Turbo Leadership Systems : The TURBO* Charger

Larry W. Dennis, Sr.
President,
Turbo Leadership
Systems©

Seeing the truth can be difficult

The eye services supervisor for a Northwest healthcare organization told Session 6 of Turbo’s Leadership Development Lab (LDL):

“My ‘Pearl’ is one of the physician partners I have worked with for the last seven years. He is extremely intelligent, but falls very short when it comes to time management. His time management, or lack of it, results in failed promises and broken appointments. This results in patients and staff being let down, inconvenienced, and many people end up frustrated as they waste their time waiting for him. He has received multiple patient and staff complaints. His tardiness and failure to keep appointment times affects customer service and our department morale. The struggle a person in my position has with a partner physician, meaning that he is part owner of the company, is that while I can make suggestions on how to address customer service concerns, I do not have the authority to administer consequences; he must make the decision to change this behavior on his own. Things had gotten to the point where I had lost all respect for him due to his disrespectful treatment of others as evidenced by his constant tardiness.

“This situation had accelerated to the point that he was called in for a formal review meeting with the Executive Board to discuss our customer complaints and his impact on morale. They adjourned the meeting with a corrective action plan for him to follow, set specific goals for him to reach, and scheduled a 6-month follow-up meeting. About one week before the follow-up meeting, I received a call from the Chairman of the Board asking for a frank update on how the doctor had been doing. I had honestly noticed a small improvement in his time management, but started to notice a few other areas that were slipping. While I had plenty of ammunition to ‘throw him under the bus,’ I automatically thought of Leadership Principle #3 – Don’t Criticize, Condemn or Complain. After gathering my

thoughts, I began to write my report. After a few edits, I wrote a constructive report that I was proud to provide to the Board of Directors. I stated only the facts and kept all emotion and personal or staff frustration out of it. I supplied various forms of documentation and never said one negative word in my half page report.

“The lesson I learned from this experience is that I can state the truth, whether positive or negative, without putting my own personal spin and emotion into it. The action I call you to take is to write out your thoughts, read them, edit them, and read them again (whether you submit them in writing or verbally express them). Put all of your important communication through the filter of the 15 Leadership Principles. The benefit you will gain is a well thought out neutral response that you have confidence and faith in, and you will be proud to stand behind it.”