Determine which questions scored the lowest and focus your initial
efforts on addressing those issues. For us, that meant assuring staff
members that managers welcome their ideas for process improve-
ment and that we'll implement those suggestions that make good
sense.
Create a behavioral charter
Put down in writing the expectations you and your staff have for
how everyone in the facility must act on a daily basis. Gather staff
members in a meeting room to discuss what they believe are the root
causes of the issues that matter most to them. Involve representatives
from every position within your facility and invite individuals who are
known to give their fair and honest opinions of what really goes on
away from the watchful eyes of management. Organize the trends staff
members share into common themes and create focus groups to dis-
cuss the issues and possible solutions. We had groups discuss ways to
optimize the surgical team's interactions with anesthesia providers and
how to best standardize and document clinical performances, among
other hot-button topics.
Chart the progress
Create a temperature gauge chart — the kind you see used to
track the progress of fundraising efforts — that outlines the timeline of
the program's goals and notes the months you plan on achieving specif-
ic goals on your journey to a better workplace. Our gauge chart showed
that we kicked off the improvement program by standardizing the pre-
and post-op nursing care modules in January 2015, hired 2 additional
clinical positions to relieve stress on overworked staff in February, cre-
ated the behavioral charter in March and so on. We colored in the
gauge's segments as we met each goal until the "mercury" reached April
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