Have you ever been in a conversation with someone and they’ve suddenly started to ignore you to check an SMS? Even worse – an email?
I was at a conference yesterday when the phone of the guy sitting next me started vibrating. The keynote speaker was presenting at the time. To my surprise he answered his phone! At the table! What happened next really amazed me – he answered with “Hello? Who’s this?”. Not only was it terrible phone manners, but he was prioritising someone he didn’t even know (or what they were calling about) over an international speaker that his company had paid thousands for him to see. Wow.
To me the person you are with is way more important than any incoming calls from peers or friends who aren’t with you at the time. Especially more important than someone who you don’t know who or why they’re calling. There are exceptions of course (e.g. your CEO or an expecting wife). You get the gist.
I cannot believe that there’s ever any situation where an “urgent” email or sms takes priority over the person you’re with at the time. Not everyone sits in front of a computer all day, or jumps on every email that comes in instantly (and if they did well that’s another big problem). If it really was urgent they’d call. Repeatedly. And leave a message.
Think about the message these behaviours send to the person you’re with and your relationship with them:
“Even though I don’t know who this person is, or why they are calling, they are still more important than you”
or
“This non-urgent bit of information someone is sending is more important than you are”
There are numerous websites out there that host some of the ridiculous things people have said and typed. There are the obvious issues of privacy, unprofessional comments about employers, and discriminatory comments coming back to haunt people. I recently heard a great comment on the radio about using social media (or e-mail and voicemail). The point was made that if you wouldn’t want it on the front page of the New York Times then you shouldn’t post it. The problem is we don’t post the majority of the content on our own page… others do it for us!
An interesting point that struck me was that potential customers, clients, and employers (both current and potential) all check your Facebook, Twitter, and whatever other social media platforms that are in vogue. I know I’ve done it, and I’m not unique. It reminded me of a recent call I had from someone working for an outside company. They congratulated me on the birth of my daughter and I had never met them. Last week my wife met for the first time a friend-of-a-friend who knew a lot about us… all through self-confessed ‘Facebook stalking’.
I just had a look at my pictures on Facebook. There was nothing too outrageous there but there was one interesting thing I noticed. Now I don’t drink that often nor that much, but there seemed to be a large number of pictures there with a beer in my hand. Before they’d even met me an outsider could have made an assumption that I had a drinking problem! Probably not as big an issue but there were literally hundreds of pictures on there by other people that were out of focus, I was only tagged in the background, or they were just really bad photos. Despite these not even being my photo’s, this could lead someone to assume that I personally have no attention to detail and didn’t actually care about how I was portrayed. Could this then extend to the company I work for, or the services I provide?
From now on I’m looking at my social media profiles as an extension of my own personality, values, and lifestyle. If there are things on there that aren’t in proportion to how I really behave, then I guess it really isn’t a reflection of who I am (which is what they are supposed to be all about right?). The next person who looks at my page could be from a completely different demographic with a completely different set of values. I’m very happy in my job at Wellness & Lifestyles so ruining job applications isn’t a consideration… but not alienating potential clients is!
As I was standing there in the line for the Magic Cave, I had plenty of time to think (it took 2-hours… but that’s the effect of leaving it until the Sunday just before Christmas!). I was thinking about what we were doing for Christmas… me, my wife Natalie, my daughter Chloe, and my two dogs Hudson and Wilbur. Wow, that, plus my white station-wagon… I AM the stereotype! Then, thinking about what we were doing for New Year’s Eve, it made me think about what I was doing exactly ten years before. I can tell you that sitting on the balcony, having a glass of champagne, and then pushing the pram down to see the fireworks was very different to even two years ago!
Some of my friends used to joke that I was like the character in ‘About a Boy’ (where “no man is an island”). I knew it would happen eventually, but didn’t know how I’d go scaling back on all of the other things in my life. Would I resent the family life? If I had a crystal ball I wouldn’t have believed what I saw for Christmas and the transition between 2011-12.
I loved it.
Chloe & Santa at the Magic Cave
I have too much “stuff”. For me, I’m currently looking at everything I own and trying to work out what benefit does the actual ‘thing’ give me.
Take my cd’s for example. No, really, take them. I’ve realised the benefit I get is by listening to the music, and also being able to flick through and look at the covers. This is an easy way for me to be able to decide what I want to listen to, but seeing them also reminds me of a particular era of my life (I have a bad habit of absolutely thrashing an album for weeks on end, so each album reminds me about a point in time). Owning the actual physical copies of the cd’s doesn’t give me any benefit. They just take up space. I have all of my music on iTunes, and can flick through the covers with a swipe of my finger. So why do I still have cd’s?
Well, I’ve decided I’m now going to sell them all. I’m then going to give the proceeds to a hearing related charity or not-for-profit organisation. I still get the benefits, so does someone else, and I’ll have less stuff cluttering up my life.
