You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2013.
by James G. Bohn, Ph.D
A lack of organizational focus can demotivate employees, reduce revenues, and increase customer dissatisfaction
Managing the transition to the reformed health system | National Audit OfficeNational Audit Office.
Although new organisations set up as part of the reformed health system were ready to start functioning on time, the transition to the system is not yet complete.
The One Thing Successful People Never Do | LinkedIn.
Best-selling business author and enterprise performance expert
Success comes in all shapes and colours. You can be successful in your job and career but you can equally be successful in your marriage, at sports or a hobby. Whatever success you are after there is one thing all radically successful people have in common: Their ferocious drive and hunger for success makes them never give up.
Successful people (or the people talking or writing about them) often paint a picture of the perfect ascent to success. In fact, some of the most successful people in business, entertainment and sport have failed. Many have failed numerous times but they have never given up. Successful people are able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and carry on trying.
I have collected some examples that should be an inspiration to anyone who aspires to be successful. They show that if you want to succeed you should expect failure along the way. I actually believe that failure can spur you on and make you try even harder. You could argue that every experience of failure increases the hunger for success. The truly successful won’t be beaten, they take responsibility for failure, learn from it and start all over from a stronger position.
Let’s look at some examples, including some of my fellow LinkedIn influencers:
Henry Ford – the pioneer of modern business entrepreneurs and the founder of the Ford Motor Company failed a number of times on his route to success. His first venture to build a motor car got dissolved a year and a half after it was started because the stockholders lost confidence in Henry Ford. Ford was able to gather enough capital to start again but a year later pressure from the financiers forced him out of the company again. Despite the fact that the entire motor industry had lost faith in him he managed to find another investor to start the Ford Motor Company – and the rest is history.
Walt Disney – one of the greatest business leaders who created the global Disney empire of film studios, theme parks and consumer products didn’t start off successful. Before the great success came a number of failures. Believe it or not, Walt was fired from an early job at the Kansas City Star Newspaper because he was not creative enough! In 1922 he started his first company called Laugh-O-Gram. The Kansas based business would produce cartoons and short advertising films. In 1923, the business went bankrupt. Walt didn’t give up, he packed up, went to Hollywood and started The Walt Disney Company.
Richard Branson – He is undoubtedly a successful entrepreneur with many successful ventures to his name including Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Music and Virgin Active. However, when he was 16 he dropped out of school to start a student magazine that didn’t do as well as he hoped. He then set up a mail-order record business which did so well that he opened his own record shop called Virgin. Along the way to success came many other failed ventures including Virgin Cola, Virgin Vodka, Virgin Clothes, Virgin Vie, Virgin cards, etc.
Oprah Winfrey – who ranks No 1 in the Forbes celebrity list and is recognised as the queen of entertainment based on an amazing career as iconic talk show host, media proprietor, actress and producer. In her earlier career she had numerous set-backs, which included getting fired from her job as a reporter because she was ‘unfit for television’, getting fired as co-anchor for the 6 O’clock weekday news on WJZ-TV and being demoted to morning TV.
J.K. Rowling – who wrote the Harry Potter books selling over 400 million copies and making it one of the most successful and lucrative book and film series ever. However, like so many writers she received endless rejections from publishers. Many rejected her manuscript outright for reasons like ‘it was far too long for a children’s book’ or because ‘children books never make any money’. J.K. Rowling’s story is even more inspiring because when she started she was a divorced single mum on welfare.
Bill Gates -co-founder and chairman of Microsoft dropped out of Harvard and set up a business called Traf-O-Data. The partnership between him, Paul Allen and Paul Gilbert was based on a good idea (to read data from roadway traffic counters and create automated reports on traffic flows) but a flawed business model that left the company with few customers. The company ran up losses between 1974 and 1980 before it was closed. However, Bill Gates and Paul Allen took what they learned and avoided those mistakes whey they created the Microsoft empire.
History is littered with many more similar examples:
- Milton Hershey failed in his first two attempts to set up a confectionary business.
- H.J. Heinz set up a company that produced horseradish, which went bankrupt shortly after.
- Steve Jobs got fired from Apple, the company he founded. Only to return a few years later to turn it into one of the most successful companies ever.
So, the one thing successful people never do is: Give up! I hope that this is inspiration and motivation for everyone who aspires to be successful in whatever way they chose. Do you agree or disagree with me? Are there other things you would add to the list of things successful people never do? Please share your thoughts…
Politics, much more important..
