About A. Woodward & Associates Our company’s primary focus is to help clients develop healthy patient and staff relationships. Our consulting services are customized to your organization, and your specific needs. Areas of expertise include customer service, patient satisfaction and employee engagement. A. Woodward & Associates was established in 1999 by Anita B. Woodward, MBA, FACHE. Based in Cleveland, Ohio, we have clients in all parts of the country. Anita has over 20 years of healthcare management, customer service, and human resource experience, and her associates have a variety of complementary skills and experiences.
January 2009 Newsletter
Perception IS Reality
Some years ago, in my role as a Patient Representative, I was asked to see a man who had been in the hospital for several days. He wanted a new nurse. When I saw him, he explained that his current nurse hated him. He knew she did, and as a result, was uncomfortable with her treating him. When I asked how he "knew" she hated him, he explained that every morning when she came in, she flung back his bed curtain with one great motion, obviously in anger at having to deal with him. His hurt was very real. When I spoke to the nurse, I learned that she, too, was hurting. She did not know why the patient didn’t like her, and had no bad feelings about him. I also learned that she knew from long experience that the roller balls on that particular bed curtain were out of alignment, and that one strong pull worked, while a gentler, continuous pull caused them to repeatedly get stuck. Her vigorous pulling back of the curtain had nothing to do with her feelings for the patient. This patient’s perception was his reality. He believed the nurse "hated" him, and he acted on that "knowledge." This is not a story about who was right and who was wrong in this circumstance. It is, instead, a reminder that for all of us, our perception IS our reality. This was called to my attention recently by a client, who gave me feedback after a retreat I had led. His perception and mine of how things went were quite different. What does color our perceptions, creating our reality? One important thing is our personal history. All of our life’s experiences, values, and beliefs color our analysis of any event or person, creating our perception. Since other people have different histories, their perceptions can clearly be different, ala the bed curtain story. Our perceptions can also be colored by our expectations, and by feedback we receive. Finally, our perception about our own behavior is colored by our knowledge of what our intentions were. Unfortunately, other people cannot know our intentions; they only see our actions, and so they draw their own conclusions about our motivations. When we do this, we rarely realize we have made up the intentions of another; it happens so quickly we just believe our analysis to be real. Thus, the patient who "knew" the nurse hated him, based on her actions. Most of us have had the experience of learning that others misconstrued our behavior to mean something very different, and often much more negative, than we had intended. Why is this important? When our perceptions, which are our realities, differ from another’s, we often have miscommunication, misunderstanding, anger, defensiveness, and loss of trust. There are some ways to minimize the problems caused by the perception IS reality phenomenon. Realize that people are analyzing your behavior and ascribing motives to it all the time. Human nature being what it is these ascribed motives are often negative. Whenever you have the chance, explain the motives for your behavior and decisions to others. Never assume they will know this on their own. Ask for feedback on things that you have done. Ask in such a way that people believe you really want to know. Make it safe for them to give you negative feedback by carefully controlling your reactions. Facial expression and body language are very important here. Listen carefully rather than argue. Remember, their perception IS their reality. Hold your explanations until the other is done giving feedback, and be sure you do not sound defensive. Think about possible negative interpretations of your behavior ahead of time, and act accordingly. Try not to ascribe motives to the behavior of others. Remember that we only know the behavior, not what is in someone's head. Ask questions to learn what someone's motives were before assuming they were negative. If you are giving feedback to someone about how their behavior was perceived to be negative, be as tactful as possible, recognizing that they will have a very human tendency to become defensive. They knew their motives, and knew they intended no harm. As we start a New Year, hopefully remembering that perception IS reality will help us assume less about the intentions of others' behavior, and will help us remember that, like it or not, people will be making assumptions about our own behavior. Those assumptions will become their perceptions, and thus their reality.
What Does A. Woodward & Associates DO, Anyway?
