Communication Archives - Stamp & Chase

3 Tips for Dealing With Politics (or Other Touchy Subjects)

Sometimes, inspiration for my blog post comes from unexpected places – like a quiet, late-evening dinner on the road. After a successful day with a client, I arrived back at my hotel for a later-than-usual dinner. There were only a few people left in the restaurant, and I was seated near a table of three gentlemen. While I wasn’t interested in eavesdropping, it was impossible to not hear their conversation in the quiet room. From their discussion it was clear that they all worked for the same company and were traveling together on business. Two middle-aged men were obviously more senior managers, and they were accompanied by a junior colleague who appeared to be in his 20s. What surprised me was how their discussion turned

Burl Stamp November 21, 2023 No Comments

Have we lost the power of purpose in health care?

Understanding purpose in organizations seems to be one of the most talked about issues – and opportunities – in companies today. A few weeks ago, 181 CEOs who are part of the prestigious Business Roundtable signed a new statement on the “Purpose of a Corporation.” No longer is simply driving shareholder value the top priority, they said. Rather, the statement recognized that the purpose of an organization in management is key in engaging and serving all stakeholders: customers, employees, suppliers, communities and shareholders. Haven’t we always understood purpose in healthcare? Many in health care would argue that we’ve always understood the purpose of our organizations in management. After all, can there be a higher purpose than serving our fellow human beings at some of the

Burl Stamp September 6, 2019 No Comments

medical staffers in meeting with stamp & chase

The Power of Empowerment: “The Village has it Handled!”

In a leadership workshop earlier this month at Summa Health in Akron, OH, a manager shared one of the most definitive, straightforward affirmations of true staff empowerment that I’ve ever heard. She explained that often when an issue or problem arises, by the time she becomes aware of it and approaches her team to work through a solution, she is confidently told, “Don’t worry; the village has it handled.”Empowerment is a frequently vaunted goal for high-functioning teams in today’s leadership literature. But while the term is commonly accepted, I’m not sure it best describes the true power of empowerment. When I clicked on the thesaurus feature in Microsoft Word while writing this post, I actually found a much better list of options: inspire, embolden, encourage,

Burl Stamp October 3, 2017 No Comments

medical staff holding patients hand - graphic for stamp & chase

Sometimes Silence Isn’t Golden: Improving Patient Engagement by Encouraging Openness

Like most of our experiences in life, the patients and families we remember best are the ones whose satisfaction with our care falls at the extremes. On one hand, the family that is effusive in their praise is one everyone likes to remember. At the other extreme, we can’t forget the families who are disappointed and seem to be critical of virtually everything we do. Even months after they’ve left the hospital, the experience of dealing with them is indelibly burned in our memory. While the families at the extremes of the satisfaction scale may be most memorable, the majority of the patients we care for likely fall somewhere in the middle. These are the families that come and go rather quietly, neither sharing significant

Burl Stamp September 28, 2017 No Comments

man with a clipboard graphic at stamp & chase

Five Sure-Fire Ways to Wreck Rounding

Over the past decade, health care leadership rounding has become a best-practice staple for organizations that are striving to improve patient experience, employee engagement and the overall culture of performance. While in healthcare we sometimes act like we invented the practice, it has been pursued in different forms for many years in other industries. If you are a disciple of Lean Manufacturing and the Toyota Production System, you call it “going to the gemba.” Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard coined the term “management by walking around” in the 1960s when their rapidly-expanding technology company was growing beyond their capacity and ability to be involved in every detail of the business. In health care, our name for the practice of going to where the most important

Burl Stamp September 21, 2017 No Comments

spinning plates graphic from stamp & chase

In patient experience work, there’s no “Silver Bullet.” But are you trying to keep too many plates spinning?

In a recent blog post, I argued that the problem of searching for a single, easy-to-implement patient engagement tactic goes beyond the fact that one doesn’t exist. Believing that a simple silver bullet strategy is out there actually stymies continuous improvement, innovation and effective implementation. So if there is no single silver bullet, one might reasonably jump to the conclusion that a shotgun approach – implementing multiple solutions simultaneously – would produce better results. But that strategy has real flaws, as well. When I was working closely with the Experience Team at Ascension Health several years ago, we termed it “initiative fatigue.” In other words, teams were trying to launch and sustain so many different initiatives to improve care that they lost focus. It felt like

Burl Stamp June 14, 2017 No Comments

medical staff at stamp & chase communicating with patient

Effective Leadership Communication: How to diminish the “F” factors that discourage employees from speaking freely

In a recent blog post titled, “Are Exit Interviews a Waste of Time?” I shared the observations of the chief human resources officer of a large, international corporation. He pointed out that employees heading out the door rarely are open about all of the true reasons for leaving because they fear burning bridges. The article “Can Your Employees Really Speak Freely?” from the January-February 2016 issue of the Harvard Business Review provides a thoughtful, research-based assessment of what encourages and inhibits open communication and construction feedback in organizations. Authors James R. Detert and Ethan R. Burris convincingly described the two “F” factors that are usually at the heart of employees’ reluctance to speak up: Fear and Futility. While Detert and Burris offer helpful perspectives on

Burl Stamp May 23, 2017 No Comments

Tag: Communication

3 Tips for Dealing With Politics (or Other Touchy Subjects)

Have we lost the power of purpose in health care?

The Power of Empowerment: “The Village has it Handled!”

Sometimes Silence Isn’t Golden: Improving Patient Engagement by Encouraging Openness

Five Sure-Fire Ways to Wreck Rounding

In patient experience work, there’s no “Silver Bullet.” But are you trying to keep too many plates spinning?

Effective Leadership Communication: How to diminish the “F” factors that discourage employees from speaking freely

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© 2020 Stamp & Chase

CORTEX Innovation District

20 S. Sarah St., St. Louis, MO 63108

314-299-9373