By: JennyG

JennyG — Fri, 03 Jun 2022 13:30:56 +0000

While correcting – and avoiding – errors is critical to many processes, it sounds like your feedback process does not include enough acknowledgement of and reward for successful behaviors. In fact, affirming and building on people’s strengths has been proven to go a lot farther than focusing on correcting their weaknesses. If an error can cause serious problems, then the system itself must contain double-checks, perhaps by another person or working group. But showing respect to your employees or reports constantly will increase morale, productivity and their professional growth. Explore with them what their personal and professional goals are and how they might best achieve them, rather than constantly nit-picking over stuff they probably recognize themselves and even care about. Yes, they are human, so make the most of that!

By: John Gay

John Gay — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 19:13:58 +0000

I appreciate Feedback Fatigue’s frustration and suggest some reframing might relieve it a bit. The comment “I’m only human’ may be an important clue that something in a process isn’t sufficiently human-proof, at least wasn’t for that human at that time. Stress, distraction, lack of sleep, worry and many other things result in high variance within as well as that between us. Where to start? Start with the old aphorism “Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands” in mind. How do we build processes that are barely but sufficiently idiot proof but resource efficient? Many medical systems go overboard that way, flashing false-positive error signals to competent humans so frequently that the chicken little phenomenon occurs, resulting in the signal being ignored when it is truly an error. But from a cynical perspective, at a high human cost the organization has CYA’d itself by having a system with high sensitivity but poor specificity in place. Ask anyone involved in delivering direct care. So don’t do that. Instead, consider the lessons from W. Edwards Deming’s and from aviation and take a hard look at that particular process. How can it be re-engineered to improve its human-proofness but retain it’s efficiency? I’d start by asking the individual making the comment if they have ideas and then move on to others knowledgeable of the process, asking them to put their heads together to engineer a solution, keeping the bridge aphorism in mind. Was it one of those rare events, such as being unexpectedly served with divorce papers or receiving news of the unexpected death of a family member that put this individual off their game for that day. Or is something in the process in need of tweaking to improve its human proofness? Or does the process need a complete redesign? With the goal of maintaining efficiency, how? With some reframing, the comment could be a starting point for the LEAN process.

Comments on: Lean in to Accountability

By: JennyG

By: John Gay