Eat THAT Cookie!: Make Workplace Positivity Pay Off...For Individuals, Teams, and Organizations

she doesn't understand why the nurse is upset with her. All she sees is someone who is unfriendly. I had to beg my ED staff for one month not to get mad at mothers who don't check their child's temperature (There are a lot of them!) before bringing them into the ED. Judging hurts you! It makes life harder for you. If you can't make a difference in

Jell-o because it just isn't true. I've seen it.

“Liz, we want to make your exit from the organization as graceful as possible. So, unless there is a dramatic change in service, we're going to transition you out over the next 90 days.” Two days later he moved the director of Ambulatory Care and the hospital's golden boy, Don Dean, into my office. He was the hospital's superstar. You know the type

thinking. Or at least, that's what I always hear when I bring up the subject during my speeches. People tell me accountability isn't part of their company culture. Or they say HR won't let them. To that I say, “Wrong!

I would start with what I felt was the most obvious reason for the bad scores. “We actually do a great job at customer service,” I would say. “Our patients just don't realize it.” I guess I was talking about that “stealth” service—you know, the kind that's so specialized only an expert can detect it. Next, I rationalized it must be the survey tool.

in my years working in the healthcare

in service if its employees don't feel pride for what they are doing. Organizations that sustain excellence in service

The director of the unit understood that if the team was focused on accomplishing a goal, they would be less fixated on the negative. So she asked the team to decide how they wanted to celebrate when

tried something and it doesn't work...blah, blah, blah. I