This is in way of an introduction as well as a reply to Malcolm Burson's
request for practical suggestions regarding broadening organization
knowledge base.
My name is Pat Korolog and I am a nurse turned "Clinical Information
Specialist" at a rural hospital in Montana. I have been the project
manager for a massive change from manual documentation to computer
documentation. And though there is alot of respect here for everyone's
opinion, there is also alot of resistance to change, grumbling about
change, poor-me-why-do-I-have-to-do-this conversation that floats through
the halls as well. My initial assumption when starting this process was
that nurses and doctors do not want to know about the business of
hospitals. They just want to take care of patients. I'd heard many staff
members voice anger and resentment over the hospital spending money on
computers when they felt it needed to go somewhere else. So when we needed
to present management's ideas on the upcoming changes to the organization
I had some of Malcolm's concerns:
Malcolm noted:
>So my question, dear friends, is this: what sorts of steps do we take to
>make it possible for traditionally disempowered, knowledge-poor (in the
>sense of things like basic understanding of the financial structures and
>external customer requirements that drive the business) staff to choose to
>broaden their own individual and common knowledge base, without
>reinforcing the paternalistic structures that allowed them to languish
>there in the first place?
What we did at North Valley Hospital was this:
We held several staff meetings in which we presented a general overview of
Health Care reform and what other hospital's our size are doing, what
analyst's see coming down the pike, and our best guess at to how we might
financially survive. We talked about our vision to serve our community in
a uniquely friendly environment. We talked about our commitment to
certain values that staff felt computerization threatened, such as our
"family" environment for customers/clients as well as staff . And we
asked for input. We encouraged all staff to throw their thoughts into the
discussion. We talked about the fear of changing and gave a voice to
individual fears. We presented all the alternatives we could think of to
survive in this new market and gave them our best shot at what we thought
might work in the broad scheme. Then we asked them to take some
initiative and to investigate the issues to their own satisfaction. And
those that wanted to have formal input into the changes; who wanted to
help direct and implement the changes, could.
The response was tremendous. The discussions were lively. Staff was
enthralled. People told me they were excited because they felt change
wasn't just happening without context. They had never been exposed to
this information before and it helped them make sense of the proposed
changes as well as their reactions to change overall. Some even told me
their work was infused with a new element of apprehension but excitement.
Others told me they could see ways they were blocking change in their
personal lives. We had tons of requests to be on the committees. A few
people told me that they had started watching congressional hearings on
health care reform and some even asked me for some articles to read!
This is my story of letting go of my assumptions that people don't want
information about the running of the business in which they work and live.
I think many do. I'm new to Learning Org material and I'm not managment,
but I feel empowered by the organization I work in. And the circle grows.
It seemed the atmosphere (field?) of connection was contagious.
Presenting information doesn't have to be patriarchal-- and even if some
aspect of it is (I present to you and you accept), it can be done in such
as way as to invite people to let go of disempowerment and learn another
way.
-- Pat Korolog Clinical Information Specialist Whitefish, Montana pkorolog@netrix.net