I quite often come across raised eyebrows when I tell people that my primary qualification is that of a physiotherapist… and that I work in aged care. The responses are usually somewhere along the lines of “how did that happen?”, as if it was some mistake or punishment.
The reason I’m in this sector? Firstly I love the work. The perception of a physio is someone who works with elite sports teams, or in some prestigious private practice. The reality is that you can end up in the same small room day in day out, churning through patients twenty minutes (if you’re lucky) at a time. Sometimes, I used to feel like I was working on a people conveyor-belt. I found no meaning in spending countless sessions mobilising someone’s back, only for them to continue to keep on doing the same thing that caused their problem in the first place. One of the other alternatives is to work in the public sector, where the work may be varied, but the reward, recognition, and scope for career development leaves a lot to be desired.
Compare this to getting someone who hadn’t walked in 2-years back to the point where they can get out of a chair and then walk to the toilet without an aid. Now that’s rewarding. You actually get to make a difference to people’s lives in aged care. Even if there were no other benefits compared to other areas of physiotherapy, this would still be a big win!
The reality is though, that there are way more benefits than just this. Unlike working in an outpatient setting where you have fixed appointments, working in residential care means you have the professional autonomy to prioritise your own workload so that you spend the amount of time with the clients they actually need. As long as all the boxes are ticked, you can spend more time with those that would really benefit from the input, and less with those whose interventions are a little more routine. The end result? Overall the same amount of time is spent doing the job, but you can avoid being frantic one moment from running behind due to a complex client, but then twiddling your thumbs two hours later because of a no-show.
For me though, these points alone wouldn’t have been enough to keep me in this industry for so long. I’ve hardly got the attention span to finish writing this post! So having a job where no two days are identical is what has stopped me from getting stale. In the past one of my days would involve patient assessments, completing treatments, rehabilitation, care planning, writing up exercise programs, conducting exercise classes, and training nursing staff on manual handling. I found this diversity challenging, having to keep abreast of so many areas of the profession… and this is the entry level therapist work! As a new-graduate, I couldn’t think of a better way to become a well rounded therapist.
Which brings me onto my next point – career progression. In aged care you don’t have to wait until someone retires or dies before you can move up the organisational chart (in other cases a senior physiotherapist being in the same role for more than 20-years is not unheard of… doesn’t allow much chance for their team to grow!). At the other end of the spectrum working in a solo-practice can mean really rapid progression. The transition between receptionist, therapist, business development manager, and director can occur as quick as within the same day. Only problem is that it can be like this every day. Aged care, however, is a growing industry. For those that want to grow with it there are plenty of us out there who would prefer to be considered more mentors than bosses.
I haven’t even scratched the surface of the challenges I face now helping sites with their accreditation, government funding, and processes. I’m also very lucky I’m working for such a great organisation – Wellness & Lifestyles. I’m not as hands-on anymore. But, if I can help a few more therapists every few months achieve the same rewarding experiences I’ve had, with five times as many more clients being helped, I’m five times more happy.
In the bathroom at the airport in Manila, I read a sign that reminded me we really do live in the lucky country – “when you’re tired of your job, think of the jobless, the disabled, and those that wish they had yours”. I thought of this sign a lot during my trip.
Here in Australia, one of the services that Wellness & Lifestyles provides is manual handling training for nursing and care staff, especially in residential aged care facilities. Despite this being an annual mandatory training session that many facilities pay staff a training wage to attend on top of their normal hours, we often see staff who don’t even turn up. For a mandatory session! One needed to keep a job!
Providing manual handling training to nurses in the Philippines – a different story. In each session I didn’t have the typical mix of tourists, hostages, terrorists, and learners. Every nurse hanging on every word, trying to get the most out of it. When you’re in a country with 280,000 unemployed Registered Nurses, they do whatever they can to get a competitive advantage. Anything on the resume helps. One nurse even flew 400km to attend a 2-hour session. Here in Australia some couldn’t be bothered travelling 4km.
No OHS&W act to protect workers, no lifter machines. If a patient is 100kg and you’re 40kg, get them up anyway.
We might not all have the job of our dreams (I’ve come to accept that I’ll never be an astronaut!), but think about those that don’t have one at all. And if they do, is yours really that bad in comparison?
The odds are that most of us in Australia either have a family member in an aged care facility, or have a close friend who does. Looking into the future, this looks even more definite. Aged care receives a lot of press about how it is underfunded, and this means less care for these loved ones. The reality of it is that I have never once gone into an aged care facility where they are actually optimizing and securing all of the funding they are currently entitled to! The industry is crying out for more money, when the users aren’t spending what they’ve already got.
This is why I wanted to get the W&L ACFI Calculator App out there! Sometimes sites needlessly focus on the lowest funded residents in their facility first. If a resident attracts a very low subsidy (e.g. $30/day), getting them up to $40/day doesn’t help too much. This free calculator will now mean they can find the hidden funding in their sites (you’d be surprised at how many residents they can increase from $100/day to well over $160/day or more!).
