Five more tips to crash the ship
(This is part two of a two-part blog)
More tips for sailing the ship into harm’s way:
6. Encourage your managers to network with others who are “like” them. Yes! The only hospitals that are worthy learning partners are those who have the same mission, market, operating strategy, challenges, size, scope, organizational structure, services, volume, physical plant, and mean average temperature.
7. Require your managers to know the ABSOLUTE best practice and how to implement it flawlessly before doing a single thing. That’s right. The ONLY way for you to improve is to slavishly emulate the hospital at the target cost position without regard for your own environment, talent, mission, or goals.
8. Check on your managers’ progress at least once a year. Maybe check in at budget time when they don’t have anything else to do. Reviewing their progress more often or being involved in their plans might make them anxious or think that you actually expect them to do something.
9. Don’t hold your managers accountable for results. You really have to give people time and allow a lot of discretion about when and how they might achieve their goals. Really! Who’s navigating this ship, anyway?
10. Keep progress toward closing the gap under wraps. Oh, wait. This is a given. You didn’t define a “gap” in the first place!
Shelley Burns is head of knowledge management at HMC.
