Webster’s definition of Whirlwind is “NOUN” 1. a column of air moving rapidly around and around in a cylindrical or funnel shape. 2. used in similes and metaphors to describe a very energetic or tumultuous person or process: "a whirlwind of activity" ·
Living in the United States plains, a whirlwind is also known as a tornado – causing mass destruction versus the dirt devil which is a nuisance with little damage.
How does that whirlwind apply to our work with the didactic and clinical settings? Do we let the general operations of the day catch us in the whirlwind to cause either total disruption as a tornado or small disruption as a dirty devil? Whichever it is we lose sight of the goals set forth to accomplish the education and training of the students and ultimately care for the patients. To be successful in avoiding the whirlwind, we must set goals limited to only a couple, otherwise we get caught back into that whirlwind of what’s important. These one - two goals are the our WIG (wildly important goal).
My Innovation plan to add training in electronic medical records and increase lab rotations for clinical experience in the basic ophthalmic techniques and practicum courses. In order to be successful, I will need the support of my team consisting of clinical preceptors, coordinator and colleagues in the San Jacinto community.
The use and master of the six sources of influence describe in Mr. Grennys’ book Influencer The New Science of Leading Change is aiding me into changing and influencing behavior of the team. This vital change in behavior of the team will increase our success rate in training and educating our future ophthalmic technicians.
The next step is creating a plan to execute my Innovation plan. I will be using the stages of change and 4Dx found in The 4 Disciplines of Execution by McChesney, Covey, and Huling (2012). These stages and 4Dx will guide me and my team into achieving the WIG, to produce a skilled ophthalmic technician.
5 Stages of Change to Expect
1. Getting it Clear. This first step in change is making sure the team is onboard. As the leader, I will guide my team into use of 4Dx, develop a clear and concise WIG, use of lag and lead measures and comprise a scoreboard. My role will be to assist in arranging the development for the team to implement.
2. Launch Ready, set, go… The team will met one day the week before school for training with anticipation of launching the WIG the first Monday of fall term. During the meeting, I will re-enforce the WIG and it’s measures, as well as introduce the scoreboard while identifying the team member's roles. My role is to keep the team focused and energized on the new tasks and prevent a whirlwind of additional goals.
3. Adoption In this stage, the team will adopt the 4Dx guidelines and move toward the achieving the WIG. The team will move towards behavior changes, any resisters will be partnered with a role model of change with additional education on the measures and WIG. The team will track the results with weekly evaluation in an excel spreadsheets available for all to view and comment electronical. This type of scoreboard will keep the team members focused, committed and held accountable.
4. Optimization The team will begin to shift to the 4Dx mindset, by taking ownership of the process. In taking ownership, the team will start developing ways to improve the process of training their students in eye care technology field. The team will celebrate the success of the students learning and increase in skill level. At this time the team will see the change in the resistor and potentials moving toward the model.
5. Habits The final stage of change, where the team will celebrate the accomplishment of the WIG. I will be able to watch the students graduate and report to the team those students who successful completed the program with an AAS degree and are now eligible to take their certification exam at the level of ophthalmic technician. The team can then move onto creating a new WIG in order to formalize the 4DX as our operating system.
The 4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX)
Discipline 1: Focus on Wildly Important ( Getting Clear)
Over the course of working on my Master degree, I had the great opportunity to think about the influence and changing behavior of others in my industry. To appeal to the heart of those who will be instrumental in helping the program create, develop and execute the goal of the eye care technology program. My wildly important goal is to educate the eye care technology student in developing their skills and knowledge required to be a successful and productive employee. The WIG mets the values and mission of San Jacinto College. This WIG can only be achieved with the support of the team consisting of clinical preceptors, coordinator and colleagues in academics and industry.
With the WIG defined, the team will define the lag measure and what lead measures will be used to met the WIG for implementation in Fall 2017. The lag measure is the results the team wishes to achieve. A 90 - 100% rate of students graduating in five semesters (Spring 2019) with an AAS degree will be the basis of the lag measure. The WIG and lag measure will be addressed to the team. At which time the team can focus and discuss the lead measures to attain our WIG.
