UBT

Below is the most recent table showing unit-based team performance across Kaiser Permanente. Our National Agreement goal was to have 658 high-achieving teams by the end of 2011. With 1,097 teams rated at level 4 or 5 in early January, we have almost doubled our goal for the year – and more than tripled the number of high performing teams in place in January 2011.

Over the past couple of months, I have visited with frontline teams in Colorado, Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Honolulu, Los Angeles and Oakland. Without exception, I observed a broad cross-section of our unionized workers and their partners struggling for positive outcomes.

“Struggle” describes what is involved in unit-by-unit improvement work. Struggle can be positive. It’s necessary for people to transform, and not just make a few cosmetic or ephemeral changes.

Earlier this month, I spent the day with teams, co-leads and union and management leaders at the Los Angeles Medical Center (LAMC).  It is clear that the sun is rising at LAMC, formerly known as “Kaiser Sunset.”

LAMC, a huge campus in the City of Los Angeles, is an exciting and bustling place situated between urban commercial and apartment properties and not far from Hollywood. It includes a large medical center, medical office buildings, and other services

Imagine this:

A flowing line leading to a heart; underneath the image the words: “PICC Team Going Great Lengths to Care for You”

These words can be found on the lab coats, scrubs and other clothing of each member of the Infusion team at Woodland Hills Medical Center in Southern California.

The team members designed the emblem as a reassuring message to the patients they serve. It sums up their story.

We thought we were going to meet with 14 or 15 UBT co-leads from the Fontana Medical Center in Southern California for a discussion about unit-based teams. But when we pulled into the lot and couldn’t find a place to park, we became suspicious.

We can’t change whole systems without changing the hearts and minds of individuals.

And what would be the point of systemic change if it did not come from the hearts and minds of individuals who contribute to and benefit from that system?

We just returned from the beautiful Northwest Region, where we spent several days visiting with UBT co-leads, Performance Improvement staff, senior leadership and the UBT Resource Team.

We hope you got a chance to attend portions of the Quality Conference. We were in bargaining but have spent some time listening to several of the sessions that are available on-line  through September. It is worth listening to them. One presentation stands out: the Woodland Hills Infusion Center UBT. What an impressive team with some outstanding results!

It’s 1986, on the eve of the NASA launch of Challenger. Imagine that we are witness to the frantic last-minute meetings going on, of assembled teams of NASA engineers and NASA decision-makers. The issue: whether or not it’s safe to launch the space shuttle in cold weather. 

We all know too well what happened. This great tragedy should not have happened. Professor Amy Edmonson used the drama of these events to trigger learning in all of us: Teams have lots of complex barriers to good outcomes…and we must learn how to overcome them.

Do you remember where you were when the Challenger space shuttle exploded?

That horrible day in 1986, when seven crew members—including a beloved school teacher—perished in front of a stunned nation, is a prime example of a team decision that failed miserably, according to Harvard Business School’s Amy Edmonson.