DailyKaizen

A few examples of innovation and respect came across my RSS reader recently. The first is from Mayo Clinic, who are involving their patients in the development of innovative approaches to providing care. This seems like a great way to move past a fear of failure and maintain relevance to those we are serving (yes, the customer, as Lee points out). I hope we will emulate this spirit as we involve our members in our workshop events, too.

The second example is a piece on self-management that appeared in the Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Series. This one also got me thinking - would managers be necessary in every instance if the process for doing work was clear? They would probably be necessary, but not in a command and control kind of way.

I then began to think of some situations we’ve encountered recently. As we interact with groups that know less about LEAN process, they have tended to use typical methods of “expediting,” which usually entails checking back on things periodically until they get done. If they are not visibly completed, then a person of higher ranking does the checking back. I believe this is a norm in most businesses, so it is not a surprise. It is an opportunity, though. With a good process, which we have set in the area we have most focused on in health information technology, we can trust the process and expediting is not necessary. The instinct to “tender” and move the process along, much as a ship’s tender does when it moves cruise ship passengers from ship to shore is real. I learned this week in one case that this wasn’t necessary. If I trusted the process that we set up, no checking was needed. And in fact it wasn’t. When I spoke to the process owner that we’ve designated, I learned that a piece of work that was asked for was being completed on time. When I spoke to the key stakeholder, I learned that she was aware of this, and comfortable with the process. I am in recovery, too.

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