1. Provide prompt solutions. At St. Joseph, there’s an expectation that any problems raised at the daily huddle will be addressed that day and reported on at the next meeting. If you take action to solve problems quickly, your staff members will take the meeting seriously. They will also be more likely to bring up problems when they see how easily those problems can be fixed. “The expectation is that it’s reasonable that the problem will have a solution by the next day,” says Ms. Young.
2. Address problems with feedback in private. If you encourage employees to be honest, you may occasionally have to deal with a staff member who comes across as brash, rude or longwinded. “Sometimes we have people who word problems a little too aggressively, or we had people who had a thirty second story but would tell it in ten minutes,” she says. “We’ve coach people about handling it differently the next day and walked them through how to avoid the reaction they got.” She says talking every day has helped increase the level of respect between staff members. Because everyone has had the experience of voicing a problem or admitting a weakness, they are very willing to listen to their fellow employees and submit their feedback in a courteous way.
3. Embrace structure and efficiency in your meetings. Nothing will kill a meeting like a few longwinded staff members taking up their colleagues’ time with overly long stories. If your staff members feel that their time is being wasted, they won’t want to contribute. In order to make sure everyone has a chance to speak, train your staff members to keep their comments to one minute. You’ll find that people are more honest when they have to get their point across in a limited amount of time, and other staff members won’t get annoyed. “In corporate meetings, there are always people who are trying to steal the spotlight, but that really does not happen in our meeting because everybody wants to stay on track,” Ms. Young says. “In thirty seconds, everyone can give us a high level summary of what they need.”
Ms. Young also recommends making your meeting very structured. In the St. Joseph team huddle, staff members are asked six basic questions, and they respond to the questions by raising their hands and taking turns to speak. By asking six questions instead of just opening the floor to general comments, you can control the topic of conversation and make sure you cover the most important issues in your hospital.
4. Talk about successes, not just difficulties. Your staff members might not look forward to a regular meeting if you only focus on failures. Ms. Young recommends you end each meeting with a brief discussion of recent successes and congratulate people who have done well. That way, you’ll end your discussion on a positive note, and your staff members will know that you aren’t unhappy with them for providing honest feedback about the hospital’s problems. “The truth is, those positive stories exist in every healthcare organization, but they’re not recognized,” she says.
5. Check in with physicians outside the meeting. If you notice a decrease in a physician’s case load, make contact with him to see what’s going on, Ms. Young says. “A lot of times we won’t find out for months that somebody is mad at us if we’re not watching the case loads,” Ms. Young says. “By tracking case loads and checking out any blips, we can find out very quickly if something has made a physician unhappy.” By addressing problems proactively and seeking out physician opinion, Ms. Young says the administration has made it clear to physicians that their feedback is valued. “Since they found out that we’ll be very serious about addressing problems, they’ll come to us and say, ‘Hey, I’m mad at you guys right now,'” she says. The hospital now rarely needs to seek out upset physicians because the physicians feel comfortable coming to the administration right away with problems.
Learn more about St. Joseph Hospital.
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