Simplicity
Tag Archives: Leadership
Root Out Bias from Your Decision-Making Process
We’ve all experienced the disappointment of an important decision not going our way. The feeling is far worse when you feel that the decision was somehow “rigged” against you — that you never had a chance, that your input wasn’t given its fair due, or that only some of the data was considered. You can accept a fair decision that goes the other way, but a rigged decision feels much worse. And the ill will festers.
Poor decision making happens in our business, civic, and personal lives. But often we are perpetrators, participating in or making rigged decisions, even if we may not realize it.
Rigged decisions are all too frequent, and while they come in many forms, the most virulent feature the following steps:
- Make the decision based on some or all of the following: ego, ideology, experience, fear, or consultation with like-minded advisers.
- Find data that justifies your decision.
- Announce and execute the decision, and defend it to the minimum degree necessary.
- Take credit if the decision proves beneficial, and assign blame if not.
5 steps to get your hospital’s MACRA strategy off and running
Anand Krishnaswamy, vice president of Kaufman Hall’s strategic and financial planning practice, makes the case that MACRA readiness should be a priority not only for physicians, but also for hospital boards and executives.
The first performance year of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act is now underway, which will determine Medicare Part B payments in 2019. Although 2017 is designed to be a transition year, providers who dive in now have the opportunity to maximize financial rewards and set themselves up for success down the line.
“The biggest underlying issue is the lack of awareness and engagement by health systems and physician groups,” Mr. Krishnaswamy tells Becker’s. Though many providers are distracted by the uncertainty on Capitol Hill, MACRA and value-based care are likely here to stay — and it’s time for hospitals to craft a strategy.
Mr. Krishnaswamy suggested providers take the following five steps to prepare for MACRA.
What Is Your Leadership Style?
Cartoon – Unethical vs. Ethical Advertising
Mastering Civility
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Mastering Civility
CIVILITY has a way of winning people over and garnering influence. Civility isn’t just the absence of incivility. In Mastering Civility, Christine Porath explains that “Civility in the fullest sense requires something more: positive gestures of respect, dignity, courtesy, or kindness that lift people up.” Incivility impacts our health and performance. It depletes our “immune system, causing cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and ulcers.” It also robs us of our “cognitive resources, hijacks our performance and creativity, and sidelines us from our work. Even if we want to perform at our best, we can’t, because we’re bothered and preoccupied by the rudeness.” Incivility is contagious. “When you’re exposed to hostility or aggression, you behave differently. Incivility sneaks into your subconscious. It’s easy to see how plagues of incivility can take shape and spread.” But you don’t have to succumb to incivility. “When you follow a rude experience with a polite one, the polite one ‘overwrites’ the rude one, loosening the hold it has on your mind.” Civility starts with a few basic behaviors and it grows from there. Simple things like saying please and thank you make a difference in how we are perceived by others and the influence we have on them. “Most of us are in a hurry to prove our competence, but warmth contributes significantly more to others’ evaluations. Warmth is the pathway to influence.” Other basic behaviors include acknowledging people and listening. They signal caring, commitment and connection. Show respect for others by sharing resources, the limelight, and positive feedback. “The highest performers offer more positive feedback with their peers; in fact, high-performing teams share six times more positive feedback than average teams. Meanwhile, low-performing teams share twice as much negative feedback than average teams.” |
On the Far Side of Broken Trust – Hope for Those Who Have Been Betrayed
On the Far Side of Broken Trust – Hope for Those Who Have Been Betrayed
Betrayal and broken trust brings immense pain.
I know. I’ve been there. And you probably have too.
When we talk about breaking trust, there is a continuum of severity of the offense. My fellow trust activists, Dennis and Michelle Reina, have an excellent way of expressing this concept. First, you can categorize offenses as either major or minor. Second, within those categories you can view the offenses as intentional or unintentional. The severity of the trust betrayal happens on a continuum, from those instances where a person unintentionally behaves in a way that erodes someone’s trust, to those instances where the person intentionally behaves in a way to deceive or betray.
When we’ve experienced an intentional, major betrayal of trust, it can seem like all hope is lost of salvaging the relationship. After all, isn’t that the truth behind the cliché “trust takes a long time to build and just a second to lose?”
