Everyone Deserves Respect

I am primarily a communication consultant in the health care industry. My mantra is "there is no place for fear in health care". Bad things happen when people are intimidated or afraid of their colleagues. I recently read a book called The No Asshole Rule, and it totally reinforced my thinking on this. One concept that was stressed in this book was the importance of doing everything we can to downplay and reduce status differences.

This issue came up for me several times in the past month when a variety of physicians in a variety of settings all told me that they didn’t really have the time to be courteous to their support staff and that they needed to have support staff working for them who didn't take their frustrations and irritations personally.  Needless to say, I disagree with that viewpoint. The truth of the matter is that healthcare is a very complicated profession and it requires everyone bringing their best effort forward. One group of people cannot feel that they have "communication privileges" over another group of people.

Here are some "check your ego" tips:

• Take an interest in the individuals who work with you.
• Strive to treat everyone similarly. Avoid being overly solicitous to higher ups, and dismissive to people supporting you.
• Take President Harry Truman’s lead: "don’t bark at people who can’t bark back at you."
• If you do snap at someone of lesser organizational status, apologize and tell them "I might be the manager/doctor/charge nurse, but that doesn’t give me license to treat people in a manner that I wouldn’t allow myself to be treated. I’m sorry."

Do you have a question for Patti? Send an email to patti@pattilind.com and it may be answered in next month's newsletter.