Blog – Robert Highbaugh Consulting

Are your organizational policies a symptom of ineffective management?

If your organization is continually implementing blanket policies in response to incidents that occurred in the past, you are likely suffering from a lack of effective management.

No, I’m not saying that policies don’t have a place in the efficient operation of an organization. They do.

What I’m saying is that most blanket policies don’t fall into this category and are a symptom of ineffective management.

For example, I know of a rather large membership driven organization that has about 1000 members in about 30 “chapters.” Members pay dues to the parent organization and to their chapter. The dues paid to the chapter cover the costs of the meetings and usually provide for a small reserve fund to cover social activities and holiday parties organized at the chapter level. Each chapter elects a leadership team to oversee the administration of the chapter.

The leaders of one chapter decided that they were working particularly hard and started to pay themselves from chapter funds for their time spent “above and beyond” what they determined was their basic duty in service to the chapter.

This type of compensation to chapter leaders is against the organization’s bylaws and grounds for dismissal from the organization.

To “fix” the problem, the parent organization issued a blanket policy that all funds collected by chapters must be remitted directly to the parent organization, thus ending reserve funds.

Although this blanket policy had the desired effect of stopping this leadership team from compensating itself, it created even bigger problems that reverberated throughout the entire organization.

Chapters could no longer set aside money for their social events and holiday parties. The local chapters had to request funds from the parent organization to put these events together. The process of requesting the funds was onerous and slow.

The result was chapters decided it was too much trouble and stopped having social events. Morale suffered as did membership engagement. Many members failed to renew their yearly memberships, the organization shrank.

This was a failure to manage the situation effectively. Unfortunately, this is the norm and not the exception.

Think about some of the blanket policies in your organization. Most were put in place because the situation prompting the policy was not managed effectively.

“There are no cell phones allowed on the sales floor” is a policy instituted because an employee was constantly talking to his friends at work. He stopped, but the policy kept another employee, a mother with a special needs child, from being able to accept calls from the school in an emergency.

“No purchases with the company credit card without approval from your supervisor and the accounting department” was instituted in response to a field technician purchasing a tool for his personal use. The unintended consequence was when the other 15 field technicians needed to purchase parts, they spent at least 30 minutes on the phone getting the required approvals. Their work efficiency dropped by 60% as did the supervisor who now spent a majority of his time approving purchases.

These blanket policies “fixed” the problem but as is usually the case, had less desirable unintended consequences. This wouldn’t have occurred if the situation was managed effectively.

If the parent organization had dealt with the leaders of the rogue chapter individually, they would have fixed the problem. There was no need to create a blanket policy that negatively affected all the other chapters and ultimately the entire organization.

Manage the problem employee who spends his entire shift talking on the phone by disciplining him for not doing his job. Manage the employee who used his company credit card inappropriately. Don’t punish everyone else in the organization for the actions of a few by issuing blanket policies.

Manage effectively.

7 Things Every Doctor Should Know

1. If you own a “practice,” you own a business.

You’d think that this goes without saying, but I’ve found that most healthcare professionals need to be reminded that first and foremost, their practice is a business. Although they are very skilled at discussing diagnoses and treatments, they need to be just as knowledgeable in the principles of business management and operations.

2. Businesses have customers

Again, this seems rather obvious, but medical professionals tend to forget that their patients are indeed customers. These customers are spending their money, and bringing the benefit of their insurance, to your business. They are customers, think of them as such, and apply proper business principles to the relationship. Customers are necessary to the success and growth of your business.

3. Customers have choices

In most metropolitan areas, chances are that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of other health care practitioners in your specialty within a 10-15 mile radius. Therefore, you have competition for your customers. If they are not happy with you, they’ll go elsewhere.

4. Your customers interact more with your staff than with you

You spend anywhere from 3 to 15 minutes with your customer. Your customer deals with your staff from the original phone call to set an appointment, to checking-in for an appointment, waiting in the lobby, being taken into the exam room, checking out, paying their bill, and calling for follow-up information and referrals. That is a lot of interaction. They might like you, but if they aren’t treated well by you staff, that won’t matter, they’ll go somewhere else.

5. If your staff is not customer focused, your business will suffer and you will lose customers

Treating customers well and exceeding their expectations is the cornerstone of a successful business. Does your staff know that?

Is your staff hired with the goal of providing extraordinary customer experiences or are they hired to efficiently and quickly process patients (and their insurance billing) through the office, so as to maximize the number of patients that are seen by the doctor?

Hire the right people and organize your business operations and processes around the customer experience, not the other way around.

6. Providing an exceptional customer experience gives you a competitive advantage.

If your business exceeds your customer’s expectations and they are happy, they will remain your customer. They will also become ambassadors of your business and it doesn’t cost you anything. You will get more customers as a dividend, and your practice will grow. This will become a competitive advantage for your business.

7. If your customers take the time to communicate with you about their experience with your business, STOP, LISTEN to them intently, RESPOND personally, and take ACTION accordingly.

If one of your customers takes the time to contact you and give you feedback about your business, be grateful and thank them. It would have been easier for them to not say anything and go to your competitor.

Don’t be embarrassed, don’t be defensive, and don’t assign this communication to an office manager or staff member to handle. Maybe they’re part of the problem. Take a few minutes out of your day to talk to this customer personally. Your attention to this will pay huge dividends. You will probably keep them as a customer, and they will provide you the information you need to determine how best to serve your customers.

If that’s not convincing enough, studies have shown that for every one person who communicates to you their displeasure, at least 25 other customers feel the same way but haven’t said anything. Can you afford to alienate that many customers?