RWL Newsletter #116
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! I’m a day late and maybe even a dollar short this week. Long day yesterday. Recorded a podcast with a colleague that will be coming out next month, which was fun, but it sucked up my morning. And then I was recording more videos working through finance problems for the Gapenski Healthcare Finance text. You can see them here - my students seem to find them useful. Feel free to borrow or share for anyone working through a course using the Gapenski text.
I didn’t have a cool picture this week, so I thought I’d include this chart from the economist Mark Perry. The data comes from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). It’s a bit depressing to see that the two industries I intersect on - college education and healthcare - have the highest inflation rates. It’s interesting to speculate about why inflation rates vary across industries. I’ll leave that to you.
So for your weekend enjoyment, please check out these links:
Read
What: HBR, Change the Way You Persuade
https://hbr.org/2002/05/change-the-way-you-persuade
Why: Students in my org behavior class presented about persuasive communication this week and assigned this HBR article about how leaders make decisions as pre-work for their colleagues to read. The article breaks executive decision makers into five categories, and describes how each category makes decisions, and how to influence each type of decision maker more effectively. I’m not sure I buy into the taxonomy, but like many personality tests (like the MBTI), it’s an interesting starting point to think about both decision making and persuasive communication. (HT to Becca and Courtney)
Watch
What: BBC, The Code, The Wisdom of the Crowd (5 minutes)
Why: Short video highlighting how group decision making can be more effective than individual decision making. There are a number of conditions under which this fails, but it’s still pretty fascinating.
Listen
What: McKinsey Podcast, The Future of Manufacturing
Why: Healthcare is a service industry, but it is supported by specialized manufacturing - from pharmaceuticals to medical devices. A few interesting points come out of this podcast that I think are relevant to healthcare delivery, in addition to healthcare-related manufacturing. The first is a focus on the fact that most loss in manufacturing is due to human error. Successful manufacturing firms implement processes to reduce human error. Second, successful manufacturing firms engage their employees more. The healthcare equivalent that I thought of was having people practice at the top of their license. Successful manufacturing firms accomplish this by fully implementing Lean.
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 by e-mail, 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
Have a great weekend and do amazing things!
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
"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor." - Henry David Thoreau