Continuously improve
Once you’ve groomed your employees to have a leader’s
mindset and created a system in which they are held accountable, you need to maintain that environment by taking their
ideas and input and using it to improve the company.
If you let your employees take the initiative to come up with
new ideas but don’t allow those ideas to be implemented, you’ll
quickly lose credibility with your work force and cause your
culture to crumble.
Boyd says it comes down to building a mentality of continuous improvement — the idea that, though you might like where
your company stands, it can always get better, and no idea
should be cast aside without consideration.
You can demonstrate the need for continuous improvement
by keeping your employees current on your performance metrics.
“In my conversations with my managers, I ask them if they
have everything they need to be successful,” Boyd says. “We
look at some of our bigger metrics to determine where we are.
We look at the growth in our community, our volumes, are we
able to accommodate the needs of a bigger community. But
usually there are a number of ways in which you might be able
to look at what is happening each day.”
Metrics can tell the story, but only if you relay them often.
Developing a mindset of continuous improvement starts with
the basic principles of good communication, which means getting out of the office and talking to your employees.
Boyd says it’s something good leaders make the time to do —
even if the calendar is tight.
“If you look at taking those extra steps with communication,
you might ask how you can afford the time. But then again,
how can you afford not to? The only way is to make it a priority and schedule it. Get it on the books and hold to it. It’s easy
to get caught up in the day-to-day things. It’s easy to say that
you have to stay here and finish this memo. But the only way
all of this works is if you keep focused on what you know is
going to be successful.”
HOW TO REACH: Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center, (619) 502-5800 or www.sharp.com
