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The most important lesson I’ve had over this past year is that the macro processes that drive good logistics and supply chain management are equally appliable in patient care. Rapid movement through the process through streamlining procedures and eliminating un-necessary steps whilst collecting data in as automated a fashion as possible works just as well in the patient journey as it does in getting the right part to the engineer to fix a machine down.

The key tenets of making a better and more effective process work just the same when applied to the movement of people through a healthcare process as they do goods through a supply chain. You have to accurately identify, measure and improve the links/interfaces between actions.

And technology (RFID, 3D Barcodes, Smartphone applications) are just as important in healthcare as they are in logistics.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was …. the amount of directly applicable actions which would have been identical in the logistics environment and worked in a hospital environment was staggering to me.

So my thought of the day is — try it, it might be relevant and it may very well work. Just because you are tackling a problem in a new area, or a new industry or a new company, don’t assume that the tried and true approaches you used before wouldn’t work.

Hoping you’re enjoying nice weather wherever you are… the skies are cloudy and looming here.

This summer sees me finally getting back to normal after what feels like an eternity of recuperation and medical leave. Working with our healthcare clients and doing some process & profitability work with their end clients is making me feel like the world is returning to right-side up.

Having spent so much time in “idle mode”, I’ve had the time to seriously think about how coaching and mentoring can be used more effectively in change management. The mind is enormously strong and trails everything else in its wake. Keeping people positive, giving them examples to support the fact that they can make it happen, that whetever we are trying to do can succeed — this is the human element of making change happen. Change is scary – and often when faced with change, people flee as quickly as their feet can take them or stand completely still like a deer in the headlamps. Neither response is the one the business needs.

Once more I’m reminded that it is the personal that is important, and “what’s in it for me?” is the primary question we need to answer – although answered in context of the person as well as the team and the organisation.

It is so much easier to pull people towards a vision than to push them in front of you towards a goal (think magnets versus herding cats).

So you have painted the picture of why, how and “yes, we can do it”, yet you still have to make it happen (on time, on budget). What do you do?

You ask the most important coaching question of the week: “How certain are you that you can make this change, with 1 being not really and 10 being quite certain?” – and follow it with “And what do you need to do to make it a 10?”

Spent the day with my niece sightseeing in London with all the crowds. We went to the Tower of London, there was a mad rush of people in the front gate. As we went further and further, though, the crowds got smaller and smaller, until we finally were the only ones walking in relative quiet and peace. So often, programs and “flavour-of-the-month” initiatives fall by the wayside simply because the traffic needed to keep the programme running falls to such a low level.

One thing to remember is the Ebbinghaus principle, which says that people’s memory of an experience/learning declines more rapidly after several days have passed; without reminders of any learning, after 30 days it is almost as if it never happened.

Keeping important programmes alive (quality, information security, process re-engineering) requires frequent and effective reminders of the salient points.

Or you’ll be wandering alone.

That’s nice on a crowded day in an historic monument.

Not so nice if you are responsible for a quality initiative and no one is remembering to do their part.

So I take the Easyjet flight to Gatwick, the Gatwick Express to London, then I take the bus to work….
Am I ruining the environment? All of it on public transport — but then it turns out the meeting is cancelled.

So carbon emitted for no purpose.

Except for once I’m at my desk, no meetings, many people on holiday  — and I can actually think and do some work, write, catch-up on those things I never get a chance to do. An unexpected couple of hours!

Feels like it makes the carbon emissions worth it!

Have been experimenting with a new approach to coaching and mentoring — this year has been a challenge with being out so much, and it seems to me that one of the best ways to help someone else progress is to give them the task, and then just ask them questions about how they will go about attacking it.

It seems to be working…

I find it very difficult not to jump in and do things myself; but one of the learnings from this past year is that if I put it all on my plate, one – it doesn’t all get done and two – I wind up utterly exhausted.

So maxim of the day – if it’s been on your to-do list for more than a week, find someone else who can do the job – it maybe be more interesting for them, gives them some variation in terms of their work, and means it won’t keep sitting undone on your list!

Best,
Sharon