The Speed of Trust

The Premise of Covey's, The Speed of Trust, is that when there is trust in any business or human transaction, the transaction takes less time and thus, costs less.

Think of any transaction, whether it be buying something or talking with your boss. If there is trust, things move along quickly. If there is no trust, we get bogged down in analysis and take extra time checking things out. Trust is the lubricant for effective human transactions. Increased friction is the result of lack of trust.

Typical of Covey materials is the framing of principles around values and specific behaviors, an approach adapted by Ministry Health Care for our Patient Promise.

Trust is a key element of effective leadership. I highly recommend this one. It's an easy listen, only 75 minutes (executive summary version from Audible.com).

Personal Responsibility at the Desktop

In the aftermath of a virus or malware outbreak, we typically beat up on our Client Technology and Data Center folks or even our security software vendor and demand answers, “How could you let this through? Why didn’t our technology block this threat? Where was your vigilance?” Frankly, the question we really want to ask is:

“Who’s the nincompoop that clicked on the malware that kicked this catastrophe off?”

Virus and malware outbreaks typically cause us to revisit our usage of Windows local administrative rights. In a nutshell, local admin rights serve double duty as a requirement for certain, critical applications as well as the scourge of IT Support.

One approach to keep malware from attacking a device is to “lock it down”, that is, to remove local admin rights so that the user can’t install anything on it. This approach has its advantages because it protects users from the negative consequences of their own actions. This is similar to web filtering where we keep users away from harmful sites. Standard tools in the IT Security arsenal, right?

The problem I have with employing blocking technologies as the sole deterent is that we do two things:
1) We imply a lack of trust whereby we further are viewed as “big brother”.
2) We create a nanny security environment where users assume no responsibility for their actions (for what they click on).

While blocking technologies are important and necessary, I strongly believe we need to cultivate another, farther-reaching approach: personal responsibility and consequences. Before you call me naïve, consider this: Is it better to instruct our teenagers about the dangers of alcohol consumption or should we prominently lock the liquor cabinet and call it a day? Clearly the healthier and more sustainable answer is the former. (Having said that, there are certainly times when we may have to resort to the latter!)

I propose educating users on what they can and cannot install. We don’t want them installing games and we don’t need them to help us update their virus scanners. In fact, we don’t want them to install anything without the consent of the Service Desk. If, after this simple education, a user decides to install something, we will impose simple consequences. If it takes 30 minutes for a technician to remove Google Earth, then the user will forfeit 30 minutes from their paid-time-off (PTO) account. If they click on something that requires a 2-hour reimaging and reconfiguration of their device, they forfeit 2 hours from their PTO account.

In essence, we need to employ a two-prong approach: blocking technologies AND user responsibility and consquences.

In Jurassic Park, John Hammond tells Dennis Nedry that he doesn’t blame people for their mistakes, but he does ask that they pay for them. I agree and believe that this stance would vastly cut down on the number of illicit software installations, with blocking technologies providing the final cover.

Fostering Cultural Excellence

Our Lady of Victory Hospital (OLVH) routinely posts the best employee culture scores in the Ministry Health Care system. I'm often asked how it is that OLVH consistently rates so high. We're certainly not perfect nor perfectly consistent across all departments but I see OLVH's cultural strengths as follows:


Leadership by Example

OLVH leaders are "working managers". I think that makes the layer between managers and staff less pronounced. Whether it's our DON working ED shifts or the Rehabiliation Director going to the prison to provide therapy, the leaders at OLVH have their sleeves rolled up just like the staff does. I believe that fosters more of a "we're all in this together" environment.


Sincerity

Values and culture activities are treated seriously and sincerely by our leadership. These initiatives are always followed by serious and sincere action. Employees can smell disingenuous lip service a mile away.


Connection with Staff: Honesty and Openness

From a senior leadership level, the hospital President does a great job of keeping everyone appraised of what is happening, even if the news is negative. There are few, if any, secrets. Discordance is hard to hide in a small environment so it's typically dealt with quickly resulting in less time to fester (certainly there is variability in performance here but overall this is a strength at OLVH). Conversely, good works and good staff are more visible to all. The President's weekly email is a great example of how she openly connects with staff to relay good news, bad news and give sincere kudos and encouragement to specific individuals.


Focus, Accountability and Follow-through

There is a strong current of accountability here complete with follow-through and closure of initiatives. Thus, things get done. This leads to the sense of accomplishment as well as confidence that what we focus on will be accomplished.


Trust

All of the above lead to a higher sense of trust among leaders and staff and trust is probably the main ingredient of commitment.

Tis the Season: Digital Camera Purchasing

This is the time of year when I field a lot of questions about point-and-shoot digital cameras for gifts or for capturing pictures of kids and grandkids during the holidays. Luckily, a very highly respected digital camera review site, DPReview.com, is coming out with a series of reviews of cameras within various classes. Each class review will select the best cameras in their respective classes.

Their first review is of the budget camera class and includes cameras under $150. According to the review, the two best cameras in the group are (with Amazon links) the Sony DSCW120 at approx. $130 and the Panasonic LZ8 at approx $117.

