HHT #159 - The Power of the Pride

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The Power of the Pride

What Home Health Care Leaders can Learn from a Pride of Lions

April 30, 2009

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In this issue...

-- The Power of the Pride

-- Powerful Teams are Made Up of Powerful Individuals

-- The Pride Focuses Intently on Clearly Understood and Realistic Goals

-- Team Members Must be Alert to Communication

-- Incentives Motivate and Reward Success

-- Private Duty Business Builders Strategy Retreat

-- Strategic Staffing: Finding and Keeping the Emloyees You Need in Home Health Care

-- About the Author

-- Permission to Reproduce

Welcome,

Welcome to this issue of Home Health Care Today, the leading electronic newsletter for home health care and hospice executives who want to grow their business and get ready for the future. Every other Wednesday, we bring you strategies and insights that will help you take your agency to new heights.

For ideas to grow your Private Duty Home Care business, subscribe to Private Duty Today, the bi-weekly newsletter for non-medical home care CEOs. Your complimentary subscription is available at www.privatedutytoday.com.


The Power of the Pride

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Write press releases that POP!A group of eight lions forms a semi-circle at the side of a pool of water, noisily slapping rough tongues on the cool water. While the lions drink, a distant impala gives a nervous cough. Seven lions hear nothing above the splashing water. Only one young male hears the sound and immediately freezes. Head up, amber eyes focused, he strains for the sound. Within two seconds, all heads are up listening.

Just one lion has heard the impala but in an instant all the team members have committed their unquestioning support. Ten minutes later, the team has achieved their goal, and the lions are feeding.

Two weeks ago, I wrote to you from Cape Town, South Africa where I was speaking at the International Federation for Professional Speakers Global Speakers Summit. It was an amazing, life-changing experience with many points of learning that will be valuable to us as home health care leaders. One of the highlights of my trip was to hear an amazing speaker by the name of Ian Thomas who spoke on "The Power of the Pride." An accomplished lion tracker and safari guide, Ian took his years of experience in the bush observing and researching lions and turned his knowledge into a wonderful book. He now splits his time between tracking lions, guiding safaris, and speaking professionally around the world on the lessons he's learned from the lions.

In his compelling message to the Global Speakers Summit, Ian shared with us four principles of teamwork that he has observed in a pride of lions. (Pride is the term used to describe a group of lions, like a herd of zebras and a journey of giraffes.)

According to Ian, there are four factors essential to hunting success for a pride of lions:

  • Individuals - each individual member is powerful
  • Goals - the total focus is on clear-cut and realistic goals
  • Communication - team members must be alert to communication
  • Incentives - motivate and reward success

Later in our trip, we traveled to the private game preserve at Phinda, near Durban, and experienced a pride of lions in the wild. What an amazing experience to watch from 30 yards away as these amazing creatures enjoy an evening sip at their favorite watering hole. In this issue of Home Health Care Today, we'll explore each of these four factors in the Pride of Lions, and examine how they can help us as home health care leaders.


Powerful Teams are Made Up of Powerful Individuals

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As Ian described for us the power of the individual lion in the pride, and how the weak ones do not survive, it struck me that we have been working on recruiting and selection in home health care as a strategic tool to improve performance. The home health agency with the most competent team members wins in the marketplace.

Ian hit it on the head when he said, "There is not a secret formula that makes strong teams out of weak individuals."

Wow! Isn't that powerful? You can't expect to have a high performing home health and hospice team if you haven't recruited and selected high performing individuals. Whether it's nurses, therapists, clinical managers, coders, or sales representatives. You need to recruit and select the very best individuals if you intend to have a high performing team.


The Pride Focuses Intently on Clearly Understood and Realistic Goals

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The pride of lions is focused on finding food for survival. A clearly understood and realistic goal. Nothing is allowed to distract the pride from its purpose. Each team member is utterly focused on the common goal, alert to the task, and literally quivering with anticipation. In the middle of the hunt for buffalo, the lioness will not suddenly start chasing warthogs.

A high performing home care team is also focused on its goals and purpose. How does your team do in staying focused and avoiding distractions? Is each member focused and alert? Are they "quivering with anticipation?"


Team Members Must be Alert to Communication

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In Ian's story about teamwork and the pride of lions, he described a group of eight cats quietly approaching a water hole at dusk to drink. In the distance, an impala gives a nervous cough and one lion hears the sound. Within seconds, the other lions are paying attention to the signals. Each member of the pride is pro-active for the group's survival. There is no ego in the lion pride and no complaints about not getting the CEO's memo on the subject of hunting impalas.

