If you’re like me, every time a third-party surveyor, consultant, or new colleague pointed out something in my work or my clinic that was being done incorrectly, I had two reactions—often contradictory. First, rejection and defensiveness (even if for just a split second), and second, gratitude—I just learned how others view our practices, and sometimes, I learned more efficient ways of working.
I eventually started seeking it out. We all become blind at some point – whether that is culture that blinds us, or chaos can blind us. Assumptions make us blind. Burnout can blind us, or just an unwillingness to self-reflect and be open to new ideas. But what we do with that blinded state is what really matters.
With ambulatory clinics, I have conducted patient experience observations, efficiency observations, process flow observations, and after each—I always saw something with fresh eyes and no political bias. Often, they overlap—if we focus on patient experience, we likely also find workflow and clinical observations that affect those processes.
There are times—whether related to fear, ego, culture, or other factors—when even the concept of having someone from “the outside” see how we work is a hard no. I feel quite sad when this happens, but I understand it. Ego and identity are protective measures against past decisions.
However, I also know that we can all learn new things from each other, and that unbiased professionals providing feedback is much preferrable to a regulatory agency providing fines—or patients reporting errors.
Ego Is Fear Masquerading As Wisdom—and it gets in the way of learning from non-biased observations and therefore, better decisions.
Suppose the human condition is the ability to navigate a constantly changing world. In that case, the outcomes we really want for our teams cannot be built on the assumptions (and certainly not the ego associated with the assumptions) we created in the past. Outside perspectives always see the present moment—that’s what fresh eyes I’ve come to learn, really means. And it’s in the present that we benefit from a conversation that pulls from past knowledge, current observations, and the prospect of actually navigating a team toward its future goals.
Fresh Eyes
