NHPCO NewsLine March 2014 - (Page 24)

5 Ways to Address Organizational ADD By Richard Maxwell In a recent post, Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence, talked about "organizational attention deficit disorder." Organizational ADD occurs when breakdowns between team members and colleagues occur. Symptoms include missed deadlines, miscommunication, or mismanaged budgets. This problem can be amplified if you have people working remotely from other team members. Further, it is exacerbated by overreliance on electronic media, such as email and texting. If you are noticing any of these symptoms in your workplace, here are five ways to help address them: 1. Meet face-to-face. This is becoming a lost art. Email and texting are just too easy. But having any sort of substantive discussion via electronic media like email is fraught with peril. Words and intentions are easily misinterpreted. If it is substantive, talk to people, directly. At the very least have a phone conversation. If you have team members working remotely, be sure to have regular one or two-day offsite meetings to develop the relationships, and perhaps require in-office days on a regular basis. However, be clear that this is not just about remote workers. It applies equally to people in the same building. 2. Leaders must guide attention. Creating a vision of the desired outcome and then steering the team and its resources to accomplish the tasks needed to reach that outcome is a major function of leadership. This requires oversight (but not micromanaging). It also requires talking with people to find out where they are in their work, what obstacles they face, and working with them to overcome those obstacles. 24 NHPCO NewsLine 3. Set clear goals. If you are not clear about what the desired outcome is, don't expect your team members to be clear about it either. Clarity arises in conversation and collaboration in goal setting, action planning, and execution. Great accomplishments are the work of many who collaborate around a clear goal and have a leader guiding the process. 4. Resist the "us versus them" mindset. Too often we are hamstrung by people who are all about themselves and their greatness, so that they can't find a way to be a true collaborator. Groups can be like this too. If you look at your organization and see silos of activity, where the members of each silo are so insular that they are never wrong and always blame others, failing to work across functional lines, you have an "us versus them" mindset at play. Leadership needs to work with individuals and the team as a whole to focus on the larger objective and desired outcome. That outcome is too big for any one person to achieve alone. It can only happen with teamwork and collaboration. The theme needs to be "I am because we are."

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NHPCO NewsLine March 2014

Gaining a Competitive Edge
A Message From Don
NHPCO 2014 Webinars (display ad)
Billing for Pediatric Palliative Care
Integrating PC Education into Nursing Curricula
Deborah Goodman on Being First!
First-ever Global Atlas of Palliative Care
New Display Ad to Help Recognize Hospice Volunteers
5 Ways to Address Organizational ADD
ehospice USA (display ad)
How Being a Member Can Save You Money (display ad)
Member News and Notes
State Hospice Profiles (display ad)
Compliance Tip
2014 MLC (display ad)
Links to Resources on the NHPCO Website
A Feel-Good Moment

NHPCO NewsLine March 2014