Uncommon Common Sense
Posted by mike - 02/03/09 at 04:02 pmI was stunned by a recent article that reported the findings that were to be published in the New England Journal of Medicine by a Harvard Medical Researcher which concluded that in the U.S. alone, and more specifically strictly operating rooms alone, that $15b to $25b (that’s right - billion!) could be saved annually. How, you ask? Surely this must demand some form of complex, analytical, difficult - let’s just call it heavy brainpower effort from probably only the smartest of people - in order to save that much money per year just from operating rooms - and I’m not talking about eliminating expensive medical equipment by the way. Well, you would be wrong. Really, really wrong, in fact…..
The research simply documented and concluded that a simple 19-question checklist of questions to be asked by the operating room team of doctors, nurses, and anaesthesilogy professionals could both save money in the amounts listed above, and literally cut the surgery/post-surgery death rate by 40%! What is baffling here is that I’ll bet if asked both you and I would have surely assumed that these items were certainly already being done. These questions by the way, although pertinent to an operation, were not out of reach of the common sense that could be applied by anyone whether they are in the medical profession or not. Things like: all team members introducing themselves to make sure all required skills are present; confirm the patient, site and procedure; are there any equipment problems to be addressed?; has the correct name of the procedure been recorded and the specimen similarly labeled?; and are there the same number of sponges, needles, and instruments post-surgery that there were pre-surgery? I don’t know about you, but none of this sounds like it required a medical school degree to effect such a profound impact. Time to invoke that definition of “assume” again…….
Our human nature is such that we assume that the most fundamental elements of things have already been thought of and are being handled so we don’t even ask the question of ourselves “was it?” And of course, especially with such life-threatening/life-saving surgeries taking place with the exceptional brainpower represented in those operating rooms that every aspect of every item has been checked and cross-checked. Cascading down from there into other more routine and mundane aspects of business in general we probably afford a greater tolerance of oversight or neglect to all those “little things”, but nonetheless still probably assume that surely the fundamentals have been addressed that negates my need to make sure they were. And once again, we are most likely wrong.
Although many reasons could be at play here, I am sure that often it is due to nothing more than an absence of simply using good ‘ole Common Sense. You see it lacking so often, don’t you? Bet it doesn’t take you long to create a list of items within your own company that are lacking common sense. Let’s conclude with some very interesting and enlightening study findings listed below that occurs in all walks of business:
- 80% of customers switch to the competition due to service quality issues
- 95% of unhappy customers will buy again if their problem will be handled satisfactorily
- Quality of Service represents 84% of the reason customer loyalty is created, whereas only 66% is by sales interactions
- In ranking the top 3 reasons for loyalty, they are, in order, (1) high-quality interactions with people and processes, (2) superior products or service, and lastly, (3) lowest price or cost of ownership
- A CRMGuru survey recently recorded only 22% of respondents agreed that companies provide an excellent customer experience
- This same survey recorded that the top two items that produce a positive impact on the customer experience are (1) well-trained people, and (2) internet sales and support functionality
- The number one cause of earning a customer’s disapproval is lack of common courtesy.
March 30th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
If you had to choose between an ivy-league taught individual, or a real-world streetwise one with common sense, which would you choose?