Baptist Healthcare Journey to Excellence

The Baptist Healthcare Journey to Excellence by Al Stubblefield is an outstanding book about the Baptist Health System’s journey from poor performance to excellence. The book offers great insights and practical tools that any business leader, in any industry, can use to improve results and impact the bottom line. Below are some of my favorite ideas that Baptist utilized and embraced in order to propel them to success.

WOW Philosophy

The WOW philosophy is at the heart of Baptist’s turnaround. The WOW philosophy is empowering Workers to become Owners and Winners by creating and maintaining a great organizational culture. Baptist’s success story begins with the belief that employees can and should be just as happy at work as they are at home. They determined that when employees feel empowered to make good decisions at work, they act like owners of the company rather than simply employees, which results in greater job satisfaction. If employees are then rewarded and recognized for their contributions, great things happen as a culture of job-fulfillment is created. Establishing a great culture with the WOW philosophy was at the center of Baptist’s success story.

Passion for Service Recovery

The mark of a great business is its ability to exceed customer expectations especially after a service failure. During their turnaround, Baptist Health realized the importance of service recovery and began a concerted effort to improve in this area by developing the acronym ACT. ACT stands for apologize, correct plus, and trend. This acronym ACT helped establish the idea that fixing a customer problem is not enough, and instead, encouraged employees to go above and beyond to make amends for a failure—thus correct plus. By paying attention to and emphasizing service recovery, Baptist won the trust of many customers.

Three Keys to Leadership

Another important piece that contributed to Baptist’s success was their focus on leadership. They believed that to improve employee satisfaction and results they needed to improve the leadership, coaching, and management Baptist employees received. For this reason, they developed the three keys to effective leadership which included top management commitment, real-time measurement and accountability, and ongoing leadership development. By focusing on these three keys to effective leadership, they were able to develop great leaders and in turn recruit and retain great employees.

Tight, Loose, Tight Management Style

Baptist managers learned to embrace the tight, loose, tight management style which helped in their turnaround process. First they strive to be tight in communicating goals and objectives to ensure everyone is aligned and working toward common goals. Next, they are loose in how employees achieve these clearly established goals. And finally, they try to be tight with results and outcomes. By developing this style of management, Baptist was able to see great results.

This is a very brief summary with only a few of the many great insights and tools the Baptist story provides and that leaders can use to develop their organizational cultures and improve the bottom line. Ultimately, the Baptist experience teaches us that focusing on engaging employees through developing a strong organizational culture works. If you are a business leader, I very highly recommend you learn from the Baptist Health System's turnaround experience through this book.

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Strategies to Help the Overwhelmed

Are you feeling overwhelmed?! Studies show that most Americans are, however, there are simple actions we can take to lighten our load and relax. Following these simple strategies reduces stress and anxiety—allowing us to function at a more optimal level and helping us to reach our potential.

#1 Write it Down

Many times we are stressed because we don’t write things down. Writing down our worries, challenges, fears, struggles, appointments, and anything and everything else on our mind will help us to clear our heads. Writing things down can also be therapeutic in a way as it can calm our fears and help us feel more in control of our issues. Now you may be thinking that you don’t have the time to do this but even 5 minutes a day can help tremendously. So, if you feel overwhelmed, slow down and write it down.

#2 Prioritize

Make a list of your to-dos for the day and determine what is truly important. If necessary, postpone or cancel less important items, ask for help on items that can be accomplished by someone else, and then don’t add any new items to your plate that do not need to be added. Prioritizing your activities for the day will allow you to do those things that really matter.

#3 Get Organized

Clutter and disorganization around us is a representation of our lives and reminds us of all we have to do. If our desk is constantly cluttered, then our ability to feel less stress and be organized is greatly impaired. Thus, we should take the time to organize any visual clutter that we may see. Doing so will help lower our stress levels, and it will help us to feel empowered and ready to face the challenges of the day.

#4 Start Small

When possible, start your day by tackling the small items that must be done. Taking care of the small stuff builds confidence and prepares us for the bigger must-do items for the day. As our list dwindles and more is accomplished, our stress levels go down and some relief comes.

