Raising the Bar on Service Excellence

Kristin Psy.D. Baird

Description

Raising the Bar on Service Excellence concentrates on five crucial leadership actions that will shift your organization from good to great. Once again, Baird pushes the reader out of the theory mode and into action. Each chapter features case examples and concludes with specific leadership action steps that will bring the organization closer to living the mission, vision, values and brand promise.

Sujets

• Gestion et management
• Economics
• Business
• Leadership

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 21 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456601171
• Langue: English

Extrait

Raising the Bar
on
Service Excellence
 
The Health Care Leader's Guide to Putting Passion into Practice
 
By Kristin Baird, RN, BSN, MHA
 
 

Golden Lamp Press
 
 
Copyright 2011 Kristin Baird,
All rights reserved.
 
 
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
 
 
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0117-1
 
 
 
Permission to reproduce or transmit in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, must be obtained by writing to the publisher at the address below:
 
 

Golden Lamp Press
P.O. Box 622
Fort Atkinson, WI 53538
 
This is a non-fiction publication. Patient names have been changed to protect confidentiality. Hospital or organization names may have been omitted for confidentiality upon request of the interviewee or by discretion of the author.
 
 
Credits
Editor: Teresa Peneguy Paprock
Cover Design: Mark Dziewior
 

Acknowledgments
 
No real accomplishments in life happen without support. In life and in business, I have been infinitely blessed with people who have encouraged me, taught me, supported me, challenged me, picked me up when I fell flat and rejoiced with me over successes large and small. There are really too many to mention here, so I will limit the list to those who were directly involved in this book. For those who I don't mention by name; hopefully you know who you are. Please know how grateful I am for your love and support.
I want to thank Kevin Stranberg who has been my right hand in consulting for the past four years. Your friendship and support mean the world to me. Gretchen Olsen, my sister and executive assistant has been my lifesaver. Thanks for keeping my life in order. To my editor, Teresa Peneguy Paprock. Thanks for making the tight deadlines. To Audrey Fixmer, Rob Fixmer, and Bridget Nsibirwa who not only edited this book, but in the process, helped me to grow as a writer. Thank you for sharing your skills and helping me to improve mine. Mom and Rob, forgive me for not acquiring the grammar and punctuation gene. I'm still learning.
To Quint Studer for being a mentor in my early career and for writing the foreword.
My network of colleagues helped me find the great stories and people that enriched this book. So many people shared their successes and lessons to deepen the content of this book with their stories. The following pages are filled with your wisdom.
And finally, I thank my husband and designer Mark Dziewior. Your love and support are everything to me. Thank you for taking my words and making them beautiful. Your encouragement makes me believe in myself. Your artistic skills make my ideas a reality in print. Even though you are a skilled painter and sculptor, you still step up to help me at every turn. I am blessed to have you in my life.
 

 
 
To Elizabeth, Gretchen, Rob and Tom. Here's to remission, recovery and resiliency. Your struggles remind me why I need to do this work.
 

Foreword
 
In early civilization, fire was essential to life. People used fires to keep warm, cook food, light the way in darkness, and protect themselves from enemies. Without fire, people would perish.
Within each village, there were people whose primary job was to keep the fire burning. They tended to the fires themselves. But they also knew that one day the job would need to be done by someone else. So they taught others how to carry on the practice of keeping the flame burning, which allowed villages to prosper and grow, for years and years to come.
Today, the places where people spend the most time during their days are no longer their villages. It is their workplaces. But just like villages of old, the modern workplace still needs fire starters. Why? Because sometimes we lose our way and need to find the light again. The fire starters in our workplaces help rekindle our flame, our passion, and reconnect us to why we do what we do.
Healthcare organizations are no different. As I travel the country, I meet nurses who say they knew they wanted to be a nurse when they were six years old. They entered the profession at 22, eager to make a difference in the lives of patients and their families. But some of them got discouraged as their careers advanced. Sometimes they find themselves needing a fire starter to help rekindle their passion, that same passion that they had when they were six and 22. It's still there; they just haven't tapped into it in a while. I have met doctors with similar stories, as well as CEO's, respiratory therapists and housekeepers.
Kristin is a modern day fire starter. I have always been impressed by her passion and caring. Having worked with her and having followed her career over the years, it is clear that she has a long-term commitment to making healthcare better. It is wonderful that she has taken the time to compile the practical tips and stories of success that she has gathered over the years into this book. I think it will help reignite some fires, maybe yours.
 
