I have been continuing to listen to my lectures on Habits and now the author has moved on to organizational habits.
He uses a couple of examples that strike close to home for me:
- A hospital in Rhode Island had unhealthy organizational habits so that nurses and doctors were at odds with one another and doctors did not allow nurses to question their decisions. A man with a brain hematoma had the wrong side of his head operated on and died as a result. I feel like sometimes I can be overbearing as well and this may result in unintended consequences of people being afraid to talk to me about important areas in the business to fix. I am trying to fix that with my anonymous survey each month and encouraging people to bring ideas and concerns.
- Charing Cross Station in London had a fire that killed 31 people because department heads were too afraid of stepping on one another’s toes to have a good system for dealing with a fire. I think this is less of a concern for a small and nimble organization like we have.