In Learning Organizations and Hospitals LO21877, Genene Koebelin offers
some thoughts from her writings and exerpts part of a paper she wrote,
with:
>What does a Service Culture Look Like?
>
>In an article on "creating a service culture," Wesley Oswald describes a
>Texas hospital's transition to a service culture. "What is a service
>culture? In a nutshell, it is a coalition of employees, physicians, and
>volunteers working collaboratively to support change, as well as the
>programs, processes, policies and services customers identify as most
>important to them" (Oswald, p. 2). He goes on to describe the four
>components of a hospital service culture:
>
>"A well-defined vision and mission and a strong set of corporate values to
>drive behavior A commitment to continuous quality improvement The ability
>to embrace change A strong sense of teamwork with a focus on what is best
>for patients" (Oswald, p. 2).
We all read these sorts of things all the time -- pick up almost any
annual report and it will be repleat with missions, visions, goals and
statements about their commitments to blah, blah (whatever).
But most would also agree that there exists some gap between the rhetoric
and the behavior of the people within that organization.
While great strides have been made in a variety of organizations in the
various disciplines, including hospitals, it also appears that top
managements are so often out of touch with the reality of the work at
hand, that they talk at the top isn't supported by the behavior of the
leadership teams.
When it comes to organizations, I think that we need these strong
corporate values and clear missions but that we also need the leadership
to get down and dirty and actively involved in supporting individual
growth and personal development (learning organization stuff) as well as
organizational alignment, systems thinking, dis-un-empowerment and that
kind of thing.
And I love those discussions in the list where people share the tools and
techniques they are using to accomplish these kinds of things within
organizations and at the top,
--For the FUN of It!
Scott J. Simmerman, Ph.D. Performance Management Company - 800-659-1466 mailto:Scott@SquareWheels.com
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