News and Comment from Roy Lilley
“Thirteen thousand people died needlessly at the 14 worst NHS Trusts”. It must be true the Telegraph headlined it on Sunday.
It’s wrong and based on a what I can only assume is a deliberate misunderstanding of HSMRs.
Hospital Standard Mortality Ratio calculations give us questions to ask. HSMRs are indicators of healthcare quality that measures whether the death rate at a hospital is higher or lower than expected.
The maths are simple; take into account a patient’s age, the severity of their illness and other factors, such as whether they live in a more or less deprived area, this forms the basis of working out how many patients we might expect to die at each hospital. This is then compared with the number who actually die. If the two numbers are the same, the hospital gets a score of 100. If the number of dead is ten per cent less than expected they get a score of 90. If it is ten per cent higher than expected, they score 110. They are published in quarterly data sets.
As this BMJ article points out; ‘The HSMR is complex but cheap and relatively easy to calculate from national or other benchmark data that allow calculation of patients’ predicted risks of death. However, there are a number of methodological challenges in their construction’. Not least the accuracy of coding. The arguments ebb and flow. The man who ‘invented’ HSMRs is Prof SirBrian Jarman. He says they are a sign-post, where we should look for poor quality care. He is usually right.
So, have 14 ‘failing Trusts’ killed 13,000 people since 2005? No. All the HSMRs tell us is 13,000 more people died than would have been predicted. But, 13,000 deaths in 14 Trust, over 8 years means a figure of about two a week. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying 2 is OK. Zero is the goal. What I am saying is this; how do we know if those two deaths were the result of poor medicine or poor care? Is the Telegraph headline misleading?
To find out we would have to commission a Clinical Record Review for every person who died in those 14 hospitals since 2005. A single CRR can take months and Bruce Keogh’s merry band has not had the time or resource to do 13,000.
The Telegraph report continues with a litany of Trust failings and foul-ups that I certainly don’t intend to defend.
The CQC is once again mired in questions about why and how they let it all happen. The truthful answer is Inspectorates don’t work and we’ll all be back again, next year, ‘astonished’ to hear another Trust has been responsible for death and mayhem. The CQC should be honest enough to say they can’t do what they’ve been asked to do, they can only count the dead. To pretend otherwise is a fraud on the public.
Bruce Keogh’s report is due out later in the week. I predict he will point out failings. Hospitals will say; ‘That was then, this is now, it’s all changed‘. LaLite will slag-off the ‘failing NHS’, someone will leave (and be rehired) and there will be suggestions of mergers and downgrading that the press, public and MPs will resist.
Why Keogh has allowed his report to ‘leak’ in this fashion beggars belief. What has he gained? Badly written headlines and misleading information for the public. Who benefits?
It’s obvious; LaLite has manipulated Keogh and grabbed the weekend press. Select Committee Tory member, David Morris hopped on the bandwaggon and said; “Andy Burnham and his predecessors missed far too many warnings about high hospital death rates. He should take a long hard look at his record and ask himself whether he is really fit for the role of shadow health secretary.“
Morris appears to be unaware of the Burnham enquiries into 5 of the hospitals included in the Keogh report which the Coalition did nothing about.
The upshot? Patients caught in the cross fire of a political battle. Their worries become the collateral damage. This morning people will be getting ready to go to these 14 hospitals for treatment. Most of them will have no choice, their Trust the only show in town. Are they anxious, reluctant, concerned? Who cares… headlines and politics are much more important.
Andy Burnham rejects Tory criticism over past NHS failings | Politics | guardian.co.uk.
Shadow health secretary ‘fed up’ with suggestions he was partly responsible for excess death rates at 14 trusts before 2010
Andy Burnham served as health secretary from 2009-2010.
Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, has said he will fight any Tory attempts to blame him for widespread failings in the NHS before 2010.
Speaking 48 hours before the release of a report that is expected to criticise “excess” death rates at 14 NHS trusts in England, Burnham said he was “fed up” with suggestions that he was partly responsible because of the decisions he took when he was health secretary.
He said conditions at the 14 hospitals had deteriorated since 2010 because of the coalition’s NHS reorganisation.
On Tuesday Sir Bruce Keogh, the NHS medical director, will publish a report on 14 trusts with unduly high death rates. The report was commissioned by David Cameron in February after Robert Francis’s damning inquiry into the unnecessary deaths of up to 1,200 patients in Stafford hospital.
