Lessons in transparency

A UBT shares information.

We’re almost half way through 2011, and all the regions are helping their unit-based teams advance along the Path to Performance. This has not been the easiest of transitions—the process requires team co-leads and sponsors to agree on their team performance assessments, and on the interpretation of specific language in the Path to Performance document. This also has come at the same time we are having co-leads enter data into UBT Tracker.

We continue to learn from all of these efforts. Having co-leads entering timely data into Tracker is a work in progress, but it is moving. We know “garbage in” gets you “garbage out” in any system. So the better we get at putting good data into the system, the more opportunity we have to learn from each other. After November 15, 2011, Tracker will allow co-leads from any region to access information from other teams in all regions. This will include team goals and results. It will provide a resource for all of us to learn from.

Often we are asked to share some of the lessons we learn in our visits with teams and co-leads. So we’ve collected our observations of essential ingredients in successful UBTs.

Lessons from the road: Elements of team success

•  Use of the Value Compass

•  Putting the “Patient in the Middle”

•  Utilization of huddles

•  Physician involvement

•  Consistent senior leadership/sponsor support

•  Clarity of goals

•  Alignment of work with PSP (Performance Sharing Program)

•  Team facilitation during team formation

•  Access to timely data

•  Consistent messaging to teams

•  Healthy co-lead relationship

•  Recognizing team’s successes

•  Knowing the case for change

•  Grounding in business education

•  Transparency

We’d like to talk more about that last element in particular: transparency. We hear the word a great deal, but what does it mean to the team? Quite simply, it means making sure the team has the information it needs to make the best decisions. For example, if you are part of a team and have never seen the department budget, how can you help make any decisions that may impact resources?

We were recently in our Napa Medical Offices (Northern California) at a PSP Fair, and one of the union co-leads from an EVS team spoke about the transformation their team went through when discussing the budget each month. This gave clarity to the decision-making progress; the manager shared it as “our budget” and asked what the team could do collectively to make everything work. The union co-lead felt absolutely accountable and responsible for being successful as a department and felt the team was totally trusted. So this team’s tip is, make sure you share the department budget at least monthly. And provide whatever education the team may need about budgets and how to use them.

Another example of transparency has to do with patient safety. If we don’t know about mistakes that get made in the areas we work, how are we going to be able to help fix the issues? We don’t like to talk about mistakes, but that is how people learn. Remember, having this level of team trust and transparency is a prerequisite to a building culture of safety.

Thanks for all the work you all do in moving partnership and unit-based teams forward. See you on the road!