Here’s the text of a written complaint handed to a member of staff at an NHS A&E department recently:
Concerning the nursing staff who dealt with me last Friday: I want to complain bitterly about the poor support and lack of devotion to duty that I witnessed during my stay. The NHS is unlucky to have such awful staff as I found in your department. I have send this complaint because of the injustice and lack of support I received … etc etc
As you can imagine, this has caused some serious problems. The standard complaints procedure was invoked immediately. The patient was contacted and the exact nature of his complaint was drawn-up. The nurses on duty that day were contacted who were required to produce statements about exactly what happened. The patient was eventually invited to the department for a personal meeting with the senior clinical leaders. Several letters of apology were written and the matter was brought to the attention of the chief nurse and the chief executive. Several staff were reprimanded. Morale in the department has plumetted as a result of this; patients have even commented on it.
Except … none of this actually happened. Thankfully.
The real text (which you can see in the attached picture) was this:
To all the nursing staff at … who supported me thorugh a rough time last Friday. I can’t thank you all enough for the your support and devotion to duty and care. The NHS is so very lucky to have such amazing staff as you.
These chocolates are for you and still don’t do justice to the support you gave me. Thank you so much.
Signed …..
Concerning the nursing staff who dealt with me last Friday: I want to complain bitterly about the poor support and lack of devotion to duty that I witnessed during my stay. The NHS is unlucky to have such awful staff as I found in your department. I have send this complaint because of the injustice and lack of support I received … etc etc
As you can imagine, this has caused some serious problems. The standard complaints procedure was invoked immediately. The patient was contacted and the exact nature of his complaint was drawn-up. The nurses on duty that day were contacted who were required to produce statements about exactly what happened. The patient was eventually invited to the department for a personal meeting with the senior clinical leaders. Several letters of apology were written and the matter was brought to the attention of the chief nurse and the chief executive. Several staff were reprimanded. Morale in the department has plumetted as a result of this; patients have even commented on it.
Except … none of this actually happened. Thankfully.
The real text (which you can see in the attached picture) was this:
To all the nursing staff at … who supported me thorugh a rough time last Friday. I can’t thank you all enough for the your support and devotion to duty and care. The NHS is so very lucky to have such amazing staff as you.
These chocolates are for you and still don’t do justice to the support you gave me. Thank you so much.
Signed …..
As you can image, what happened next was that the standard compliments procedure was invoked. The patient was contacted and the exact nature of his compliment was investigated. The nurses on duty that day were contacted who were personally congratulated on exactly what happened. The patient was invited back to the department where he talked to several staff to explain what it meant to him to be cared for in this way. Several letters of thanks were written to staff and the matter was brought to the attention of the chief nurse and the chief executive. Several staff were commened and morale in the department has risen noticably. Patients have even commented on it.
Except … of course, that this didn’t happen either. Sadly.
What actually happened was that a few staff (not the ones being congratulated) hoovered down the chocolates. The card was put to one side and forgotten. No lessons were learned. No-one had their good behaviour reinforced.
One man, in particular, would have been appalled.
In 1936, Dale Carnegie published the worlds best-selling and most famous self-help book – a book whose title has entered the English language as a phrase in its own right. His manual of interpersonal psychology “How to win friends and influence people” sold 15 million copies in it’s original edition, was revised and re-printed in 1981 and continues as the basis of training thousands of business leaders every week across 85 countries.
In the book, Dale Carnegie describes how easy it is to win-over people that work with you – and how easy it is to undermine their motivation. He offers several “fundamental techniques”. The very first of these – the one he says is the most important – in his chapter entitled “If you want to make honey, don’t kick over the bee hive” is this:
Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain.
Carnegie uses examples of wrong-doers of his time about how no-one – absolutely no-one – responds well to criticism, simply because we always think we are right. To bring his examples up-to-date, we might look at Fred Goodwin, or any number of other bankers, who see they had no culpability in the banking crisis of 2008. Blair, Milosevic, Bush, Ghadaffi: they are all absolutely certain of their own rectitude. So too are you and I – so too is every nurse on the ward. We have our reasons which seem, to us, to be valid.
The point is, that simply telling someone they did wrong won’t change their mind and certainly won’t change their behaviour. To re-inforce good behaviour we need to do what he compliment, praise and appreciate what people do.
More specifically, in the part of the book, entitled “Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment” his first statement is this:
Begin with praise and honest appreciation
So here’ is my quesiton. How is it that every hospital in this country has a Complaints Procedure - but that not one (that I have come accross) has a Compliements Procedure?
Does this matter? I think it does. We forget at our peril (and, more importantly, the peril of our patients) the importance of telling people how well they are working. We skew our world towards defensiveness and fear – rather than care and positivity.
The solution is not difficult. There are two fairly simple things that you can do. Both of these are described in more detail in the book and are parts of our CAREFUL programme:
Neither of these are difficult to do. Your staff’s morale – and your patients’ care – depend on them.
Except … of course, that this didn’t happen either. Sadly.
What actually happened was that a few staff (not the ones being congratulated) hoovered down the chocolates. The card was put to one side and forgotten. No lessons were learned. No-one had their good behaviour reinforced.
One man, in particular, would have been appalled.
In 1936, Dale Carnegie published the worlds best-selling and most famous self-help book – a book whose title has entered the English language as a phrase in its own right. His manual of interpersonal psychology “How to win friends and influence people” sold 15 million copies in it’s original edition, was revised and re-printed in 1981 and continues as the basis of training thousands of business leaders every week across 85 countries.
In the book, Dale Carnegie describes how easy it is to win-over people that work with you – and how easy it is to undermine their motivation. He offers several “fundamental techniques”. The very first of these – the one he says is the most important – in his chapter entitled “If you want to make honey, don’t kick over the bee hive” is this:
Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain.
Carnegie uses examples of wrong-doers of his time about how no-one – absolutely no-one – responds well to criticism, simply because we always think we are right. To bring his examples up-to-date, we might look at Fred Goodwin, or any number of other bankers, who see they had no culpability in the banking crisis of 2008. Blair, Milosevic, Bush, Ghadaffi: they are all absolutely certain of their own rectitude. So too are you and I – so too is every nurse on the ward. We have our reasons which seem, to us, to be valid.
The point is, that simply telling someone they did wrong won’t change their mind and certainly won’t change their behaviour. To re-inforce good behaviour we need to do what he compliment, praise and appreciate what people do.
More specifically, in the part of the book, entitled “Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment” his first statement is this:
Begin with praise and honest appreciation
So here’ is my quesiton. How is it that every hospital in this country has a Complaints Procedure - but that not one (that I have come accross) has a Compliements Procedure?
Does this matter? I think it does. We forget at our peril (and, more importantly, the peril of our patients) the importance of telling people how well they are working. We skew our world towards defensiveness and fear – rather than care and positivity.
The solution is not difficult. There are two fairly simple things that you can do. Both of these are described in more detail in the book and are parts of our CAREFUL programme:
- Do leadership rounds – systematically visit the people you work with and tell how great their work is. Ask them to tell you what is going well and congratulate them for it.
- 2) Install a ‘compliments’ policy which has the same bite as the complaints policy. Make sure that in your department or area that ALL complients are gathered and collated, that staff who are doing a good job are recognised publicly.
Neither of these are difficult to do. Your staff’s morale – and your patients’ care – depend on them.
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