It is expected to show that Stafford was not a one-off and that other hospitals have had comparable problems. The 14 hospital trusts covered by the Keogh report are: Basildon and Thurrock in Essex; United Lincolnshire; Blackpool; The Dudley Group, West Midlands; George Eliot, Warwickshire; Northern Lincolnshire and Goole; Tameside, Greater Manchester; Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire; Colchester, Essex; Medway, Kent; Burton, Staffordshire; North Cumbria; East Lancashire; and Buckinghamshire Healthcare.
Although Keogh investigated hospitals with excess mortality rates over the past two years, his report is expected to identify problems going back years, and there are signs that the Conservatives want to use it to attack Labour‘s record generally, and Burnham’s in particular.
David Morris, a Conservative member of the Commons health committee, told the Sunday Telegraph: “Andy Burnham and his predecessors missed far too many warnings about high hospital death rates. He should take a long hard look at this record and ask himself whether he is really fit for the role of shadow home secretary.”
In an interview on Sky on Sunday morning, Burnham, who was health secretary from 2009 to 2010, said: “To be honest, I’m fed up of these general accusations being hurled in my direction.
“I will account for all of the things that I did as secretary of state. I took actions to reveal what happened at Stafford, I took actions at Basildon, at Thameside. I left warnings in place on five hospitals.”
Burnham said his research had found that problems at the 14 hospitals covered by the Keogh report had got worse since 2010. “We had a reorganisation that completely distracted the whole NHS from these issues, and that is what I will bring to the attention of the House of Commons on Wednesday when I ask it to endorse early implementation of the Francis report,” he said.
Recently David Cameron singled out Burnham for attack at PMQs. There have also been reports that the Conservatives intend to keep applying pressure over his record in an attempt to dent Labour’s large lead as the party most trusted on the NHS.
In a reference to Cameron’s election strategist, Lynton Crosby, a Labour source said the anti-Burnham campaign was evidence of the “Crosbyisation of Tory politics”.
The source said the Tory strategy marked a shift from February when Cameron specifically said that Burnham was not to blame for what happened at Stafford hospital.
“Let us be clear about what this report does not say. Francis does not blame any specific policy, he does not blame the last secretary of state for health and he says that we should not seek scapegoats,” Cameron told the Commons in a statement on the Francis report.
Ed Miliband backs Fight For Mental Health campaign and vows to help change attitudes – Mirror Online.
The Labour leader pledged to help the increasing levels of youngsters with illnesses such a
s depression and bipolar disorder
Ed Miliband has today vowed to make mental health care a “top priority” for the next Labour government, insisting: “We need to change attitudes.”
Backing a Sunday Mirror campaign, the party leader pledged to help the increasing levels of youngsters with illnesses such as depression and bipolar disorder.
And he said he wanted to put an end to the shocking failures many patients experience.
Mr Miliband said: “It is concerning that 850,000 young people have a diagnosable mental health problem – three in every classroom.
“Yet three quarters of these get no treatment.
“The mental health challenge will be a top priority for Labour.
“The NHS Constitution should be amended to give people the right to therapies for mental health problems, just as they have a right to treatments for physical illnesses.
“But we must go further, including challenging attitudes.”
We launched our Fight For Mental Health campaign – backed by Rethink, Mind and MindFull – six weeks ago.
With boxer Frank Bruno behind it, the project aims to stop cuts to care.
We are also urging people to sign the Time to Change pledge online to battle stigma, and thousands already have.
Mr Miliband said: “The Sunday Mirror should be congratulated for its excellent campaign.”
Health Minister Norman Lamb has demanded a plan to improve treatment and a review of ambulance services for mental health emergencies.
Our aims…
To END discrimination.
To GIVE mentally ill people a voice.
To STOP the cuts to mental health services which are having a devastating effect.
To RESCUE young people from the hell of mental illness. Three pupils in every school class will be hit by a mental health disorder. We’re backing a new drive by MindFull to finally offer them support.
Birthplace of NHS to close A&E | Granada – ITV News.
The A&E unit at Trafford General hospital which is widely known as the birthplace of the NHS is to close.
Health bosses in the region said the way services are delivered in Trafford and Manchester needs to be fundamentally resigned.
The plans involve the removal of A&E services at Trafford General between midnight and 8am, and for the rest of the time the unit will be downgraded to an urgent care centre. It will eventually be downgraded to a minor injuries unit.
Emergency surgery will no longer be provided at the site and the intensive care unit will shut.
Local councillors also appealed to Mr Hunt to review the decision, saying they were concerned the plans were “principally financially motivated” and could put pressure on other hospital sites.