We have often experienced people seeing us in person at conferences, speaking engagements, and the like who receive our newsletter and like it, but who ask us “What exactly does your company do?” So we decided to include a brief summary in this first newsletter of 2009, as we celebrate 10 years in business. The answer to that question is complicated, because we do not have a single service or product. In general, I tell people we work with hospitals and physician groups that want to improve patient satisfaction and/or employee engagement. We have also worked with individual departments within hospitals. In essence, we are helping our clients change their culture. Details of how we do this differ, depending on the client’s needs. Our most common services include the following:
Improving Patient Satisfaction by Improving the Patient’s Experience We like to focus on the patient’s experience, rather than just the satisfaction scores, because we know the experience drives the scores, and people can relate to and believe in the idea of improving the experience. Focusing solely on scores sometimes makes a game of what is really an important and serious part of the mission. Specific things we do might include: Assess current service strengths and weaknesses Make recommendations for improvement, including specific action steps Coach organization through process, as needed Provide tools, techniques or education appropriate to the situation. Examples include: How to act on patient survey data Patient mapping Bringing in the voice of the patient Service Recovery Patient complaint management Recognizing specific behaviors that please or annoy patients/families Communication skills Service Standards Coaching employees for good service
Improving Employee Engagement Employees who are emotionally "engaged" in their work do a better job. They are not in robot mode, but rather notice and act on things that need attention, whether it is helping a co-worker, giving directions to visitors in the hall, or offering some extra TLC to a patient having a bad day. Our focus includes helping employees recognize each other as internal customers, providing skills and tools to provide better service to patients and internal customers, and helping organizations create an environment where such behavior is expected and appreciated. Some specifics include: Assess current service strengths and weaknesses Make recommendations for improvement, including specific action steps Coach organization through process, as needed Provide tools, techniques, or education appropriate to the situation. Examples include: Increasing interdepartmental/inter-shift cooperation and teamwork Bringing the voice of the (internal) customer into each department Recognition and Reward strategies Coaching employees for good service Internal customer rounding Holding each other accountable for service Upgrading hiring and retention practices Strengthening performance evaluation process
Management Development We offer a variety of services, most of which are associated with our patient satisfaction and employee engagement work, but some of which can be done separately. Some examples include: Organizational assessments that look at what behaviors employees believe are valued and rewarded in your organization 360 assessment developed by the Center for Creative Leadership that addresses specific leadership needs and features scientifically developed competencies Leadership coaching, either one-on-one or team-based
Training We do education based on identified client needs. Our preference is to incorporate training into efforts that will support new behaviors, such as the culture change efforts described above. Topics include: Interpersonal Communication Skills Effective Patient Complaint Management Service Recovery Dealing with Difficult People Praise, Coach, Discipline; Giving Feedback to Your Employees Making Meetings Effective
Public Speaking Members of the A. Woodward & Associates team are frequent presenters at a variety of conferences. Topics include those mentioned above. Some additional topics have included: Viewing Complaints as a Gift Improving Emergency Department Customer Service Rounding to Increase Satisfaction/Leadership Rounds The Ten Biggest Customer Service Mistakes in Healthcare Easing Personnel Shortages Creating a Culture of Service Excellence (without a Consultant)
We always welcome inquiries about our company and our services, and encourage you to call to talk about your specific situation and whether and how we might be able to help. Our website might provide some useful additional information as well, but please feel free to contact us directly.
Story ideas, case studies wanted! We are looking for good case studies to share, and we always want to publish articles that answer your questions or help with your challenges. Please email us with your ideas. Thanks.
About This Newsletter This newsletter is published for clients and colleagues of A. Woodward & Associates, and for others who are interested in customer service, employee relations, and organizational communication, especially in healthcare organizations. If you would like to add someone to our subscriber list, please contact us at anita@anitawoodward.com (or simply reply to this email). Be sure to provide the subscriber's name and organization. If this newsletter is reaching you in error, we apologize. To unsubscribe, please email us and put "Unsubscribe" in the subject line.

Anita Woodward & Associates | 1892 West 44th Street | Cleveland | OH | 44113