“Our employees are our most valuable asset” is often overheard in organizations, and thriving organizations supply plenty of evidence to prove it. These days, smart leaders embrace going beyond the rhetoric and commit to taking strategic steps to inspire, strengthen and appreciate employee engagement. For years, I have helped myself and other leaders remember the foundation and guidelines for creating an environment of engagement in an easily remembered acronym—C.A.R.I.N.G.
It’s 2 am and there’s loud talking at the nurses’ station. Marty realizes she and her coworkers must be disturbing patients. She lowers her own voice. Is Marty doing enough?
Many of us spearhead strategies to create a consistently exceptional and healing patient and family experience. We identify best practices and implement them with gusto. We give our all to launching and sustaining initiatives.
That’s great. And it’s not enough.
We have to engage in more than tactics that feel exciting, appealing, and heartwarming. We have to do what is called for even when it feels scary, awkward, or unnatural.
As is true with any challenging organizational priority, progress in enhancing the patient experience over the long haul takes an enduring vision, periodic stock-taking, planning, and implementation — and then more stock taking, planning, and implementation in an endless cyclical process.
Borrowing the four hats of the creative person developed by Roger Von Oech in A Kick in the Seat of the Pants, members of your patient experience steering team need to act as explorers, artists, judges, and warriors in order to press your strategy forward.
Improving the patient experience DEPENDS on clear and consistent accountability. In this second of three video clips packed with effective leadership skills, Dorothy Sisneros demonstrates how to use the Caring Feedback Model to hold an individual accountable for an expectation that you stated clearly.
