Make Courtesy more important than efficiency!!

In my first article from the book "If Disney Ran Your Hospital By Fred Lee", we have seen that how outcomes are delivered by teams whereas impressions are delivered by individuals. We understood how our front line workers are the important element of our patient experience journey.

In continuation to the first chapter, I am sharing the second article from chapter 2 of the book.

Chapter 2:

Make courtesy more important than efficiency.

We must have fixed areas of focus on care that have to be conveyed to the staff and each of these has an order of priority. When you are faced with 2 conflicting demands, understanding these priorities will help you know exactly which concern takes precedence.

If Disney ran your hospital, you would make courtesy more important than efficiency. By making courtesy more important than efficiency, you would be putting corporate values in line with what patients have indicated as the key drivers of their satisfaction and loyalty.

We are loath to change long-standing policies. We defend them as if our egos were on the line. Author says, he has never heard a CEO or Vice president say, “Look, I don’t care if it is more efficient to do it that way. It just isn’t as customer friendly.”

So we must empower our front line workers to take decisions that is the best interest of the patients/caregivers.

It’s the Manager, Not the worker.

We should make a habit of asking our employees how their day was, how many people he/she was friendly to or helped in the process of doing her job.? People do not do what their organizations expect. They do what their managers pay attention to.

Pertaining to this quote author quotes a very nice example that I would like to share:

Recently I (Fred Lee) visited a hospital near Chicago. I urgently needed the restroom and inquired at the front desk. The receptionist pointed down the hall and explained that the restrooms were in a little alcove off the hallway. I rushed to the alcove and as I rounded the corner, a housekeeper was just backing into the men’s room, pulling her cart in with her. I put my hand on her cart and said, “Please hold it just a second. I need to use the restroom.”

“I am already in the restroom,” she said. “It’s temporarily closed.

“You only have one foot in the door,” I said, trying to humor her. “Have you been in there yet?” I asked, pointing to the women’s room.

“No, but it’s always harder to get into the men’s restroom, so I have to do

it when I get the chance.”

“Well, what do you want me to do?” I asked.

“Go to another restroom,” she said.

“Where would that be?”

“Downstairs.”

“How do I get there?”

“You can either take the elevator or the stairs.”

“Which is quicker?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then I’ll take the elevator. Where is that?”

“Down on the other side of the main entrance.”

“What floor do I push on the elevator?”

“ ‘B’ for basement.”

“When I come off the elevator, which way will I turn?”

“To the right. Then you go to the next hallway and turn right. It will take you by the cafeteria. There are several restrooms there.” Then she added,

“Sorry.”

When I left I thought how it often takes people longer to tell you why they can’t do something than it would have taken to just do it in the first place.

The author was polite to the housekeeper as since long he has stopped blaming the front line employees for this behavior. She puts efficiency before courtesy as it is the expectation of her manager who is more interested in how much work she gets done in the allotted time. People do not do what their organizations expect. They do what their managers pay attention to.

Shifting work to other departments is a phony efficiency.

By taking the larger view of total process time, adding the department’s time and the client’s time together, it is surprising how often doing it the way the customer wishes end up being the most cost-effective way to do the job, even if the results do not show up in visible numbers. If it is also less frustrating for the customer, then there is a double win—a win in overall efficiency and a win in customer satisfaction.

?Accountabilities drive structure and structure drives culture.

“Breaking down the barriers between the departments.”

Any leader who is striving to change the culture of a hospital would do well to ponder this key principle. You can’t change the fruits of a tree without changing the roots.

The ultimate shortcut to getting the best overall efficiency is to focus on service and make it more important than efficiency.

As long as department directors have to answer only for their own labor costs, cross functional savings and teamwork are not likely to happen.

Working together as an internal service provider and customer department, inefficiencies would be identified and addressed in a culture of teamwork and responsiveness instead of competition. Again, this one rule can change the entire management culture more dramatically than twenty team-building retreats.

What top management needs to figure out is how to foster a climate in which departments and their managers are held accountable and rewarded for service instead of being punished for it, as they would be under conventional hospital budget monitoring and accountability systems.

Avista Hospital in Louisville, Colorado had an idea that if our department really wanted to give great service, we would be offering room service any time during the day, just like a hotel.

Conclusion:

Courtesy will always trump efficiency to build up the culture of the organization. Culture is not build up in a day. It is a slow and steady process. But will take up the organization to the great heights in the long run.