Doctors are typically lousy bosses,
but they have lots of potential. So says Joseph D'Cruz,
a professor of healthcare management at the University
of Toronto who spends his time thinking about such things.
"There is very little in the training
of physicians which would help them become good bosses,"
he says. "Things like teamwork and empathy are not part
of the natural toolkit of the physician, particularly
empathy towards co-workers. We call this emotional intelligence."
Mr D'Cruz says doctors score "quite
low" in this area. "But the good news is that emotional
intelligence is something that can be learned."
Doctors have immense potential
as managers, he adds. "To be a good manager you need
good native intelligence, and doctors have that in spades.
They have the intellectual capability to be good managers
— but they lack the emotional."
The first step, as with most things,
is to acknowledge you have a problem. But doctors are
often reluctant to admit it. "They think if they're
smart as physicians, they must be smart as managers.
That is a myth." says Mr D'Cruz. "Sometimes it's quite
an epiphany when they're confronted with their ineptitude."
BAD
BOSSES
In his line of work, Mr D'Cruz has heard some memorable
stories of terrible physician bosses. One of his favourites
involves a surgeon who's handed the wrong instrument
and promptly sends it flying it across the OR.
Bad boss horror stories abound.
Toronto's CityNews last year held a contest to
identify the worst boss around. (You can breathe a sigh
of relief. The winner — or loser — was a dentist
who docked all his employees $100 when all his patients
cancelled their appointments on September 11, 2001.)
One entry was submitted by a former employee of a Toronto
doctor who expected her to walk the six hours from her
home in Scarborough to his office in Parkdale during
the August 2003 blackout when public transit was out
of service.
But Mr D'Cruz also knows a few
doctors who've had very successful careers in management,
including Dr Bob Bell, an orthopedic surgeon who runs
the University Health Network UHN in Toronto, and Dr
Alan Hudson, a neurosurgeon who's now the Ontario government's
wait times guru. Their successes were hard-earned, he
says. "They turned out very good, but both had to go
to Harvard Business School to learn management."
MEA
CULPA
The average doctor has had zero training in how to recruit,
train or deal with staff problems. Perhaps in an ideal
world doctors shouldn't be required to deal with managing
their practices - family practices managed by nurses
tend to be better run, says Mr D'Cruz - but in reality,
it's part of the job.
So, given that you likely have
to do some management tasks whether you like it or not,
how can you identify if you're a bad boss? Mr D'Cruz
says, "If you're experiencing a lot of absenteeism and
turnover, that's a good hint you're not doing a good
job."
Marilyn Haight, the Arizona-based
author of Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Boss?,
adds this can have a serious knock-on effect: if your
staffers are unhappy, chances are they'll take it out
on your patients — and you'll pay for it in the
end.
Not sure if you're more like Larry
Page, the Google co-founder who established the company
as an employee-friendly workplace with free food and
transportation, or David Brent, the fictional antihero
of BBC's The Office who routinely harangues,
embarrasses and patronizes his staff? Take NRM's quiz
to find out whether you're a good boss or not.
|
NRM quiz
What
kind of boss are you?
1. A nurse at your clinic asks to take the
next three days off work for personal reasons.
You respond:
a) "Gosh, I hope it's nothing
too serious. Let's try to find someone to cover
for you."
b) "All leave requires one month's
notice. That's the policy — or have you forgotten
already?"
c) "Hm� I'll let you know tomorrow,"
you mumble as you hurry to your next appointment.
2. Your receptionist has
overbooked your day — yet again. Patients
are upset and, frankly, so are you.
a) "The only thing you're any
good at is computer solitaire!" you yell in front
of a shocked, full waiting room.
b) You ask to speak to the receptionist
privately at the end of the day to sort out how
the two of you can figure out a solution.
c) You say nothing and just
try to clear through the backlog as fast as you
can.
3. A young physician whom
you supervise is being presented with an award
for his work with underprivileged patients at
a banquet on a Saturday night, but you've got
hockey tickets. What do you do?
a) Pass the tickets along to
a friend. Workplace solidarity takes precedence
- after all, there are plenty more hockey games.
b) Make a brief appearance wearing
your team's jersey beneath your suit and sneak
out of the banquet hall after Dr Goody-goody has
finished speaking.
c) You skip the banquet and
ride the kid extra hard at the next M & M.
4. A departing staffer asks
for a reference letter. You accept - what else
can you do? - and then:
a) Dig out the forgettable,
cliché-ridden letter you wrote for the
last person who left, change the name and feel
you fulfilled your obligation.
b) Mutter a quick prayer that
he forgets he's asked you for a letter, and go
on with your life.
c) Do what you promised: write
a thorough and well thought-out letter.
Answers: 1 A, 2 B, 3 A, 4
C
How'd you do?
0-1 correct You're a
toxic presence in the office. Better hope you
don't run into any scorned ex-employees in a dark
alley some night.
2-3 correct You're well-meaning
but, all things considered, clueless. You're running
your business by the seat of your pants —
if a tear should develop in those pants, you're
as likely to stick a thin little patch on them
as you are to bring them to the tailor for a proper
fix, figuratively speaking.
4 correct Skip the Harvard
MBA — you're already management material!
You say all the right things at the right times.
Consider a sideline as a consultant to help your
bad-boss colleagues to shape up.
|
|
