Law of Deminishing Returns
Savings Beyond Price -Weekly eNewsletter – January 21, 2009
Robert T. Yokl
President & Chief Value Strategist
Excellence is an Art Won by Training
Aristotle is quoted as saying that “Excellence is an art won by training and habituation”. Training is the sure path to improvement, reducing the resistance to change and changing people’s behaviors. It is the only way that I know of to “unfreeze” existing thinking, replace it with new habits, and then “refreeze” these new ideas, behaviors and practices that have been learned to create a whole new way of doing things.
We see this truism play out every time we train a new value analysis team(s) for our clients. Prior to this training, our client’s department heads and managers are skeptical, risk adverse, lack trust, and are indifferent to new ideas about how to save money – beyond price. But then we win them over by teaching them that there is indeed a better way to save money, by having them practice the new skills we have just taught them and then by repeating the process until they achieve the desired results.
After 22 years of training value analysis teams in the art of excellence, I can tell you that I have found NO better way to change people’s minds and hearts than training and as Aristotle calls it “habituation” or practice makes training perfect.
This is just one example of how excellence is an art won by training, but it should be your best practice in everything that you are trying to accomplish. When you are installing a new MMIS system your staff needs training. Before you take your annual physical inventories your staff needs training. When you hire a new buyer they need training. Nothing new, different or experimental should happen in your supply chain operations without training. It’s your key to quality, financial fitness and operational excellence!
So now that you know the secret to changing people’s behavior and changing the “status quo” in your healthcare organization, I would encourage you to take one small first step in this direction: develop a training program for ALL of your new hires in order to build, not hope for, excellence into your supply chain operations. Once you have accomplished this small footstep, then move on to even bigger training challenges over the next few years. You will be absolutely amazed at the results of doing so.
Your Partner In Savings Beyond Price™,
Robert T Yokl
Chief Value Strategist
Strategic Value Analysis® In Healthcare
1-800-220-4274
P.S. If you are interested in viewing a clip from our training video to see how we do our training, as well as pick up a few tips on what your training should look like please be our guest.
P.P.S. Don’t forget to check out my new blog “Getting to the Next Level of Savings!” now that your GPO savings are slowly disappearing.
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