First Things First!
All productivity issues are management issues.
A distinction must be made between leadership (the ability to articulate an idea and persuade others to pursue it) and management (planning, organizing, directing, and controlling resources to attain a defined objective). Leadership is in large measure a function of personality. Management, on the other hand, is a process requiring mastery of a specific skill set.
Too many hospitals are long on leadership and short on management. Department managers, frequently promoted because of professional excellence and leadership traits, too often lack the skills required to plan, organize, direct and control the resources in their charge.
It should not require a special project or extraordinary hospital-wide consultant-driven initiative undertaken at great expense to resolve performance-limiting factors. Resolving performance-limiting factors is a routine task of the normal management process. This should be a standard responsibility for each department manager because optimizing resource use to produce quality service at the lowest possible cost is the job of management.
It has been our privilege over the last 25 years to support management initiatives in hundreds of U.S. hospitals of all sizes, missions, and ownership types. From that perspective, we believe that the steps listed below will produce the most dramatic and lasting improvement in cost reduction and overall performance. 1. Set expectations. Too many department managers simply do not understand that their primary job is to optimize resource use to produce quality service at the lowest possible cost. Often this is not understood because (1) the performance expectation has not been adequately communicated and (2) there are few consequences, positive or negative, for that expectation’s achievement or lack thereof. 2. Equip all managers with the skills they must have to succeed. People promoted to management positions because of their leadership characteristics and professional excellence do not automatically come to the job with the ability to successfully plan, organize, direct and control department resources. Providing a local management training resource, perhaps developed cooperatively with a nearby community college, can produce a significant return on investment if done properly. The curriculum should be practical, not theoretical. Graduates should be able to establish goals, set measurable objectives, sequence the steps necessary to attain those objectives, apply basic systems thinking and quantitative methods, delegate tasks, manage people, measure performance, and make operating adjustments when necessary. 3. Provide the necessary management support tools, including: § Activity-based department staffing standards and the labor productivity benchmarks needed to establish standards and keep them current. § Frequent periodic productivity reports that compare actual department staffing and revenue to budgeted performance for the current period and year to date. § Variance resolution tools to help managers identify, prioritize and resolve the causes of sub-optimum results. We believe that executive management’s top priority should be to insure that their managers have the training, motivation and tools they need to meet their management responsibilities. Supporting that effort is our reason for being in business. please e-mail us or call toll free (888)587-2120 if we can be of assistance.
Frank J. Brady
President