Question Our Customer Excellence Team is struggling with ways to recognize and reward non-patient care areas that are not part of the patient satisfaction survey process—finance, information systems, material management, etc. We are wondering about specific criteria, tracking systems, reward […]
Question How do you handle anonymous complaints made against specific Management Team members? In our case, these take the form of anonymous letters to the administration. The charges are incorrect and cannot be validated. Answer Unless the complaints involve ethical […]
Question I am the “working supervisor” of a small department. My problem is that I don’t know how to approach a staff member when I have a complaint against him or her. In order to counsel staff members, I feel […]
Question Our area recently decided to incorporate peer review, sometimes called a “360,” in our review process. Do you have a list of questions to use in this type of process? Answer Ironically, I was just interviewed by a reporter […]
Question What is the best way to develop a Standards Team (to set organizationwide standards of employee behavior) within a hospital setting? Answer The team should be a cross-section of about 10 hospital employees, including physicians. Because standards will touch […]
Question What should a new supervisor do to be successful? Answer Let me address this question from this angle. These are the reasons I see new leaders struggle: They talk way too much about themselves and their last place of […]
Question We have a bright ideas program and have received many great ideas from employees. But how do you encourage employees to submit ideas that are financially sound without discouraging them from the program or making them think that the […]
Question Our COO has been conducting employee forums for about one year. At the forums she reviews organizational information and results based upon the Five Pillars. We report the work that work teams are accomplishing and the results of the […]
Question How do you make this journey contagious and genuine? We have many great minds here who can be quite cynical and who may have been disappointed in the past. Answer Making change contagious takes time. Momentum seems to naturally […]
Question What kinds of questions can we ask to get interdepartmental feedback to improve the service we give to each other on a day-to-day basis? We have an “Internal Report Card” that we feel could be more useful, with categories […]
Question Based on your advice, I have changed a lot of things that I do. The biggest change I’ve made is asking people, “What is the one thing that I can do to make your job easier?” I have even […]
Question I am looking for some ways to measure the costs of poor customer service and teamwork, particularly in terms of employee turnover, for hospitals. Answer Estimates of the total cost of losing a single position to turnover range from […]
Question We have just formed a sub-team of our Service Team to look at continuously impacting and improving employee satisfaction. Do you have any “best practice” ideas we should consider first? Answer The number one method for continuously improving employee […]
Question Besides Hardwiring Excellence, what current written resources would you recommend as essential for managers? Answer I recently updated my recommended reading list. Titles that pass the test of time include Jim Collins’s Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make […]
Question What “level” of leader do you suggest participate in Leadership Development Institutes (LDIs)? Frontline supervisors? Or managers who are somewhat more removed? This question is largely driven by this next one: how many people are too many for these […]
Question I recently became the new director of a med/surg/peds unit. I believe I am in fact the third or fourth unit director; needless to say, the staff has been through many changes. I am passionate about nursing, and I […]
Question How important are mission and vision statements in a cultural transformation? Is it imperative that all employees know and understand the organization’s mission? Should everyone be able to articulate the vision? Answer I think it is important, but disagree […]
Question I notice that you often use the term “leader” instead of “manager.” Is there really a difference or is it just a question of semantics? Answer The dictionary defines a manager as someone who “handles, controls, or directs.” I […]
Question For approximately six months we have been posting the names of managers who are late in submitting evaluations. We have experienced fair success with this tactic. When you implemented it, did you find that you experienced peaks and valleys […]
Question I’ve read your articles on evaluations, but I’m curious about whether you personally endorse raises that are tied to those evaluations. Or do you believe that pay and evaluations are two separate entities? Answer This is an area that […]