Tools
From HMCwiki
Tools are anything that leverages one’s ability to succeed. Anything that eases, speeds, guides, helps, enlightens, informs, saves times or makes progress happen faster than evolutionary rates.
Why create a set of tools?
There is too much time spent reinventing what has already invented. Too many false starts. Too many not starting at alls because there isn’t a tool to help. Too much waste that could be avoided. For years, healthcare has had the same Total Quality Management tools available. Yet there is more to analysis than cause and effect diagrams or flow charts. More to brainstorming than no criticism. More to teams than forming-norming-storming-performing.
A personal goal is to place a compliment of tools in the hands of anyone who wants to make change happen. To build confidence in the one embarking on their first change effort. And finally to expand the improvement thinking in the field. There has plenty of the same…it’s time for different.
Where did they come from?
These tools were developed studying other cultures, other industries and other professions. Some are fundamental, others advanced; there is even a set of tools designed to get you thinking differently (if you want to). Many came from studying under or supporting the best: Thinking Expedition from the Office of Strategic Innovation, Create Problem Solving from the Creative Education Foundation, Organizational understanding from Holland & Davis and Baldrige, Crucial Communication Skills from corporate coach John Lovitt, Visual Control and Kaizen from Productivity Inc., Innovation from St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital and finally accelerated team development from M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
How do you get the most out of them?
Visit them before they are needed. Know what’s in each of the categories. Absorb some of their lessons. Equipped with what tools available and what they can do, a manager can either lead, or better yet, forward others to lead their change with the appropriate tool. Find different applications for the tools. Share it with others struggling with change. If there is a department that impacts your output, give it to them as a gift. Finally, realize change includes you personally, so be porous to the change and think tools.
Why not create your own set? Every tool in this was created so it could have multiple uses and compound its benefits to others. Create your own hospital intranet site of tools. Here are tool sites (different tools in each) developed for my professional organizations. Book mark them as favorites…let them become your desktop consultants. Share them your organization, your friends. A healthy America is a productive one!
Finally, expand your bag of tricks, enlarge your knowledge base to as many as possible so that your learning (and others) is not simply situational. The goal here is to get the wheels of change and improvement rolling in your organization.
