Archive for the ‘Archive’ Category

Hospital staff unimpressed with pressie

Waitemata Health gives staff departmental phone list for Christmas for key ring; one nurse says it was worse than getting nothing 14 December 2009

Staff at the country’s worst performing hospital for waiting times have been given the bureaucratic equivalent of a lump of coal for Christmas.

In their pigeonholes they have found a “small token” of Waitemata Health’s appreciation in the form of a handy departmental phone list, with all the hospital’s vital extension numbers listed in a plastic cover with a tag. Some staff report the tag falls apart when an attempt is made to put it onto a key ring.

The apologetic note attached to the gift says sorry it cannot be anything bigger. One nurse says it was worse than getting nothing.

10 Lessons

1. Know your staff.

2. Sometimes doing nothing is better than doing something (especially if it is bad).

3. Always ask, “What will be the effects of this?”

4. How to anchor a bad memory rather than a good memory.

5. Does this demonstrate appreciation?

6. The intention for giving this gift is misaligned with how it was received.

7. One size present does not fit all.

8.  Its not about the money – spending more on a present could have got just as bad a reaction.

9. Something that breaks the first time is usually not received terribly well.

10 Know your staff  – again, just in case you missed it as number one.

It was about 36˚ when I was away, and this is what I have returned to.

I bought a Fisher and Paykel Dishdrawer in January which I couldn’t use until two weeks after purchase. One week for delivery, and another week to replace it as it was broken before it was even out of  the box. Two weeks later it has broken down (well at least I got to use it this time). Now the interesting part isn’t that it has broken twice within a few weeks, as bad as that is. What is interesting (and highly annoying) is that it can’t be fixed for three days because the technician won’t be over this side of town until then. I have clients (yes, that is plural) that will be at someone’s house in under an hour if there is a problem. Here however, I have to work around the technician’s schedule (and of course I don’t even know the time so will be waiting around home) because it isn’t convenient to drive here until three days time. Why is this? Is there only a horse and cart available? I doubt it. I think it is because the focus is on the input of what suits the organisation (have the technicians in one area) rather than on the output of serving the customer. So, hand washing dishes for me – mind you, am getting good at it ever since I bought this dishdrawer.

And … hasn’t Fisher and Paykel had some problems over the last year? Hmmm, I have a suggestion or two for areas of improvement.

Yesterday I gave a guest lecture on feedback to about 200 Stage 3 students at the University of Canterbury. It was good to be back sharing a topic I love, and to a group of people who are at the beginning of their careers – oh the possibilities! They asked some great questions, and they remained awake in a mid afternoon lecture – success.

In 1967, Peter Drucker wrote, “Another common time-waster is malorganization. Its symptom is an excess of meetings.”  Personally, I have never met an executive who hasn’t been able to decrease the number of meetings they attend by at least 25% (note the “at least,” as that is conservative). Here is an article I read on the web this morning. Not much has changed.

NZ managers think meetings waste time

New Zealand managers think one quarter of the meetings they go to achieve nothing but waste time , a survey by a recruitment company suggests.

From 207 finance, accounting, human resources and executive-level managers surveyed, the Robert Half survey found the main reason for ill-will towards meetings was lack of focus, with people talking about topics other than the issues they had come to discuss.

The global survey collected data from 6100 managers in 20 countries.

The New Zealand managers surveyed often didn’t know what they had been called there for, or felt meetings were being attended by people who didn’t need to be there.

The survey on time-wastefulness was led by Swiss managers, who thought 38.8 percent of their meetings were a waste of time, followed by the Spanish, at 38.4 percent.

Australian managers deemed 34.5 percent of meetings a waste of time, citing the same reason as their New Zealand counterparts — lack of focus.

The lowest percentage of unnecessary meetings was reported in Luxembourg, at 13.7 percent, and Dubai, at 16.9 percent.

All surveys carried out by Robert Half suggested staff were more stressed and under more pressure to achieve more with fewer resources, senior manager Megan Alexander said.

“At some companies, meetings become such a habit that no one stops to ask whether there’s even still a compelling reason to hold them. But now is the perfect time to re-evaluate your meeting schedule and analyse which ones are really necessary, and which are not the most efficient use of resources,” she said.

– NZPA

I was interviewed on RDU on Friday about stickfighting. No, nothing on leadership, changing behaviour or culture, improving safety. I guess stickfighting sounds sexier for morning radio with a predominantly student audience. Anyway, here is the link to the 5-minute interview.

http://breakfastwithspanky.site50.net/?p=649

Being in an inner-city apartment, my outside windows get pretty dirty pretty quickly. However, these are cleaned as part of the building maintenance. My inside windows? Well, let’s just say they have needed cleaning for a couple of months. On a weekly basis I have seen different window cleaners cleaning the shop fronts in the street below. On approaching them all (five in total), I have told them my needs (clean inside windows), not asked about price as it was not a critical variable, given them my business card, and told them I would work around their schedule. Each window cleaner stated they would call me. Not one did. No, not one. Here I am as a customer approaching them (no marketing on their part), not concerned about price, and very flexible on timing.  Am I the ideal customer or what? How simple was that for them? Apparently not that simple! What simple opportunities are you missing?

My friend Pete wrote the “Letter of the Week” for the Christchurch Press, and won an Akaroa salmon for his troubles. Here is his letter.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe has this to say about New Zealand: “A failed socio-economic post-Victorian experiment.”

It has this to say about Victorian: “A seriously anal-retentive society with a great many adherents to a cannibalistic Mediterranean religion once popular with a group of savages calling themselves Romans.”

Pundits across the galaxy have this to say about anal retentive: “Overly feminised and politically correct behaviour common among the natives of NZ and practised by a hypocritical bunch of bureaucrats.”

Gag Halfront, the social commentator and author of the book Why Jellybeans Attract Lint in Your Pocket, describes New Zealand as “the origin of the All Blacks, a type of jellybean.”

Nine million dollars, being spent in a recession of biblical proportions on a referendum with a question no one seems able to interpret, on a law that makes no difference to our appalling predilection for child abuse?

Now that is really silly.

P A Newsome, Avonhead

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