#5 Take a Time Out

This is much easier said than done, but taking a time out to relax and get our minds off all we have to do energizes and provides us with a greater capacity to accomplish all we have to do. Exercising, reading a book we enjoy, talking to friends, or spending quality time with our family are all ways to relax, rejuvenate, and refocus. Though it may seem we don’t have the time, making time for a time out will lower our stress, relieve our anxiety, and will allow us to accomplish more.

So it is time to stop feeling overwhelmed or at least it’s time to start doing something about it. Following the simple strategies of writing it down, prioritizing, organizing, starting small, and taking a time out every day will all greatly help us relax and reach our potential. We can do it!

Be a Mexican Fisherman

I’ve had a “milestone” birthday this week which has caused me to reflect quite a bit on my life and what I’ve done over the many years. One interesting thing I ’ve learned is that sometimes in life we have the wrong dreams. Or maybe we have the right dreams but the wrong thought process or mindset or understanding or perspective in order to know what those dreams truly are and how we can make them come true. Below is fun story that allows us to reflect on life and our dreams and focus on what is most important now rather than later.

The American investment banker was at the pier of a
small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with
just one fisherman docked.

Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna.
The American complimented the Mexican on the quality
of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, "Only a little while."

The American then asked, "Why didn't you stay out longer
and catch more fish?"

The Mexican said, "With this I have more than enough to support my family's needs."

The American then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life."

The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing; and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat: With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor; eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles and eventually New York where you will run your ever-expanding enterprise."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?"

To which the American replied, "15 to 20 years."

"But what then?" asked the Mexican.

The American laughed and said that's the best part. "When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."

"Millions?...Then what?"

The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

Author Unknown

Steps to Make Your Vision Work for You

Recently I had a colleague confess to me that he was struggling to establish and push a vision for his company. He explained that he understood the purpose and potential benefits of having and promoting a vision for his company but he admitted he just wasn’t sure how to make his vision work for him. He wasn’t sure how to use the vision to inspire and align his workforce. Thinking about this, I’ve come up with some simple steps to help us make our visions work for us.

# 1 Write it Down

If we struggling to promote or work towards our vision, the first thing to do is write it down. Writing down our vision helps to make it real and clear. Often a vision stuck in our head is not as clear as it may be once we write it down. Writing down the vision gives it true meaning and significance bringing it to life and making it a reality rather than an obscure concept. Also, writing our vision allows us to better assess the vision to ensure it says what we really hope to become which is step number two.

#2 Analyze it

Once your vision is written down—analyze it. The purpose of analyzing your vision is to make sure you got it right. Is it really what you want to accomplish? Does reading your vision excite you and make you want to be better?! Does your vision invoke passion and enthusiasm?! Will your vision drive performance? If you can answer yes to these questions, then you are ready for step 3.

#3 Create a Plan

Once your vision is written down and solidified, it is time to come up with a plan to achieve it! This happens by establishing goals and steps to reach your vision. Whether the vision is for one person or an entire corporation, each goal set must clearly contribute to or work toward reaching the vision.

#4 Promote it

While developing and implementing the plan, promote the vision. This is done by communication, communication, and more communication. Your written, verbal, (and even body language) communication must speak to your vision. Memos, meetings, emails, discussions, display cases, bulletin boards, interviews, one-on-ones, appointments, etc. must speak to your vision. During formal or informal conversations, your vision must be apart of it. Indeed, your vision must become apart of you. Your actions are also critical and must be consistent with achieving the vision. You know you’ve promoted your vision well when each decision made is made with the end in mind or the vision in mind.

#5 Re-evaluate it

Finally, you must re-evaluate your vision continually. Times change, circumstances change, and people change and sometimes a vision no longer inspires or motivates, or is really what you want to become. Thus, in order to keep your vision alive and working for you , it is important to re-evaluate it frequently. During this evaluation if you determine it is time for a new vision, simply start back at step number one.

Following these five steps will help make your vision work for you. Don’t delay in establishing a vision for your life, family, department, organization, or whatever you are apart of. The journey to success starts with the end in mind—a vision!