Remember, this first review is of budget cameras so the winners will provide good quality photos yet may or may not have all of the features you desire. Read the reviews carefully as DPReview does a good job of specifying the pros and cons of each class of camera as well as for the individual cameras themselves. I'm actually quite amazed that both the Sony and the Panasonic above have Image Stabilization and large viewing screens. Clearly, high-end camera technology is working it's way down to the budget models!

If you're interested in digital camera buying this Christmas, check back at the DPReview site for more information and more reviews as they become available.

Enjoy,
Eric

(BTW- Don't judge a camera based on the number of megapixels it has. All new cameras have enough megapixels to produce large prints.)

President-Elect Obama's Electronic Health Record

In a fortuitous coincidence, Will Weider (the CandidCIO) and I are blogging about the same topic this week: President-elect Obama's enthusiasm for Electronic Health Records.

From the Obama health plan:

A study by the Rand Corporation found that if most hospitals and doctors offices adopted electronic health records, up to $77 billion of savings would be realized each year through improvements such as reduced hospital stays, avoidance of duplicative and unnecessary testing, more appropriate drug utilization, and other efficiencies.

At Good Samaritan Health Center, it's the duplicative and unnecessary testing that we're going after in full force with our PACs initiative. Currently, images and interpretations are not well integrated into our referring physician's work flows. As a result, duplication of diagnostic exams occurs. Our goal is to ensure that high quality images and interpretations are available electronically 24/7 to all of our referring physician customers (HIPAA compliant, of course).

Off Site Office

So there I am, in the middle of the woods on a beautiful late October afternoon. I'm staked out on a tall, lake point with towering pines all around me. The sun warms me through the trees while I sit in a folding chair inhaling the clean fall aroma of leaves and pine needles.

The occasion is a highly anticipated PTO day to take advantage of a dwindling fall. I'm sitting in my chair with my rifle in my lap, soaking up the sun and waiting for the red squirrels to come back out of hiding. We like to keep their population low this time of year so they don't end up chewing up the cabins, sheds and boats that are stored for the winter.

I've finally got a visual on the noisy squirrel to the east when my leg starts to vibrate and Collective Soul starts to play. My cell phone. It's a support technician informing me that our retail pharmacy vendor has made a mess of our point of sale terminals.

Frankly, the fact that the call even comes through in the middle of the wooded, Wisconsin nowhere is a miracle brought about just within the last year. I actually have two-bars of signal out on the point. She conferences in the vendor and the troubleshooting begins in earnest.

At that point, Mr. Wire-Eating red squirrel ventures out from behind a stump and stops to present a perfect shot. Just as I'm set to hit the mute button, put down the phone and pick up my rifle, I hear my name: "Eric, you said you had archived the client installation packages, can you give us the UNC path to them?"

Sigh. Yes. I can. I scowl a bit as I watch the squirrel wander off while I give the technicians the paths and other site-related information needed to restore the terminals.

The conferences ends, I put the phone back in my pocket, pick up my rifle and lean back in the chair. Once again, the aroma of fall and the warmth of the sun fills my senses. Eventually, a smile settles on my face as I contemplate the surrealism of the whole event.

Meeting Frustration Factors

I participate in a lot of meetings. I enjoy good meetings when the group is charged, working well together and making progress. Even if the topic is not comfortable, if we’re still solving problems or coming to resolution and understanding, it’s a good meeting.

Conversely, I’ve been in meetings that frustrate me completely. Meetings where very little is accomplished and there is a sense of frustration and futility all around. Toxic personalities aside, I’ve discovered that these bad meetings are usually the result of two things:

1) An improper mix of big-picture personalities and detail-task personalities.
2) Lack of an appropriate, focused agenda.

Imagine you are meeting to develop a communications plan that will employ print, web and kiosk delivery methods. You need a high level plan to disseminate team and event information to a large, dispersed group. But one person on the team wants to focus on whether there should be a dash or a hyphen in one of the calendar entries. I’m not making this up. You're solving world hunger, they’re wanting to correct a typo on a nutritional label.

In all fairness, the spelling-checker personality is just as frustrated at this meeting as is the big-picture personality.

I have two suggestions. First, deploy people appropriately: Solve big-picture issues with big-picture people; solve task issues with detail-task people. Of course you will need to blend the personalities so the big-picture types don’t go off on impossible-to-achieve tangents and the detail-task folks don’t bog down in hyphen-dash debates. Both perspectives are required, just not at the same time. Thus, the right blend is a must.

Second, set your agendas accordingly. If you're after a high level plan, have a Big-Picture meeting. Communicate the objectives clearly and keep the meeting on track. Be clear that you want to hear about details only to the degree that a given idea or proposal is not impossible or unworkable. Save working out the details for the Working-Out-The-Details meeting with other detail-task members.

As with the Big-Picture meeting, keep the Working-Out-The-Details meeting flowing with a specific agenda and enough Big-Picture people involved to keep it from bogging down. The mantra at this meeting should be, “we’re looking for excellence, not unattainable perfection”.

I've found that this approach is effective when there is a fairly sizable endeavor, the opportunity is strategic or the threat is somewhat ambiguous.

Feel free to add comments with things you find make meetings more productive.

Accessorize!

I recently bought a patch cable for my son's PS3 so he could game on-line with his buds.

Amazon sent me this email today offering to "accessorize" my patch cable.

I'm still laughing.

I mean, how do you accessorize a cable? Buy a new pc for one of the ends?