I’m here to tell you that there is hope on the far side of broken trust. If you and the other party are committed to restoring the relationship and putting in the necessary time and effort to rebuild trust, there is hope for the future. There are three important ideas to consider and remember:
1. Trust is incredibly resilient—Trust is much stronger than we give it credit for, as most people who have had long-term relationships can testify. Trust experiences ups and downs over the course of time, but if both parties learn to develop open and honest communication and practice forgiveness and restoration when minor trust offenses occur, they develop the strength necessary to weather a major breach of trust.
2. Trust can be stronger after a betrayal—Once a relationship experiences an intentional, major betrayal of trust, it will never be the same. But it can be better, deeper, and stronger than it was before. Betrayals of trust often cause the parties involved to realize the value of their relationship. Instead of taking it for granted, the parties can gain a new perspective on the importance and priority of the relationship and work to make it healthier than it was before the breach of trust.
3. It’s an opportunity for a new beginning…or a necessary ending—After experiencing a breach of trust, and before deciding to embark on the journey of rebuilding it, it’s important to consider if the relationship is worth preserving. For example, if your auto mechanic intentionally deceives you and charges you for repairs that weren’t needed, you may decide it’s better for you to end that relationship and find a new mechanic. That’s an easy choice with an impersonal service provider, but it’s quite another for a close personal relationship. Yet in spite of the pain caused by a betrayal in a close relationship, it presents an opportunity to pursue a new beginning. Both parties need to be absolutely committed to restoring the relationship in order to recover from a major betrayal of trust. Trust is a reciprocal process—one person gives it, the other returns it. You can’t rebuild it if only one party is committed.
Trust is the foundation of any healthy and thriving relationship. It may sound simplistic and perhaps counterintuitive, but the best way to build trust is to never break it in the first place. What I mean by that is trust is created through repeated interactions in a relationship where the parties prove themselves trustworthy to one another. The more trust is built over time, the stronger it becomes and is able to endure and persevere when a major betrayal occurs.
If you find yourself experiencing a betrayal, don’t despair. There is hope for having a stronger and deeper relationship as a result of going through the process of rebuilding trust.
Creating a culture of persistence
We live in a world that makes it increasingly easy to justify failures and abdicate responsibility. Too often the news trumpets the reasons why certain groups don’t get what they want, and they showcase how those in authority are responsible for others’ shortcomings.
While there are certainly injustices in world today, successful individuals don’t let them affect how hard they work or what steps they take to progress. Capable leaders keep doing the right things for their teams and their customers. They persist through difficulties, and in the process, they create a culture of persistence.
The importance of a culture of persistence cannot be overstated. You need people in your organization who will push through hard times. You need a team that will come together and do great things, regardless of what obstacles they face. You need to recruit team members that will roll up their sleeves and do what’s necessary to get the job done.
A culture of persistence needs fuel from many sources, but it starts with leadership. You can become the catalyst for this transformation by taking the following actions:
Building Rapport Shows Employees You Care – How to Get Started
Building Rapport Shows Employees You Care – How to Get Started
If you’re a senior leader in your organization, chances are the vast majority of employees don’t view you as a real person.
Research by Nathan T. Washburn and Benjamin Galvin shows employee perceptions of senior leaders are governed by mental models they form through incidental interactions with the leader, such as emails, videos, speeches, or other impersonal means of communication.
So what should you make of that? First, it should make you question the level of trust people have in you. Second, you should know that without trust it’s virtually impossible to influence and inspire your team to follow your lead. And third, it should prompt you to consider ways to build a more personal relationship with those you lead.
But where to start? Start at the beginning. Start with building rapport.
Merriam-Webster defines rapport as “a friendly, harmonious relationship; especially a relationship characterized by agreement, mutual understanding, or empathy that makes communication possible or easy.”
Rapport is a fundamental component of having a connected relationship with someone, and the lack of personal connection is the reason people view their leaders as impersonal avatars. Research has shown the importance of warmth as a critical factor in building trust. Your team members are wanting to know that you care about them as individuals and not just nameless worker bees showing up to do a job.
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
More than a third of health systems unprepared for MACRA: 8 findings
While most healthcare providers expect to participate in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, only 35 percent have a strategy for doing so, according to a study published by Health Catalyst and Peer60.
For the study, researchers surveyed 187 healthcare professionals, including 37 CEOs and 94 other C-suite executives. Survey respondents came from organizations ranging from some of the nation’s largest urban academic medical centers and integrated delivery networks to small, rural critical access facilities.
Here are eight survey findings.
HENRY KOTULA 