You're a healthcare manager with a tight deadline. What are some common mistakes you should avoid?

1 Not delegating enough

You may think that you have to do everything yourself or micromanage your team to ensure everything is done right. However, this can backfire and cause you to burn out, lose trust, and miss opportunities for collaboration and innovation. Instead, you should delegate tasks according to the skills, strengths, and interests of your team members, and provide clear expectations, feedback, and support. This way, you can free up your time for more strategic and critical activities, and empower your team to grow and learn.

2 Not communicating effectively

Communication is key to any successful healthcare management project, especially when you have a tight deadline. You need to communicate with your team, your clients, your suppliers, and other stakeholders regularly and clearly. If you fail to do so, you may encounter misunderstandings, conflicts, delays, errors, or missed expectations. To avoid these issues, you should use appropriate channels, formats, and tones for your messages, and ensure that you are transparent, concise, and respectful. You should also listen actively, ask questions, and confirm understanding.

3 Not prioritizing well

When you have a lot of tasks to complete in a short time, you may feel tempted to do everything at once or focus on the easiest or most urgent ones. However, this can lead you to neglect the most important or impactful ones, or compromise the quality or scope of your work. To avoid this, you should prioritize your tasks based on their value, urgency, and difficulty, and use tools like calendars, to-do lists, or matrices to help you plan and track your progress. You should also be realistic about what you can achieve, and negotiate or adjust your deadlines if needed.

4 Not managing risks

Every healthcare management project involves some degree of uncertainty and risk, especially when you have a tight deadline. You may face unexpected changes, problems, or challenges that can derail or delay your work. If you ignore or underestimate these risks, you may end up wasting time, money, or resources, or compromising the quality or safety of your work. To avoid this, you should identify, assess, and mitigate the potential risks of your project, and develop contingency plans for the worst-case scenarios. You should also monitor and review the risks regularly, and communicate them to your stakeholders.

5 Not learning from feedback

Feedback is essential for any healthcare manager who wants to improve their performance, skills, and knowledge. However, when you have a tight deadline, you may not have the time or the willingness to seek or receive feedback from others. You may also take it personally or defensively, or ignore or dismiss it. This can prevent you from learning from your mistakes, discovering new opportunities, or enhancing your work. To avoid this, you should solicit and welcome feedback from your team, your clients, your suppliers, and other stakeholders, and use it to evaluate and improve your work. You should also give feedback to others, and appreciate their contributions.