The Mole Giving You the Raspberry
The Mole Giving You the Raspberry
The Mole Giving YOU the Raspberry
Have you ever played that boardwalk game with the hammer and the moles giving you raspberries? You collect points by pounding them with your mallet before they disappear back into their holes.
Management can feel like that sometimes - you have many people needing your attention but limited capacity to address them all! When I have many tasks vying for time and resources, I rank requests based on the urgency of the need, the impact of the work, and the volume of work and resources it takes to fulfill them.
The chart below illustrates how to prioritize requests based on these criteria. Perhaps this chart will help you prioritize your projects and tasks while helping you navigate communication with others about why their requests may not be your current priority. It’s my hope that this framework will help you create guardrails on how much time, energy and resources you can sustainably devote to your work so you can focus on building momentum that’s in alignment with your corporate mission and personal values.
FountainBlue's January 20 When She Speaks program, on the topic of 'Bring Your Full Self to Work'. Please join me in thanking our hosts at Jade Global and our esteemed panelists:
Facilitator Linda Holroyd, CEO, FountainBlue
Panelist Amber Barber, Senior Director, Program Management, Jade Global
Panelist Neela Deshpande, Director Technical Program Management, Operations and Strategic Engineering Operations, Boomi
Panelist Tejal Thakkar, VP, Transformation PMO and Chief of Staff, Malwarebytes
with executive introduction by Karin Maday, SVP, Customer Success, Jade Global
We were fortunate to have such experienced, authentic and inspiring panelists speaking so passionately about their diverse experience, and generously sharing the business reasons for and the best practices for showing up fully in the workplace. Below is a compilation of their recommendations and advice.
Grow the Culture
Adopt a 'we are all-one' mindset, inviting and empowering people who are not-like-you to fully participate and engage.
Model the way through authentic, vulnerable communication, shaping the culture to be open and supportive.
Embrace and accept all aspects of yourself, leveraging your strengths to develop the impact your team/organization/leaders need, in alignment with corporate goals.
Make the Business Case
Speak to the business value for bringing out the best in a diverse range of people, but act like each of your people are the foundation of the company's success - for they are.
Be metrics-driven while also putting people first.
Persevere
Create opportunities from the challenges while learning from your mistakes, leveraging the diverse skill set and experience from your full team.
Accept your weaknesses or even embrace your weaknesses as strengths!
Find your own way to best bring people together, unite behind a cause, transform and improve operations, address and resolve the gaps, and serve the customer, even if it's not the 'standard' way to do so, even if you're not the 'assigned' person to do so.
In this new normal when we may not see each other physically in person as often:
Make the time to share personal stories and add color to team and company conversations.
Assume the neutral or positive intent of others, unless the data shows otherwise.
Learn to read people better, even if the input is strictly digital.
The panel had many pithy comments which encouraged us all to welcome our full selves, including the remarks below.
You are enough.
Own your story.
Change the narrative.
We are All ONE.
Focus on your progress throughout the journey.
You've got this.
We are each unique, magical individuals with the potential to bring out the best in ourselves and in others - provided we choose to embrace our full selves, and welcome others to do the same.
FountainBlue's January 13 Front Line Managers Online program on the topic of 'Adopting a People-First Mindset'. Please join me in thanking our panelists.
I was inspired and motivated by our range of panelists this afternoon, as they spoke so eloquently and passionately about the business case for adopting a people first mindset and provided practical suggestions on how to think, speak and act with that mindset. Below is a compilation on their best practices.
People Are Your Secret Sauce, so act accordingly.
Lead and manage in a way which inspires others to perform and realize potential for themselves, their teams and the organization.
Be resilient, intentional and purposeful as individuals and as a team.
Nobody can claim perfection, and difficult journeys will have roadblocks, but we are more likely to succeed if we work together and keep learning and growing as a team.
Leverage diverse perspectives for business benefit while also building a culture where people stay engaged and empowered.
Make the business case on how having that people-first mindset enhances innovation, decision-making, problem-solving, and collaboration while also attracting and retaining top talent.
Challenges will arise, but we can all learn from our challenges and realize the opportunities behind those challenges.
Embrace failures as opportunities for learning for individuals and for the full team.
The future is unclear, but the journey is better with engaged and empowered people at your side.
We have amazingly navigated some unprecedented times through the pandemic and have succeeded in many ways despite the challenges. Although we cannot see the future, it's clear that our people, our fortitude, our industry, our drive will continue to help us all navigate through what's next.
Below is a collection of suggestions and best practices for adopting a people-first mindset:
Ask more questions, and be a more reflective and open-minded listener.
The work/life balance has shifted to more of a life/work balance, so consider with grace how 'life' issues might impact 'work' progress.
Build deep relationships of trust through transparent, authentic communication.
Encourage growth and movement for your team, even if it means that you help someone move to another role within, or even outside the organization.
Leverage the technology to connect people and communities, to facilitate collaboration, to communicate progress and impact.
Model the communication, management and leadership traits you'd like to see in others around you.
Think not just about how to build deep knowledge and connections, but also about how to build broader networks as well as more lasting impact.
Our panelists asked a poignant question: 'Consider the implications if a team/organization doesn't adopt a people-first mindset… Will the team be as intact, as empowered, as engaged, as productive, as innovative?'
The bottom line is that good leaders, good companies play the long game, and consistently nurture a people-first mindset with their thinking words and actions.
FountainBlue's January 20 VIP Roundtable was on the topic of 'Data Meets Healthcare'. Our executives in attendance represented a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, roles, and organizations, but they each have extensive healthcare experience and most of them also worked in the technology space, bringing that knowledge and culture to the healthcare space. Below is a compilation of their thoughts on how data meets healthcare.
Source: New England Journal of Medicine, 2014
Our executives agreed that although it's important to bring data into healthcare, it's not always easy for many reasons: 1) there's so much data available from a wide range of sources, and the volume keeps growing, 2) there are so many groups with a wide range of needs, who need access to different slices of that data, 3) the various players across the ecosystem had historically created silos of information, processes and protocols which make it difficult for others to access, 4) there are regulations, guidelines, laws, requirements, protocols, policies and mandates which limit what can be done, and how things can be done and when, which makes it difficult for solutions to be developed quickly and efficiently, and 5) it's difficult to communicate and connect with the right people and resources so that we can all benefit from the data we get from healthcare sources.
With all these challenges in front of us, we were heartened to see how each participating executive and their organizations are addressing this opportunity and challenge. Below is a summary of best practices.
Do your part to facilitate the visibility of data and interoperability of data between the various players across the ecosystem so that all benefit.
Connect which would allow patients to navigate seamlessly to manage their care and drive outcomes for patients.
The healthcare industry needs leaders from the technology industry to help integrate solutions which leverage data to improve patient outcomes.
Use data to proactively manage administrative burdens and optimize workload, resources, and personnel with the intent of improving patient outcomes.
Gather data from patients even when they are not in the office using sensors and AI/ML solutions.
Create actionable, data-based dashboards which are relevant for the targeted audience.
Leverage the volumes of data to help clinicians and providers manage treatment offerings, working with representatives across the patient care ecosystem.
Consider what happens on the 'tile floors' of a hospital or clinic, but also what happens on the 'carpeted floors' for the provider.
Patient experience has historically not been a priority, but there are opportunities ahead where patient experience will become a huge factor in improving health and financial outcomes.
Real-time patient monitoring provides opportunities to proactively manage patient care.
The pandemic accelerated many changes in healthcare, but there is more work, and data will continue to play an important role for improving outcomes in a slow-moving industry. And leaders and organizations like the ones represented in this morning's program will continue to make inroads which benefit us all.