Prioritisation is key, especially when there is limited resources. This means the W&L ACFI Calculator App can help to save time – in less than a minute, sites can now find out what rate they should really be getting for your residents. It eliminates unnecessary paperwork by being able to quickly and easily work out which residents don’t need reappraisals. And, most importantly, it increases funding. By knowing which residents can be reappraised for the biggest increase first, the planning process is instantly more productive!
It’s our goal to help aged care facilities receive the funding they’re entitled to… especially since the care is usually already being provided! At Wellness & Lifestyles our worst outcome so far has been finding $100K in available resubmissions for a facility. If you know someone who works in the aged care industry, tell them about the W&L ACFI Calculator App. It’s free!
Meeting goals can be hard. I’ve found that sometimes it’s not about what you do, it’s about what you don’t do. More often than not, it’s a combination of both. For example, achieving the goal of “not crashing my car in the next six months” is tough one to actively meet. If you decide that you won’t ever sms when behind the wheel, however, you’re one step closer to achieving your goal.
It’s easier to stop doing something you know you shouldn’t be doing, than motivate yourself to do something you should.
At work, one of the things we aim to do to uphold our core value of delivering, is to go the extra mile in encourage thorough, complete, and effective communication. One of the trade-offs we’ve declared to help achieve this is to not email when we can call, or call when we can visit. Making this expectation of “what we won’t do” clear to all of our staff helps achieve this aim and maintain the brand we’re trying to achieve.
Personally, some of the trade-off’s I”ve gone for are not buying my lunch just because it’s easier; not buying a coffee unless it’s out socially; to not play with my phone while I’m in a social situation or with my family.
Especially now that I’ve made my trade-off’s public for everyone to see, I’m instantly more motivated – I know my friends and family will point out the things that I said I won’t do! Now I’m already one step closer to keeping on track…
In the 1920’s-30’s in a Western Electric factory outside of Chicago a study was done when measuring the effect of light on productivity. An interesting thing was found – no matter what they did with the light levels, productivity went up. This is called the Hawthorne Effect, and it’s just because people knew they were being measured. My left-sided-brain works this way too – I love putting numbers on things. That I know I’m watching myself makes me try harder!
If it’s not observable, measurable, and repeatable, how do we know how we’re doing? Can we identify the areas we need to improve? Are we doing better than the average and just don’t know it? Once we make a change are we improving?
Personally, I don’t want to get fitter. I want to be able to do more push-ups and run a faster 2.4km time. I don’t want to look slimmer. I want to lose 1.5kg in the next six weeks. These are things I’ve measured that I know I can improve on (and am only now motivated to do so now that I know what numbers I have here!).
Here in the office, we knew that there were some improvements we wanted to make to some internal processes surrounding quality. Yes, you can make quality a quantity! It was only once we measured (eg – through staff satisfaction surveys) that we knew exactly what to work on. Once we did, we re-measured it… and it improved.
Again, it was only once we started measuring the impact of our W&L ACFI Consultancy service, and benchmarked our results against others, that we saw where the real improvements were. Now, we’ve helped many aged care facilities increase their income significantly. That brings real job satisfaction knowing that we’ve help many organisations increase their revenue by x hundred thousand dollars per year, knowing what effect this would have on staffing and resident outcomes (measurable ones of course!).
So think of something you’re doing, and think of a way to measure it. You might be surprised at how you’re really going!
Really, the decent method you follow is better than the perfect method you quit. I’m not particularly gifted in anyway; everything I’ve achieved has always been through being consistent, constantly adding grains of sand to the bucket. The thing I take most seriously in my life is adherence – will I actually stick with a change until I’ve met my goal? If not, I’m finding another method, even if it’s less effective and less efficient.
I’m constantly doing an 80/20 evaluation of my life – 80% of my results come from 20% of my efforts. Putting in 90% gets great returns. 95% is awesome. After this though, soon comes the point of diminishing returns. I would love to spend hours at the gym, but instead I find training for half an hour gets almost the same results. Focussing on the basics and not worrying about the latest gadget, trend, or spending hours chasing the last little bit of improvement at the expense of other areas of my life. And what’s amazing? I’m constantly getting small improvements (I only know because I have a measurement fixation though – but that’s another story!).
This approach isn’t just limited to this example. I’m finding the same thing with family, work, study, and sport. There are always so many basic things that we know we should be doing but need someone else to remind us. It’s the easy things that we do, and do them consistently, that are going to help us improve.
I once read that it’s easy to become an expert. Simply read for an hour a day on a topic of your choice, and soon you’ll know more than most people. Simple, but it really does make sense.
Now I’m going to go turn my mobile phone off and spend some time with my family… an easy way to improve the quality of my time with them.