Having been out of training and working in the real world of academic health care for only 16 years, I hesitate to make judgments or conclusions. Instead I make hypotheses or formulate theories. Having only 24 hours in a day, I can’t test every hypothesis. Thus, I have presuppositions. \u00a0My three presuppositions below describe the enemies of transformation, the secret weapon of trust and the means to acquire it<\/p>\n
The first presupposition is that we have four enemies in health care: Hubris, Cacoethes Carpendi, Seorsum and Avaritia. Hubris speaks to the collective and individual excessive confidence and arrogance that is prevalent among health care professionals and organizations. Cacoethes Caprendi means compulsive habit for finding fault, which refers to the blaming culture that can be found in health care organizations with regularity. Seorsum means apart or not together, referring to the lack of alignment and the inability to integrate varied self-interests into shared goals and values, and (most importantly) shared expectations of behaviors and results. Avaritia is latin for greed. Greed is the elephant in the room no one seems to want to address (not addressing it may lead to it devouring us). Some\u00a0don\u2019t see these four as enemies, and some don\u2019t see they exist in the first place. \u00a0 There is variable penetration to be sure, but they are there.<\/p>\n
The second presupposition is that trust is lacking in health care organizations today, which makes everything from timely decision-making to efficient and effective teamwork elusive. Have a vision? Great! Have a strategy? Good for you! Have an execution plan?\u00a0\u00a0 Wow, impressive! Have trust in your organization? No? Then forget it. \u00a0The lack of trust hypothesis is harder to test, because trust lies under the surface. I\u2019m convinced it’s a real problem. Those organizations that work on building a trust culture will adapt to external forces of change faster and more successfully.\u00a0Trust is the secret sauce or weapon (I prefer the weapon metaphor when it comes to fighting enemies).<\/p>\n
The third presupposition is that leadership in health care is lacking capacity. \u00a0I attribute this to my Intelligence-Ego Ratio theory. \u00a0An individual\u2019s leadership is more effective if their intelligence is greater than their ego. \u00a0The optimal ratio is 2-3 (2-3 times more intelligence than ego). It\u2019s counter-productive\u00a0in the long-run to be <2. \u00a0 One with a ratio of <2 may get placed into a leadership position. \u00a0However, \u00a0the organization\u2019s success will have a ceiling. \u00a0 One with a ratio of >3 will find it hard to get recognized as a leader, but long-term success is more likely.\u00a0\u00a0 This theory essentially states that intelligence is incredibly important, but if you let your ego trump your intelligence, you\u2019ll eventually look like an idiot. \u00a0Humility is key to being the best leader one can be. \u00a0It drives a desire to continuously improve every day. \u00a0It allows you to be more open to learning from mistakes or miscues. \u00a0It allows you to build trust.<\/p>\n
Intelligence doesn\u2019t just mean mental capacity or complex problem-solving abilities. It also means the insatiable desire to learn and continuously fill the head with data, information and experiences (not just your own). \u00a0It also refers to emotional intelligence, the capacity to understand where you are and where others are with regards to relationships; relationships with self, others, the organization and society. \u00a0Intelligence essentially refers to the capacity to expand your awareness and perspective larger than anyone else around you.<\/p>\n
So, what do we do about these presuppositions? \u00a0Take the following steps: 1) Increase awareness regarding the enemies, the secret weapon of trust, and the importance of the right leadership, 2) Embrace humility as organizations and as leaders, 3) Be resolved to succeed, persevere and do the right things, 4) Accept the need to change, 5) Drive change through continuous improvement, 6) Have relentless focus on mission, vision, values and principles, and \u00a07) Get results on the most important shared goals. \u00a0If you aren’t getting the right results, then go back to 1 and start over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Having been out of training and working in the real world of academic health care for only 16 years, I hesitate to make judgments or conclusions. Instead I make hypotheses or formulate theories. Having only 24 hours in a day, I can’t test every hypothesis. Thus, I have presuppositions. \u00a0My three presuppositions below describe the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions\/45"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}