RWL #188 - the hard way, trash, patient experience, and more!
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire - Forward Operating Base Last Homely House (FOB LHH)! Summer is winding down and I am ramping up! A little more than two weeks till the students return for what promises to be a very strange fall semester. I’m looking forward to seeing my seniors and meeting the juniors, but I wish the conditions were going to be different. As Gandalf says, “So do I and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” So I’m thinking through how to take advantage of online tools to provide a hybrid experience that will be as good, or maybe even better, than what I would have done under normal circumstances. As usual, I’ve been tapping my colleagues in the NNEAHE and the Army-Baylor network, and I’ve been collecting audio recordings of stories of leadership lessons learned that my students will be working with in the fall. I’m excited about that. I’m very lucky to have so many fantastic executives who are willing to help me out. It’s probably the best thing about teaching in the management field - almost everyone who is successful knows they have gotten there because of help they received along the way, and so they are more than willing to reach out and help the next generation.
Stay well and stay safe.
(picture above is paddling on the Oyster River - my daughter and her friend in the canoe ahead of me)
Read
What: GJMBR, Learned the Hard Way: A Model of Executive Leadership Competencies
https://globaljournals.org/GJMBR_Volume20/5-Learned-the-Hard-Way-A-Model.pdf
Why: A little shameless self-promotion here - I wrote Learned the Hard Way with my colleagues Chris Mayhugh and Mark Mellott based on data from my podcast the Health Leader Forge (new episode below). We transcribed the first 60 or so podcasts a few years ago and using grounded theory we started looking for interesting leadership ideas. We settled on responses to one of my favorite questions, can you tell me about a leadership lesson you learned the hard way? As we sorted through the responses, we started to see patterns and from those patterns we developed a positive model of leadership. I think the article is fun and I think it has an interesting spin. Chris and I are looking at a new article connecting the Hard Way model to Authentic Leadership. You can’t be authentic unless you have come to terms with your weaknesses. So that will be the central premise of the new article, yet to be written. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this article if you read it. Or you can listen to me talk about it here.
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What: Philadelphia City Life, A Philly Trashman on Picking Up Your Garbage in the Middle of a Pandemic
https://www.phillymag.com/news/2020/08/03/philly-trashman-sanitation-workers-ppe/
Why: Public health doesn’t get any more basic than sanitation. One Philly trashman has an Instagram account at Terrill Haigler (@_yafavtrashman) • Instagram photos and videos and he’s trying to raise awareness about his work. This is an interview with Terrill about how things have changed during COVID. Visiting my sister and her family outside of Philly was the last big trip I made before COVID took hold in the US. Hopefully we’ll be able to get back down there and run up the Library steps like Rocky again soon! In the meantime, take a quick look at the work of a trashman through the eyes of @_yafavtrashman.
Watch
What: Andreesen Horwitz, Healthcare: The Great Unlock (16 min)
Why: Factors that were pushing healthcare in new directions have been accelerated by COVID (think telehealth). Both supply and demand forces are changing the value chains. What is the Holy Grail? Cheaper healthcare without sacrificing quality. I really like the emphasis on telehealth and the decoupling of geography from healthcare delivery. This is a little dry, but it’s worth listening to.
Listen
What: Health Leader Forge, Richard Corder, Managing Director, TiER1 Performance
https://healthleaderforge.blogspot.com/2020/08/richard-corder-managing-director-tier1.html
Why: This month’s Health Leader Forge podcast is an interview with Richard Corder, a healthcare management consultant and Managing Director at the management consulting firm TiER 1 Performance. In this podcast we discuss Richard’s journey from his start as an apprentice in the hotel industry in London, England, following his heart to Boston, Massachusetts, his decision to enter the healthcare industry after his own experience as an inpatient, how he applied lessons he learned from the hospitality industry to become an expert on patient experience, and ultimately his move into healthcare consulting. We conclude the podcast with a discussion about leadership and mentorship.
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What: HBR Ideacast, Mastering the Art of Persuasion
https://hbr.org/podcast/2020/08/mastering-the-art-of-persuasion
Why: This podcast includes a whole series of interesting observations and tricks about how to persuade people. One of the ideas he presents is the “cost benefit time gap” - the idea that very often when we ask someone to accept change, the cost comes first and is very concrete in the present while the benefits generally happen in the future and are probabilistic. This insight applies to management scenarios, but also to personal health decisions. In fact, he uses a specific behavioral health example, talking a physician who is trying to get a patient to cut back on the amount of soda he is drinking. The patient is drinking three 2-liter bottles of soda a day. Instead of asking him to go cold turkey, she asks him to cut down to two bottles. The idea is small changes are easier to accept than large changes. It’s a fun podcast with some insights that can be applied to both personal and work lives.
Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line at mark.bonica@unh.edu , or you can tweet to me at @mbonica .
Also, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://tinyletter.com/markbonica
See you next Friday!
Mark
Mark J. Bonica, Ph.D., MBA, MS
Assistant Professor
Department of Health Management and Policy
University of New Hampshire
(603) 862-0598
mark.bonica@unh.edu
Health Leader Forge Podcast: http://healthleaderforge.org
'It is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keep the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.' - Gandalf (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey)