Clintcast

Research shows that teams usually accomplish more than individuals. Creating teams to accomplish goals seems innocuous enough, however, there are some important guidelines to bear in mind if you want to have a greater chance at success with the team approach. Today, Clint provides tips related to crafting ‘rapid cycle’ teams and how they tie to the larger organization.

Passive aggressive behaviors can unfortunately be found in large supply in the healthcare profession. The key to eliminating these wasteful and destructive forces lies in dealing with it at the lowest/closest level. As Care Crowd members, you can lead the charge in tackling this insidious, invasive problem. Clint gives you some techniques to help in this task.

Great ideas are wonderful - the world needs lots of solutions! However, being solution-oriented requires more than just brainstorming. It requires commitment to execute ideas into fruition on a scale that truly does benefit the target population. Clint recalls some words of wisdom from his past that help ‘focus’ these great ideas to committed action that has a chance at success - would you bet your paycheck on your idea’s success?

As healthcare providers, we have many current processes and techniques for helping clients in our care in regards to Alzheimers. While no one wants to deprive these patients of quality treatments and related services, it is still important to recognize that medicine is progressing at an astounding rate and that at any time, we could develop new techniques for dealing with, or better still eliminating, the onslaught of Alzheimers. As such, it is worth considering how your organization is positioned in relation to this and other similar medical conditions/treatments and how your business model would be impacted by such an advancement in medicine, as has happened in the past when other diseases have been 'conquered'.

Employment in healthcare can be very different compared with other professions. It can sometimes be very difficult to appreciate your unique abilities and talents that you use daily to succeed in healthcare. It doesn't help that others are often bewildered at your participation in this career field as well. Today, Clint offers some pats on the back that help reaffirm that 'Healthcare is cool' and that you are valuable and needed.

In a track and field relay race, the most critical portions of the race are the transitions where the runners exchange the baton while running at full speed. When this effort fails, the whole race suffers. In healthcare organizations where there are multiple shifts, the concept is no different. The shift report is the critical means of passing the baton to the next runner. Learn some techniques to improve this highly empowering activity.

While the two may seem similar on the surface, there is a vast difference between problem solving and decision making. Unfortunately, many organizations don't put enough effort into making problem solving tasks highly participatory. With that accomplished, it is then equally important to be able to effectively make a firm decision, regardless of potential downsides, and stick to it. Learn how these two elements are pivotal in overcoming change in a positive way.

Every organization needs a positive direction and means to get there in order to succeed. Today, Clint lays out words to live by for the Care Crowd itself- 1) Healthcare is cool 2) Customers are great 3) Teaming makes it easier 4) I make a difference. Take a moment to understand the creed points and how you can implement them daily.

In the case of the famous racehorse, Seabiscuit, it can be viewed that the horse was not the ultimate 'underdog' as portrayed commonly in history. Instead, the case can be made that in fact, the winning pieces were there all along and only needed to be brought together in a 'plan to win'. Our healthcare organizations are often no different. We don't have to accept being placed in an 'underdog' light in order to similarly find the winning strategies and components necessary to overwhelmingly win.

For most of our listeners in healthcare, they are in the 'people' business. Specifically, 'old' people are the focus of their customer service skills. To this end, it is critical for us to develop a keen understanding of our customers' values, history & viewpoints so we can better frame our service to their needs without the desire to try to 'change' our customers to meet our own needs and values.

Meetings are often seen as a 'necessary' evil. The trick is they don't necessarily have to actually 'be' evil. To the contrary, when organized, executed and followed through on properly, meetings can be an effective means of getting and keeping the organization on track. However, this goal requires effective meeting leadership. Learn some techniques from Clint which can improve your next meeting today!

In healthcare, our customer service goal is to deliver a full 24 hours of quality care. The reality is that out of these 24 hours, 7 hours specifically usually have a profound effect on the effectiveness of the other 17. How we manage our organizations during these critical 7 hours can lead to drastic improvements (or setbacks) in terms of the entire day. Clint gives some insights on how to make these 7 hours pay off.

'Sales' doesn't have to be pre-conceived as a 'dirty word' in the healthcare profession. Being 'sales ready' is actually a great position to be in when the opportunity arises to match up customers with a product or service you provide. Today Clint presents the 6 P's you can use to help put your organization in this coveted position.

Not all reorganization efforts actually result in progress. Sometimes they have quite the opposite effect, resulting in 'confusion, inefficiency and demoralization', throwing the organization even further out of whack because they fail to learn from the missteps of the previous situation. Here are some tips for recognizing the signs of successful reorganizations, as well as identifying when things are less than successful in finding a new path forward.

Few things can improve your customer service as much as picking up the phone properly. Our society has gotten more and more complacent about phone communications, and yet, it is still the primary means by which our customers (and their money) reach us. We must ensure that we have a consistent, measurable strategy for answering our phones across the organization that not only sets the proper tone for interaction with our customers, but also establishes clear, timely and accurate communication with them.

There is a vast difference between leadership meetings and cycle of doom meetings. Learning to make sure we always employ WWW as required outcomes will help to guarantee that the money, time and energy lost on a meeting will pay itself back multiple-fold later. Learn more about this concept and how it can improve your meetings for a more productive workplace.

Unfortunately, there are often times when staffing needs exceed staffing realities. Hence was created the concept of floating staff to cover these times. When these events become fairly routine, it is probably symptomatic of larger underlying staffing/scheduling problems which need to be addressed. When it truly is the result of unforeseen forces, however, there are ways we can at least make this a more pleasant (and even rewarding) experience for those who willingly step up to save the day.

It sounds simple enough to get up and go to work, yet many of us have a hard time each day getting up and going because we are already predisposed to lamenting the conditions we will face when we get to work. It is up to you to find ways to adjust this situation, whether it is to find more positives, learn to deal more effectively with the negatives or even to change them all out for a new workplace. Clint offers some suggestions on how to approach this situation so you can get up cheerfully and charged for the day.

Who is the chicken lady? She is the one with the power. Listen in to hear Clint discuss the topic of power within an organization and ways in which we can empower people to get the overall goals of the team accomplished while still maintaining a balance of this power.

Difficult customers are a problem we all encounter in life. How we choose to deal with them is key to our customer service skills. Clint discusses techniques for engaging and managing these customers and creating positive outcomes that help reduce/eliminate the customer's need to escalate into a bigger problem customer, and maybe even make a them nicer customer to deal with.