Demonstrating success over time

High-performing teams are also happier

When we are concentrating on our daily work, we sometimes lose sight of the changes we've made over time. Think of how our world has changed in the 70 years since the attack on Pearl Harbor, and who could have imagined back then the changes that were already afoot? It's been just 15 years since we started labor management partnership at KP - and we may not yet grasp the profound changes we've made over time. The new 2011 People Pulse results tell part of the story.

Wednesday, December 7^th marked the passage of 70 years since the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor. That attack took thousands of lives in a few short hours. It also sparked the mobilization of the American people against the fascists in Europe and the military aggression of Japan.

Depending on your age and who you are, the passage of 70 years can have many meanings. A great deal has happened in the world in a very short period of time. Who could have imagined that just 25 years after the end of World War II, Japan and Germany would emerge as the two most powerful competitors to US-made products and services--and that 25 years later, much of the rest of the world is competing for resources and labor, in a world that desperately must find a way to save itself!

It’s been 47 years since the passage of Medicare. It’s been 43 years since astronauts first walked on the moon.

Just a couple of days ago, Dr. Donald Berwick, the founder of the Institute for Health Care Improvement and a great friend to many in Kaiser Permanente and  the Coalition, left his post as the director of Medicare and Medicaid Services. As he left Washington, DC, Don noted that “... just as Americans supported manned missions to the moon without knowing the details of rocket science, they ought to support the new (health care reform) law because of its ultimate destination.” (New York Times, December 4, 2011).

Time is a journey, and the journey can be quite unpredictable. But if you have a goal, the point is to get on the path, keep your focus crystal clear, measure your progress, make strides, and keep going.

Our journey

The journey that we are on in the Labor-Management Partnership is now 15 years long. Who could have imagined the path that took the unions and KP from a collision course, to performance improvement for all? Who could have imagined that just four short years ago we thought KP could be the model for US health care transformation and by 2010, the many of the new law’s provisions are grounded in the KP model?

Along the path it is sometimes difficult to see the results, to see if the goals are coming into focus.

Luckily, we are getting better at both collecting data about our work and paying attention to what the data has to teach us.

Measuring with People Pulse

The 2011 People Pulse scores are in, and once again, we have much to build upon:

• For purposes of analysis, the People Pulse team aggregates responses into three key indexes related to performance improvement (called the workforce effectiveness index, the work unit index, and the engagement index). On each index – and on each of the sub-categories within each index – employees in Coalition Unions have higher favorable response rates than their counterparts in non-LMP Unions.
• On measures which score empowerment, line of sight and continuous improvement capability, employees involved in UBTs respond in widely favorable margins over employees not involved in UBTs. The difference ranges from four points to as high as 36 points (a swing of two points is considered statistically significant).
• UBT participation correlates with more favorable survey responses on 26 questions; correlates with equivalent results on 27 other questions; and correlates with less favorable on zero questions.
• LMP union employees in high-performing UBTs (level 4-5) have stronger results on items with the greatest impact on operational performance metrics than pre-team or foundational team status (level 1-2).

Each year we gain more and more momentum, and we compile more and more data which shows that it is possible to develop high performing UBTs. High-performing UBTs now number nearly 1,000 out of the 3,500 teams that have been established. 

The People Pulse scores demonstrate direct correlations between high performance and high performing team experience and attributes.

Time is a very relative quantity. It’s been 15 years since the inception of the LMP, 43 years since we put the first man on the moon, 47 years since the founding of Medicare, and 70 years since Pearl Harbor. I think the real question is: do we know where we are going, and what can we learn along the way?