roles varied from culture to culture and that all cultures should be weighed equally. She did this in profound and yet sweeping statements that made a lot of sense to those of us entering adulthood in the early 70’s. We were rejecting the truths of our parents knowing that there were better answers out there. I found great joy that her research and conclusions made many members of the Greatest Generation red with rage. And here Margaret Mead was of that same generation.

Not related to Margaret Mead or to those living in Samoa, I have found first as an only child to two career minded older parents and later making some independent (and sometimes foolish) choices that I missed out on having siblings to mock and roughly guide me along my life journey.

My parents, God love them, gave me unrelenting praise and plenty of freedom and rope to hang myself. My impression is if I had a sister or brother that they would jar me into reality every time I would be feeling good about myself with an insult or a smack in the back of my head: immediate feedback.

On my career journey I have discovered a wisdom I was not expecting. I have found that I do not have an audience (or even pigs towards which to toss!) these pearls. I think that people in my generation are discovering we have failed in our experiment to improve society and are becoming less relevant to the generations that are in our wake. America needed a Generation X president. Have you ever wondered why so many men over fifty years old are consultants or Something or Other Emeritus? These situations are the career opposite of being turned out to stud.

Regardless, one such pearl I’d like to toss out is that you need to make sure that you have more tools in your skill toolbox than Cute. Cute has a limited life span of which I located my end just recently. Actually, I no longer had Cute in my toolbox when I turned 39 years old, I just didn’t know that until I was about 59 years old. Yes, my house has mirrors, but I don’t have siblings to set me straight. Also, I am nearsighted.

Be aware, however, that Experience may not be the word you want to replace what Cute might have done for you in the past. Experience equates to Old and that is not a highly sought out asset in the eyes of many. It is better to take on the qualifications of the job you seek head on and pray that someone looking at your resume knows you.

I have another pearl that I want to share that may be helpful for those seeking new employment. Attitude is crucial for success especially with interacting with people who don’t know your history. Related to this is that I have found in my readings published in this new millennium is that I can happily draw a line connecting many of our major religions. This line is that you have to let go of hate and to love your enemy to be truly free. Nice.

The cynic in me might declare that this conclusion is simply a ploy to calm those who thrive on hate and/or to better prepare others for their inevitable loosening of their mortal coil; but I choose not to be that cynic today. Good for me!

Margaret Mead appreciated the world as a salad bar of so many elements and combinations only limited by one’s imagination. Gender, like color, like culture, like age were to be wondered at and embraced simply for their intrinsic humanness. I love her, and miss her, when I quote her: “I measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her fellow human beings.”

Leadership and Team Building

13 Tuesday Dec 2011

Posted by Scott Southard in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

business solutions, leadership, management, Scott Southard, team building, team organization

It can take months and years to learn and apply all the mechanics of daily to annual operations.  This aspect of management often eclipses what I find the most rewarding and fun part of my job:  building and leading a team.

Management doesn’t have to involve people while leadership insists on having others.  I compare my staff to that of a football team.  Similar to coaching a team of athletes with specialized strengths and physical attributes from the 145 pound kicker to the 250 pound lineman, I am assigned a staff of individuals with different strengths of educational degrees and certifications, experiences, skills, and potential.  It is up to the coach and leader to get to know and assess his team, help with sharpening skills, and then deploy whoever is best suited to the task.  Although this exercise of knowing your team is time consuming and often the most challenging for managers, I find that this is time well spent for both my organization and my staff.

Leaders see the BIG picture and can identify the context for any and all directed efforts. Leaders do the research and begin to identify opportunities.  Leaders look for the most capable staff with the appropriate skill set, educate them on the needs, and then set the goals for the work.

Communication and education to your staff is critical for successfully implementing a new program.  Where some more entrepreneurial leaders fail is by not continuing to review and provide feedback on those more routine, yet still vital, staff efforts.

With success, the staff on their own will place the bar of performance high and then hold everyone else accountable to clear it.  This is not too unlike a positive form of what Economic Behaviorists call cultural cognition or maybe this phenomenon is simply a carefully cultivated cultural norm.  These unwritten expectations work both ways and my staff will give me notice when I’ve fallen short of their expectations.

The most pleasing pay-off for your efforts is to hear your words and your goals repeated back to you from your staff and to read the objective data supporting your well-honed premise brought to life by your team.

Communication – Face-to-Face

01 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by Scott Southard in business communication

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

business management, business solutions, communication, hospital management, leadership, Scott Southard

I love my Iphone and all the things it can do.  E-mails and text messaging have made it possible for me to stay in touch daily with staff in eight different locations, not to mention with my fellow managers, and other valued contacts at the hospital and in the community.

I have found, however, that this technology is no valid substitute for meaningful dialogue with clear understanding of what was discussed and what actions are needed.  With e-mails, and even more so with text messages, attempts of cleverness or neglect to proof read may leave your client reading between the lines.  Inevitably, this will lead to confusion and, sometimes, hard feelings.  These hard feelings have a tendency to morph in some pretty strange ways you will have little control over.  The results are predictably bad for everyone involved.

In spite of its inconvenience in time, mileage on your car, and schedule strain, I have found it is more than worth all this extra work to schedule a face-to-face meeting.  I would go as far as advocate including a written agenda that both of you approve.  In cases of new customers, customers at risk, contacts that could influence how you perform your job, schedule the face-to face meeting.  Your staff will also appreciate you making the effort to spend time with them versus an e-mail response, or worse, not receiving any response.

When in doubt, arrange the face-to-face and come prepared.  The payoff is a real dialogue that will foster a healthier relationship and mutual respect.

Recent Posts

  • King of the Mountain
  • It’s the Same Old Story – Everywhere You Go
  • Digging For Answers
  • That Eohippus Blog Post
  • Healthcare Leadership in a Time of Change

Archives

  • July 2018
  • June 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Healthcare Leadership: A Discourse
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Healthcare Leadership: A Discourse
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...