What are we NOT PROUD OF?

Celebrating things we are proud of is an important ritual. It often helps us build the reserves to push through hard things. I have recently been tracking posts on LinkedIn about things that organizations are proud of. A few examples have stood out: conference attendance, speaking at conferences, DEI programs, new buildings, magnet awards, AI projects, digital front doors, and the list goes on and on. I applaud all of those.

As I read those, it caused me to reflect on my friend's Bennett Blank question: "What is the measurable improvement in the customer's life, for what matters most to the customer?" So, through that lens, I ask how many of our public celebratory posts matter to patients and other key stakeholders in their day-to-day lives? For example, do they celebrate the hospital in their area building a new building? I am not suggesting that isn't important; I just want to add an additional approach to our thinking.

I would like to apply the discipline of inversion thinking to help us avoid our Sirens, like in Homer's Odyssey. Odysseus ordered his men to plug their ears with Beeswax to avoid the beautiful music of the Sirens. In this case, Beeswax will be inversion thinking. Inversion thinking is looking at something from a different point of view. It can help us not get blinded by one point of view. So what if we were to look at our organizations and document what we aren't proud of? This wouldn't be a public list but one that can drive out internal efforts. One could name this exercise:

THE THINGS WE AREN'T PROUD OF

The point of this exercise is to document things we aren't proud of that cause outcomes we can't celebrate. Here are a few examples of potential "not proud of" statements.

1. We aren't proud of the American Academy of Pharmacy's report that 1.5 million people are harmed each year by medication errors.
2. We aren't proud of the research that shows 300,000 people die each year from complications caused by Acute Kidney Injury.
3. We aren't proud that clinical team burnout is a chronic problem and that suicide among doctors is higher than the average population.
4. We aren't proud of the current state of the dialysis business model, which has nurse turnover as high as 40% and very few patient options for at-home dialysis.
5. We aren't proud of the CDC's report that says we have 600k-800k needlestick injuries each year, with only 10% being reported. Most patients hate needle draws, but this is rarely a focal point for patient experience efforts. For reference, there are over 400 million needle draws each year. If you want to make a big difference in patient experience, remove the needle; it's possible!
6. We aren't proud of Gallup's report that in 2023, employees in the U.S. continued to feel more detached from their employers, with less clear expectations, lower levels of satisfaction with their organization, and less connection to its mission or purpose , than they did four years ago.

To reduce our "not proud of" list, we will need to make a purposeful effort around it and not get distracted by the sirens of brand celebration, social media posts, etc. Paul O'Neill, former Alcoa CEO, provides an example of focus.

Paul determined that the Crux of turning around Alcoa was to focus on safety. Greg Satell shared in his book that Paul proudly declared, "I intend to make Alcoa the safest company in America. I intend to go for ZERO injuries." Clearly, Paul was not proud of Alcoa's safety numbers! Reporters started pressing Paul with the typical questions, to which he responded, "I'm not certain you heard me." If you want to understand how Alcoa is doing, you need to look at our workplace safety figures". With this focus, Alcoa improved its performance.

Transformation and innovation can be driven by many sources. I believe it is time we use inversion thinking to document our not-proud-of list in addition to recognizing our proud-of list. Let's keep celebrating the wins, and remember, as leaders, our job is to inspire teammates. I believe that using inversion thinking will inspire us all to document our not-proud-of lists. This list certainly will help us find innovative ways to transform our organizations' value propositions and experience for those we serve! That, in turn, will give each of us more meaningful reasons to be proud. I have seen effective and innovative solutions for each of the challenges mentioned above. Reach out if you want to know more about how to scale a transformation and innovation system that reduces our not-proud-of list!

todd