– Quint Studer
Founder & CEO, Studer Group
 

About the Author
 
Kristin Baird is a highly sought after healthcare consultant and speaker. Baird’s passion and perspective are based on thirty years of healthcare expertise, ranging from clinical nursing, to marketing and hospital administration.
Baird provides her health care clients with innovative service strategies, mystery shopping and employee engagement techniques. Baird is a widely published author and renowned industry speaker. Her passion for excellence is demonstrated through various articles and books, including “Customer Service in Healthcare – a Grassroots Approach to Creating a Culture of Service Excellence” and “Reclaiming the PassionStories that Celebrate the Essence of Nursing”.
Baird earned a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a Master of Science degree in Health Services Administration from Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
 

 
 
“Persistence is the twin sister of excellence. One is a matter of quality; the other, a matter of time.
 
 
- Marabel Morgan,
“The Electric Woman”
 
Introduction
 
Where did all the patients go? When were they replaced with savvy, well-informed consumers with high expectations of their health care providers?
Alas, life used to be so easy when we health care leaders knew for certain that we were in charge of health care. When we could tell the patients how things were going to be. When we could design services and processes for both our convenience and the physicians' preferences.
Today, however, we are operating in an era of consumer-driven health care. Transparency and consumer demand are forcing us to deliver our services in new and different ways. This shift requires a set of well-developed leadership skills that will elevate our organizations to a new level - one more patient-centric than provider-centric. For most health care organizations, this requires a culture shift directed by talented, multifaceted leaders.
Experience has shown that there is an art and a science involved in the process of shifting organizational culture. The science of a culture shift involves having the right people, processes and priorities in place. The art of culture-shifting requires passionate leadership and the ability to engage people at all levels of the organization.
Some might say that it is the passion, above all else, that determines a leader's ability to impact the culture. I'll never discount the importance of a leader's passion, but passion alone cannot possibly transform the culture. Passion must be coupled with each of four other essential elements in order to become more than a state of mind or one person's dream. First, a passionate leader must be able to clearly articulate priorities that align the organization on a clear path toward goals. Second, with priorities established, the passionate leader must have the right people doing the right things in order to move the organization forward in pursuit of the prioritized goals. The third essential is to have processes and systems in place that will support the people in order to maximize their efforts. And finally, a passionate leader will have the ability to help each individual define and foster a sense of purpose that furthers the goals of the organization.
When combined with people, priorities, and purpose, a passionate leader creates an unstoppable momentum that can transform entire organizations. And when the process allows that passion to be communicated from the top down (as well as the bottom up) in an organization, the results are amazing. Passionate leadership, combined with a grassroots approach to engaging the hearts and minds of all staff, is the secret to making significant changes.
This book is the result of a journey spanning the 30 years of my health care experience. It encompasses lessons learned at the bedside as well as those acquired in the executive suite. The one resounding lesson I have learned through the years is that a culture of service excellence requires persistence, insistence and consistence in order to move from good to great.
I think of the current era as the end of the Third Generation in customer service. The First Generation began in the late 1980s and early '90s. During this stage, health care leaders looked up one day and said, “Uh-oh, consumers expect us to serve them according to the same service standards held by other industries. How can that be? We are different. We are more sophisticated. We have powers to cure the sick and make the lame walk again.”
During that First Generation, many health care leaders believed that this customer service fad would go away. Relatively few health care leaders saw our patients as active, informed consumers with a choice. At this phase many of us poured money into advertising to tell the world