Eight Roadblocks to Moving Best Practices

Have you ever noticed certain leaders or departments in your organization are really, really good at doing one specific thing? Maybe they consistently get great patient satisfaction scores, or their employees have very low levels of absenteeism, or their infection levels are consistently lower than those of similar areas.

It’s clear that these high performers are doing something different, something that sets them apart. And whatever “magic touch” they have, you’d love to bottle it and distribute it to other areas of your organization. In fact, you may have done some digging and figured out what they’re doing right. But when you tried to get others to follow their lead, there’s a good chance you fell short of the goal.

Harvesting “best practices” and transferring them to other leaders and departments is a wonderful way to achieve organizational consistency. And yet, many organizations just can’t seem to get it done. Have you ever wondered why?

We have discovered there are eight common “roadblocks” that keep organizations from identifying and moving best practices. They are:

1. High performers can be modest. They minimize what they do. “Oh, it’s no big deal,” they’ll say. To figure out what they’re doing that’s different, you need to dig deep. In fact, digging deep with a high performer is how we initially discovered the impact of hourly rounding—which was later found to reduce call lights, falls, and skin breakdowns and to increase patient satisfaction.


2. A leader may fear losing his edge. If he tells everyone about his best practice, he will be unable to keep up his success. This does not happen frequently, but it does come up.


3. Sometimes the high-performing leader balks at taking on a “teaching role.” Maybe she doesn’t want others in the organization to think she is showing off or that she is the boss’s favorite. And when she does present, she will even give reasons for why she could successfully implement the best practice but it may be hard for others.


4. Success is attributed to the leader and not the best practice. People think it’s the leadership and not the practice itself that’s getting the great results—so the actual best practice is missed or underestimated.


5. Leaders want to keep their autonomy. Implementing someone else’s way of doing something makes them feel they are giving it up. It moves them out of their comfort zone. (This is especially true in the C-suite.)


6. “Terminal uniqueness” can hamper moving best practices. Leaders are quick to point out how they are just a little bit different and that’s why a certain best practice won’t work for them.


7. Egos get in the way. By the time some people get to the C-suite, they are better leaders than followers. Or at least they think they are!


8. There is too much change and not enough time. There simply isn’t enough time for a best practice to be mastered—and it’s dropped before it’s given a fair chance.

The good news, of course, is that there are solutions to all of these roadblocks. Smart organizations will work to overcome them. Best practices are the ticket to great results—and isn’t that what we’re all looking for?

Sincerely,

Quint Studer, CEO

Studer Group

http://www.studergroup.com/

---

Please feel free to share this blog with others by forwarding as an email or printing.