In order to keep the team focused on the WIG, I have to identify needs of the team to make the WIG successful. The needs I need to met head on is creating the lag and lead measures, scoreboard to monitor forward progression, weekly electronic meetings and quarterly face to face meetings to follow accountability.
Discipline 2: Act on the Lead Measure (Launch and Adoption)
This is where I will use the knowledge attained from the Influencer Model to get the team to adopt the lead measures needed to achieve the WIG the team chose. I want to monitor and develop a scoreboard that shows the lead measures move toward the lag measure and WIG.
Our lead measures must be predictive of achieving the WIG and influenceable by the team. We will need to look at the two different types of lead measures, small outcomes and leveraged behavior. Small outcomes will have the team focus on achieving weekly result, while giving each team member latitude on how to achieve the outcome. The weekly evaluation on students will be constant but the clinical preceptor will have their own training methods to achieve the ultimate goal. Leveraged behavior enables the team to track specific behaviors throughout the week. Allowing the preceptors to adopt new behavior at the same level of quality, consistency and provide measures on how well the student performed weekly. Increase clinical site visits by the clinical coordinator to every two weeks verse once a month to measure and evaluate the preceptors and students progression. This measure will increase the accountability of preceptor and student training.
Discipline 3: Keep a Compelling Scoreboard (Optimization)
Keeping track and scoring for the team. As in any sport we have scoreboards to assist the coach and the team in seeing in real time the score of the game, time left and who’s got the advantage. Just as scoreboards aid in sporting events, we will use a scoreboard to monitor our progress in achieving the team WIG. Since each preceptor is located in different offices, we will use an electronic scoreboard which will display score, time and progression. At the beginning of the fall 2017 term each preceptor will be emailed an excel spreadsheet on skills, ophthalmic and soft skills, required for each student to master. After the second week of term, the preceptor will candidly evaluate the skills of the student. This Weekly evaluation is emailed to the clinical coordinator on Friday afternoon. The following Monday each preceptor will receive a report based on a ranking system of the progression of each student at the clinical sites. The clinical coordinator will verify the student progression weekly electronical and met with each preceptor /site every two weeks face2face. (Students are at the clinical site two eight hour days a week) If the coordinator finds a discrepancy in reporting from the preceptor, the site will lose points in the ranking. This will encourage preceptors to work with students, give candid feedback and if necessary send the student back to the college class / lab for additional training. Every ophthalmology practice wants to be number ONE in all that they do, including have the best trained staff and student.
Discipline 4: Create a Cadence of Accountability (Habits)
Holding myself and the team accountable is the biggest challenge, because we all have busy hectic whirlwinds daily. The whirlwind can consist of having a heavy patient load, being understaffed for the day, and dealing with the physicians demands thus the student loses out. (our WIG) Thus the weekly visit with the coordinator to discuss the WIG and measures will help keep the team on track. During the visit the coordinator will discuss lead measures and how they are being implemented. A collection of methods used in achieving the lead measures. Those methods, success or failed, will be shared with the team in the scoreboard. This gives the team new ideas on training methods to meet our lead measures and ultimately the team’s WIG. In the team accountability the potentials should move toward the models during the term. By using correct motivation techniques and consistently giving feedback developed from the Influencer’s model, the team should have a forty percent rate of potentials moving toward the fifty percent models. As with everything there will be those resisters who do not meet the measures and achieve the team WIG. The resistor (preceptor / site) will be removed as clinical site affiliates for future students. Which is a loss to the clinical site in having a pool of students for potential hire.
Influencer vs 4DX
I feel the Influencer and 4DX work together as a team when properly implemented. The six influencers sources touch and motivate the heart, pumps the life into the body and mind. While the 4DX gets down to the business at hand. It reaches out to the mind on how to achieve goals, maintain the scoreboards and keep the team running efficiently.
Without the heart, the mind will not have the life to achieve all our wildly important goals.
References
Grenny, J., Patterson, K., Maxfield, D., McMillan, R., & Switzier, A. (2013). Influencer: The new science of leading change: 2nd ed. New York McGraw-Hill Education.
McChesney, C., Covey, S., & Huling, J. (2012). The 4 disciplines of execution: Achieving your wildly important goals. New York, NY: Free Press.
Digital Image Retrieved from http://aspirekc.com/are-you-living-in-the-whirlwind/
