‘None are more unjust in their judgments of others than those who have a high opinion of themselves’ -C.H. Spurgeon, 1834 – 1892
One evening many years ago I was manager on call for my hospital and at around 7 pm the phone rang. It was the switchboard to tell me the fire alarm was going off. I drove to the hospital thinking that as usual this would be another false alarm.
I arrived and was met by a less common situation in that there was a genuine problem. One of the evening cleaners had unfortunately forgotten she had left a pot of water boiling on a hot plate and the water had boiled dry causing the pan to become extremely hot and eventually smoke had begun to emerge thus activating the smoke detectors and setting off the fire alarm. The local fire brigade complete with two engines blue lights flashing and sirens screaming had arrived on the scene to quickly confirm there was no serious damage and all was returning to calm. The poor cleaner was very upset that her oversight had caused such a commotion and I could not help feeling sorry for her. As calm was restored the catering manager who had been called out from home too arrived on the scene. She was a stern woman who, upon surveying the scene and hearing what had happened, proceeded to launch into what I can only describe as a tirade of abuse aimed at the cleaner. The manager accused her of gross inefficiency and stupidity for allowing this incident to happen. Let’s be honest this was not what the cleaner wanted to hear. She was already clearly upset and feeling guilty and then to have this telling off sent her over the edge and she burst into tears. Now we had a situation that was distressing for the few people gathered in the immediate area and caused much embarrassment. The memory of that incident is still vivid in my head and it taught me many things about managing people.
When people have made a mistake the last thing they need to be reminded of in an aggressive way is that they have made that mistake and thereby made to feel like some immature cretin with no intelligence.
Of course there is clearly a time and a place for a ticking off when merited. As adults, and particularly as managers, with responsibility for managing people, we should surely understand and indeed have empathy with people who make genuine mistakes that do not amount to gross negligence. I believe that when people have made a mistake they will invariably ‘punish’ themselves enough without the need for some arrogant and uncaring manager to rub salt in the wounds by balling them out in public.
This week Annie and I ran another successful customer care workshop for receptionists in doctor’s surgeries. I’m delighted to say we had a great time and the workshop went well – the feedback from the 15 receptionists was good.
At one point we were discussing how a minority of healthcare professionals unfortunately stereotype ‘anxious mums’ as ‘over-sensitive’ (or worse terminology) when mums insist there is something wrong with their child.
I’ve always believed mums know intuitively when their child is not well and it is something worse than the everyday under-the-weather minor problem.
I told the story from my own career when a child’s life was saved by an observant mother who noticed a rash on her baby that the doctor had not seen on examination. It turned out the baby had meningitis and had to get to hospital within minutes – luckily the child survived. The doctor concerned is a personal friend of mine and he told me he had missed the rash. He said had it not been for the mums insistence and her observation the child would have died.
This story created a fair bit of discussion among the receptionists with some opposing views about ‘anxious mums.’
Then one of the receptionists quietly explained how she had taken her child to a hospital convinced she was ill. She was – to put it kindly – dismissed as an unnecessarily anxious parent – and told there was nothing seriously wrong.
She told us that her child died because cancer had not been diagnosed early enough.
To add insult to injury she was then told by healthcare professionals that she as mother could have done more to raise concerns.
There was total silence in the room. For the first time in my 38 years working experience I wasn’t sure what to say.
I think everyone in the room felt the same. I managed to get by with some supportive words and after a while we returned to the discussion in hand.
The lessons for me are many and varied:
*Never, ever, assume you know how someone is feeling – you don’t.
*We never know what burdens some people are carrying so we should always try to support each other.
*Be very careful about the language we use in any setting because someone in the room may be terribly hurt if disrespect is shown through the words we use.
For the purposes of this posting we will call the person Wendy and I would just like to thank Wendy for teaching me so much.
I am grateful for my Blogging friend Dr Grumble for this video clip.
I am one of the biggest critics of the National Health Service.
At the same time I am very proud of the National Health Service.
It is wonderful in Britain that we can get treatment free regardless of our wealth.
I will continue to encourage patients to complain about the NHS when standards are not met but if you find cause to complain about the NHS – it might just be worth remembering this video clip next time you visit your local Accident and Emergency department.
I’ve been thinking more about the Ricardo Semler approach to business, management and leadership.
I can’t help wonder why it is we think his approach is so radical. It is not.
I think the rest of us have over-complicated something that is very simple and I don't know why.
It seems to me Semler focuses on a few simple values such as;
*We can trust our staff. *Our staff will not abuse that trust. *Leadership is about treating followers with the utmost respect at all times. *Allow our staff to be their own boss. *Don’t over complicate things.
In my opinion these 5 values can be applied in any organisation or business - however old and established that business may be.
Yes of course it is difficult to turn around decades of culture that may not meet these values - but come on - if we are really serious about admiring how Semler does it so effectively, my question remains – Why can’t do it like Semler?
When I think about those 5 values in respect of management in the NHS - which was my career for over 30 years - we certainly do not score highly on any of the 5!
‘None are more unjust in their judgments of others than those who have a high opinion of themselves’ - C.H. Spurgeon, 1834 – 1892
