I was reminded this week about something that I had already known about leadership, it is important to trust and empower your people.
While at a planning event, we were sitting around discussing options for improvement in our health care delivery system. Here we were four groups of about 20 people, trying to determine the outcome for our 2500 employees. I sat at my table listening to all the wonderful comments that were being shared: How can we improve the patient experience? How can we help with transportation? What about parking? What about our environment of care, our communications, and our variance--how could we improve all of it?
As our group began to delve down into what we (all 20 of us) thought was important to relate to our employees, I started hearing more direction than what I thought might be best for those who would be called to carry it out.
After all, several of us had recently been through Disney Training within the past month and an important take away for me was a key word "empowerment". When I turn online to see the definition, (my hardbound Webster's dictionary is dusty these days) I see that Wikipedia states it as this: Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, or economic strength of individuals and communities. It often involves the empowered developing confidence in their own capacities.
Although I did not have this handy reference present with me yesterday, I knew in my heart I needed to speak up. Therefore, I slipped on my Mickey hand and raised it high...the instructor called on me and I said...I would like us to take a moment to see if we can change our frame of reference. I think the areas we are looking at improving are sound and they can be good guidelines for our action teams to pursue. However, where I think we need to change--is thinking we can tell these groups exactly how to take charge of their actions. What if we were to use the Disney model and empower the groups to do the research, create the plans based on those findings, and then implement accordingly?
The doctors were quick to jump onboard, "that is what we should be doing! In medicine, we always need to look at what is happening first, we test, we prod, we poke, we analyze, we get lab work and then we make decisions. I like the idea of doing this for our committees as well". The rest of the group agreed. More positive comments ensued. And through the dialogue, I think we helped set the stage for an empowering opportunity to create a better platform for our action teams, and to empower them to know they have ownership over the change.
Does this work in every situation? Unfortunately no. I still think you have to have the right people in place in order to empower them and that boils down to recruitment and retention. Fortunately, our VA Veteran Centered Care Chairs have done a good job picking the right people to help. Moreover, when you have the right people, you have looked at the research (patient satisfaction and employee relations surveys), and you have centered your strategies based on the research well, the situation is ripe for opportunity and empowerment.
After all, it is what we as PR practitioners learn in our practice: First listen to what our publics are saying (through our research) then develop a plan of action based on that listening, communicate-build relationships-engage-enhance, and then re-evaluate to see if we got it right. I will be forever grateful for the PRSA Accreditation in Public Relations courses that taught me this.
If you want to see more of this strategic based planning, a committee based on empowerment, and how you can incorporate it, I am hoping to share these concepts at the PRSA International Conference in Washington DC at our Silver Anvil Case Study Class, "Home of the Free Because of the Brave" on Monday Oct. 18 at 9:45 a.m. Here is a preview PRSA Silver Anvil Podcast site....Home of the Free, Because of the Brave
I hope to see you there.
