Patients Come Second: Leading Change by Changing the Way You Lead

engaged employees will drive higher patient satisfaction, so too will the combination of high employee and patient measurements push profits higher.

There is an important footnote to the subject of serving your community: You shouldn’t overlook taking care of your internal community as well. This gets back to the theme of our prior chapter on caring for those whom we work with. It’s sort of foolish to ask your employees and colleagues to go out and give to the community if they are suffering th

“Focusing on employee engagement is akin to being on an airplane and putting your oxygen mask on first, before attending to your kids. How can our people help their patients when they, too, are suffering?”

The longer you wait to make the decision, the more likely it becomes that the disease will spread. That means you have to act as quickly as possible when you know you have a problem child in the house. And that’s what makes it hard sometimes, because you’re not dealing with a department or something that’s widespread. It’s just one person. And if t

Personality tests are a really effective tool—an early-warning system of sorts—to help spot the rotten apples through the camouflage of an impressive resume.

Firms of Endearment authors calculated the return on investment for the Good to Great companies over the same ten years? They found that these companies produced a 316 percent ROI—a satisfying result, but one that is less than one-third of the return produced by companies known more for their level of employee engagement than for their “greatness.”

Rather than just tell them what they need to do, the leaders who achieve the best results explain why hand washing is so important. They simply emphasize that dirty hands are injuring patients and putting them directly into harm’s way, and this message resonates with people who have chosen to work in a sector whose overarching goal is to help peopl

from the landing gear to the ailerons (which control the up and down movement of the plane during flight).

definition of patient experience: “the sum of all interactions, shaped by an organization’s culture, that influence patient perception across the continuum of care.”