Telephone Excellence by Mike Mitchell

The Secret to Becoming an Excellent Employee
By Mike Mitchell

Whether you're a department manager, division director, or hospital CIO, you're still an employee. Are you an excellent employee, inspiring and motivating your staff to achieve excellence in all that they do? What is the secret to becoming an excellent employee?

The secret to exemplifying excellence in your work life is developing excellence in these four key areas: attitude, behavior, communications, and competence.

Attitude

* Take initiative - be proactive and complete tasks before they're required to be done
* Inspire enthusiasm - be upbeat, positive, and cheerful, and co-workers will respond to your energy
* Demonstrate commitment - do the job better than expected, show loyalty to your staff and hospital

Behavior

* Be punctual - get to work and meetings on time and meet your deadlines
* Be considerate - treat other employees like you want to be treated
* Dress appropriately - your appearance should fit your position; be neat, clean, and well groomed

Communications

* Listen well - misunderstanding instructions causes most errors in the workplace
* Speak clearly - deliver concise instructions and don't talk too much
* Write effectively - use proper grammar and sentence structure in your emails and memos

Competence

* Know your job - understand your responsibilities
* Work hard - lead the way, show your staff, peers, and superiors that you can do it
* Be diligent - complete assigned tasks on time and better than expected

Dr. Robb Thompson, speaker, educator, and author of Excellence in the Workplace, puts excellence in perspective this way, "A person of excellence refuses to adopt a 'just good enough' attitude; instead he presses on toward excellence when others say, 'That's good enough.'"

The secret to becoming an excellent employee is not really a secret but a personal commitment tempered with self-awareness, common sense, and workplace savvy. The "secret" is available to every employee who is willing and motivated to learn, develop skills and attributes, and exceed expectations.

Strive for excellence in all you do and say. Set the standard for your co-workers. You will not only improve yourself, but will become a strong leader and excellent example for your staff and organization.

Blogging for Business: Part II
By Mike Mitchell

In Blogging for Business: Part I, I explored the benefits of an internal company blog. In Blogging for Business: Part II, I'll examine the benefits of having an external company blog.

A Blog is more than a "High Tech" Website
You might wonder why your hospital needs a blog when it already has a great website. A website is an excellent tool for publicizing largely static content quarterly calendar of events, long-range building additions, or fund raising goals. Your hospital can promote areas of expertise, affiliate organizations and provide directions to your facility. However, a website offers mere one-way communication. A website is like an advertising billboard with periodic changes and infrequent updates.

A blog, on the other hand, is a more personal, interactive, and timely communications medium. The content is dynamic and evolving. Using advanced technology and blog software, your blog administrator or team can efficiently post daily items of interest and respond to comments posted by patients or concerns expressed by the local community when necessary.

Benefits of an external blog
While the advantages of an external, or public, blog are many, this Web 2.0 technology is only as effective as the commitment of the Marketing, Communications, or IT Department to using it. Fortunately, no real technical expertise is needed to respond to posts once the blog application is in place.

* Build Rapport: The interactive and conversational nature of a blog can build rapport with patients and your community. Patients feel like they have a voice when they see their responses to posts published. Daily posts give the community a glimpse of what life is like within the hospital.
* Provide Information: Post items of interest to patients that would not normally be published on your website. Provide information about temporary situations like changes in parking due to construction.
* Enhance Marketing Efforts:Get feedback about new services or initiatives. This is a great low-cost way to conduct market research.
* Project a "High Tech" Image: Patients expect competence from their hospital. They want to see innovation and implementation of current technology. They want their hospital to be the best.
*Customer Information: Share useful information about a customer's problem and resolution of the problem.
* CEO Blog: Eliminate top down bulk emails. Here CEOs can post new corporate values, planning changes, or simply make company announcements. My CEO once sent an email telling employees to stop sending so many emails including "Thank You" emails!

The following resources lend some additional insight from Leaders in Hospital and Healthcare Blogging:
Nick's Blog: by F. Nicholas Jacobs, FACHE, President/CEO of Windber Medical Center in Pennsylvania
Running a Hospitall: by Paul Levy, President/CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston
Kevin, MD Medical Weblog: by Dr. Kevin Pho of Nashua, N.H.

I challenge you to take the next step. You can learn a new technology, develop your writing skills, and gain project management and collaboration experience. Enhance your career by taking a leadership role in implementing a public blog for your hospital.

I’d like to know your company’s experiences with blogging. Have you implemented one or more blogs? What results have you achieved? Drop me an email at mike@telexcellence.com.

-Mike-