Week Three - A Day in the Life of the Culture Committee

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

- George Bernard Shaw

Week three has literally flown by; prepping for a hurricane that never came (thank goodness) and off on vacation in Key West for the first time in years. This week was an interesting variety; a great deal of focus on culture and the impacts of OD’s ability to maximize effectiveness, efficiency, and motivational climate (Brown, 2011, p. 69). We also uncovered how adaptability, the capacity to properly interpret the functional relevance for the organization, as well as the “…sense of identity and vision…” about organizational goals (Brown, 2011, p. 69) can serve as health benchmarks to test the organizations viability towards change capacity. It comes down to balance, and doing the right thing for our people...we usually have very few chances at getting something right with our teams...when we do not recognize how hard they work and why they put their whole hearts into it, we show our lack of empathy and appreciation for what they do to help us accomplish our goals. Why would anyone NOT want to work for a team and leadership that literally has dedicated an entire workforce towards getting it right and saying THANK YOU for all you do???

Additionally, our video this week regarding Southwest Airlines ability in effectively establishing cultural norms and making them a priority was eye-opening to say the least. With all of the nickel-and-diming going on in the airline industry, I thought it was fantastic that they have a dedicated Culture Committee team to consistently reinforce the importance of finding ways to thank their employees, promote positive regard for others by dedicating their time to make someone’s job easier, and build their employee-centric purpose surrounding a warrior spirit, a servant’s heart, and a “fun-LUVing” attitude (Southwest Airlines, 2015). We could all take a lesson or two from them, as what they do matters and has such a HUGE impact to those on the receiving end. You cannot measure the ROI or your P&L for that!

I think for my organization, we would need to have a dedicated HR force, and I do mean force, in which had a specific budget and team to work towards re-establishing an employee centered focus to bring about higher morale, less turnover, along with finding meaning in what we do. Currently, because healthcare is a very labor-intensive market, and reimbursement for services becomes less and less as time goes on, it leaves little profit for investing in its workforce while trying to obtain capital funding to stay on top of ever-changing technologies to deliver quality healthcare for our patients. We would need to ensure that we have leadership support at the highest level while instilling the importance of fun and recognition with middle management engagement while conducting daily operations. This would prove to be challenging; much of healthcare operates as separate clinical entities within the hospital. Meaning that each department is its own unique boutique business unit. And although these units operate independently, they remain an integral part of the open business unit that forms the entire facility and operations of patient focused healthcare.

Additionally, another forsaken challenge is the amount of legislature, compliance requirements, unionized labor laws, as well as the lacking motivational climate that often times becomes riddled with red-tape and it feels like a monumental task just to try to organize a holiday luncheon for our employees. We have over 700 employees working at our facility; the little things our HR teams do mean so very much to all of us…if only our administration wasn’t burdened with managing reports, numbers, and deadlines that measure nothing of what we do on a daily basis towards our operational goals. Those outside our facility have been away from healthcare for so long, that their upper-crust status and titles have blinded them to what goes into a single day of dealing with patients. Because of their detachment to reality as it relates to facility operations, they continue to plague us with unrealistic budgets, useless report requirements, and action plan requirements that have ZERO viability of taking place because we simply do not have the resources it takes to produce what they demand.

I think Southwest found the right balance; take care of the people who take care of the business. As our chapter points out this week, it takes three tools for change which include “…information, support, and resources” (Brown, 2011, p. 73)…all of which we have ZERO ability to contribute towards and make a difference with. I can attempt every day to arm my department with what information they need, support them in unique ways to help them blossom and accomplish their goals, as well as fight for any resources I can, even if nobody else will help me do it.




Until we blog again!

References

Brown, D. R. (2011). An Experiential Approach to Organization Development, Eighth Edition. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.

Southwest Airlines. (2015). Culture. Retrieved August 30, 2015, from southwest.com: https://www.southwest.com/html/about-southwest/careers/culture.html