This story was a major "ah ha" for me. Over 28 years, I've worked with over 500 different organizations, and every one of them has said they have a "communication problem." These are highly successful companies with very bright leaders, and yet they have trouble communicating.

In the pride of lions, the responsibility for communication is with the receiver, not the sender. Each member of the pride is looking and listening for signals from the other lions.

As I have studied home health care and hospice organizations, I've seen and heard many complaints about poor communication. Everyone wants to blame the leaders. Yet, in those same agencies, I do not see a team of people who are actively listening and observing their leaders for signals.

How can we, as leaders in home care, develop our team members to be actively looking and listening for communication from other members? What can we do to help our folks learn to actively listen for the information they need to perform at a high level? Interesting ideas, and we'll keep working on solutions to the communication dilemma.


Incentives Motivate and Reward Success

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You've heard me say it a hundred times. "What gets measured gets managed, what gets rewarded gets repeated."

Lions have a simple incentive scheme. If you kill, you eat. If you don't, you starve. This translates into a 100% effective incentive in which success is rewarded with food and failure means starvation and death.

We don't expect the members of your home health care team to starve and die if they don't hit their agency goals. However, we do need to look at other forms of incentives such as appreciation, recognition, advancement, and pay for performance. What are you doing to create incentives for high performance on your home care team? How do your team members respond to those incentives?


Private Duty Business Builders Strategy Retreat

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Many of you who are executives in Medicare Certified Home Health agencies also have a private duty home care business. If you're like most home health agencies, you struggle with making your private duty business profitable.

If you and your private duty director would like to come together with other successful private duty companies for a one-day executive strategy retreat, here's an exciting opportunity.

Join me in Columbia, Maryland - right near BWI airport - for a one day focused strategy session designed to help you develop a business growth plan for your company. We'll look at the 27 elements of a successful private duty business, and give you an opportunity to focus on those elements that are most important to you.

We'll share with you the best practices and proven techniques to grow your private pay business. We'll show you how to recruit and select the caregivers you need to take on more clients and we will give you specific tips to increase the profitability of your business.

Join the folks from the Maryland National Capital Home Care Association on June 3, 2009 for the Private Duty Business Builders Strategy Retreat. See you there!

Register today!


Strategic Staffing: Finding and Keeping the Emloyees You Need in Home Health Care

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Yesterday, I was in Durham, North Carolina speaking to the Association for Home and Hospice Care of North Carolina. In my session on Strategic Staffing, we had a lively discussion about how to apply the top techniques for recruiting nurses and therapists. Then we discussed the seven sources of Strategic Staffing Advantage, and how to create a great place to work to reduce turnover.

I'm more and more convinced that finding and keeping the right team members is a critical strategic competency for home health care executives. If you would like to gain more insights on how to strategically staff your agency, you'll want to read our e-book, Strategic Staffing: Finding and Keeping the Employees You Need in Home Care.

My friend and colleague, Cathy Fyock, CSP, SPHR, brings her many years of knowledge and experience in human resources to this book. You'll appreciate the depth of content and the practical application of principles.

Now is the time to put forth an extra effort to bring in top talent. Find the people you need to grow your business and get ready for the future.

Order a copy today!


About the Author

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Stephen Tweed, CSP, is Chairman and CEO of Leading Home Care ... a Tweed Jeffries company. For over 25 years he has been a recognized leader in strategy and leadership development for home health care companies and associations. He is the author or co-author of seven books, five of which were written specifically for the home care industry. He has served on the boards of directors of three not-for-profit home care agencies, and has served as interim President & CEO of a $25 million home care company.

Stephen is a past-President of the National Speakers Association, a 3500 member international society of experts who speak professionally. He is also the father of a 38 year-old son who is physically disabled and uses the services of home care on a daily basis.

Meet the entire Leading Home Care Team


Permission to Reproduce

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Permission is granted to healthcare publications, associations and companies to reproduce this article in your publication, or to distribute copies to your leaders, on the condition that you reproduce the credits and contact information as follows: "Reprinted with permission from Home Health Care Today. Copyright 2009 Stephen C. Tweed. To receive a FREE subscription to this newsletter, log on to www.leadinghomecare.com."



Contact Leading Home Care

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phone: 1-866-209-5101

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