RWL Newsletter #6
Happy Friday! Here are this weeks recommendations for your reading, watching, and listening pleasure!
Read
What: in the HBR, To Get More Out of Social Media, Think Like an Anthropologist by Susan Fournier, John Quelch, and Bob Rietveld
Why: I've been thinking a lot about listening. It comes up frequently when I talk to executives about leadership. In this article, listening is applied at the macro/market level. According to the authors, "Social listening promises the Holy Grail in business: superior understanding of customers." What is "social listening"? The essence is customers/consumers/patients are online talking about your firm and your firm's products - whatever those might be. In a sense, your users are giving you unfiltered access to their feelings about your product. So you should listen (or read) what they are saying. But... you should listen like an anthropologist: "Anthropologists and the culturally sensitive analysts who think like them specialize in meaning management. Their function is to take complex bits of data and develop a higher-order sense of them." It is a qualitative approach to research that I am fond of - the authors' point is this approach keeps the data grounded in its context, and does not purify it in a way that quantitative approaches often do.
https://hbr.org/2016/08/to-get-more-out-of-social-media-think-like-an-anthropologist
(you should be able to get 4 free articles each month from the HBR even if you are not a subscriber)
Watch
What: MakerBot and Robohand | 3D Printing Mechanical Hands
Why: This is a short, inspiring video about a South African carpenter who, after losing his fingers in a work-related accident, set out to make his own artificial hand. In collaboration with an American puppet maker, they together developed a low-cost, 3-D printable prosthesis that is changing people's lives. It's really an amazing story of technology and innovation.
https://youtu.be/WT3772yhr0o
Listen
What: The latest Health Leader Forge interview was with John Fernandez, the President and CEO of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.
Why: Mass Eye and Ear is a world famous specialty hospital focused on ophthalmology and otolaryngology. During the interview, John surprised me by recommending the One Minute Manager. He recommends the book because it has some basic advice - give people feedback and follow up (here's that listening theme again). According to John, this is a fundamental management task, and it's one that even senior executives don't always remember. Along with planning, feedback and follow up were central themes we came back to repeatedly throughout the interview.
http://healthleaderforge.blogspot.com/2016/08/john-r-fernandez-president-and-chief.html
OK – those are my suggestions for this week. If you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here:https://tinyletter.com/markbonica
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 @bonicatalent .
Thanks for reading and see you next week!
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
Twitter: @bonicatalent
"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor." - Henry David Thoreau