Mr Hunt referred the matter to the IRP, which concluded that the “clinical case for change is clear”, MPs heard.
Health bosses said the hospital has the second smallest A&E department in the country, with an average of six to 12 people using the service between midnight and 8am.
At its busiest hour on an average day the unit is only treating seven people.
The New Health Deal for Trafford, the consultation document outlining the changes, says most patients with life-threatening illnesses or injuries are taken directly to Salford Royal Hospital, Wythenshawe Hospital or Manchester Royal Infirmary.
It also says some services at the hospital are “not clinically sustainable” and could “become unsafe in the future”.
It says that a safe intensive care unit needs to treat a minimum of 200 patients each year, but Trafford General Hospital only admitted 93 patients for intensive care in 2010.
Last week celebrations were held at the hospital to mark the 65th anniversary of the NHS. Trafford General is known as the birthplace of the health service as it treated the first NHS patient in 1948.
The hospital was opened 65 years ago by the then health secretary Nye Bevan.
On it’s 65th birthday demonstrators gathered outside the hospital to protest the planned changes.
Matthew Finnegan, chair of the Save Trafford General campaign, said: “It is tearing the heart out of the hospital – the birthplace of the NHS – and that means that the hospital’s future is in real danger.
“It will mean that patients will have to travel further and wait longer for treatment.
“These decisions can’t just be made by clinicians – they have got to listen to what local people say. And people want an A&E, it’s not an unreasonable request.
“Local people will be appalled and disgusted that they have not been listened to.”
Earlier this week the hospital was featured as part of a look at 65 years of the NHS.
Hospitals braced for new report into deaths at NHS trusts – ITV News.
Hospitals are braced for tough criticism over thousands of needless deaths in a key report next week.
NHS medical director Prof Sir Bruce Keogh is set to detail failings at 14 trusts in England thought to have had ‘excess’ death rates going back years.
He is expected to describe poor care, medical errors and management blunders, suggesting that the Stafford hospital scandal was not a one-off.
Tories are likely to seize on the findings – due to be published on Tuesday – to attack Labour’s handling of the health service.
Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham was in charge of the NHS between June 2009 and May 2010.
David Cameron commissioned the report in February after Robert Francis QC’s inquiry into the Stafford scandal exposed appalling lapses in both care of patients and the regulation of hospitals.
11 Simple Concepts to Become a Better Leader | LinkedIn.
Being likeable will help you in your job, business, relationships, and life. I interviewed dozens of successful business leaders for my last book, to determine what made them so likeable and their companies so successful. All of the concepts are simple, and yet, perhaps in the name of revenues or the bottom line, we often lose sight of the simple things – things that not only make us human, but can actually help us become more successful. Below are the eleven most important principles to integrate to become a better leader:
1. Listening
“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” – Ernest Hemingway
Listening is the foundation of any good relationship. Great leaders listen to what their customers and prospects want and need, and they listen to the challenges those customers face. They listen to colleagues and are open to new ideas. They listen to shareholders, investors, and competitors. Here’s why the best CEO’s listen more.
2. Storytelling
“Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.” -Robert McAfee Brown
After listening, leaders need to tell great stories in order to sell their products, but more important, in order to sell their ideas. Storytelling is what captivates people and drives them to take action. Whether you’re telling a story to one prospect over lunch, a boardroom full of people, or thousands of people through an online video – storytelling wins customers.
3. Authenticity
“I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I’ve become. If I had, I’d have done it a lot earlier.” -Oprah Winfrey
Great leaders are who they say they are, and they have integrity beyond compare. Vulnerability and humility are hallmarks of the authentic leader and create a positive, attractive energy. Customers, employees, and media all want to help an authentic person to succeed. There used to be a divide between one’s public self and private self, but the social internet has blurred that line. Tomorrow’s leaders are transparent about who they are online, merging their personal and professional lives together.
4. Transparency
“As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth.” -John Whittier
There is nowhere to hide anymore, and businesspeople who attempt to keep secrets will eventually be exposed. Openness and honesty lead to happier staff and customers and colleagues. More important, transparency makes it a lot easier to sleep at night – unworried about what you said to whom, a happier leader is a more productive one.
5. Team Playing
“Individuals play the game, but teams beat the odds.” -SEAL Team Saying
No matter how small your organization, you interact with others every day. Letting others shine, encouraging innovative ideas, practicing humility, and following other rules for working in teams will help you become a more likeable leader. You’ll need a culture of success within your organization, one that includes out-of-the-box thinking.
6. Responsiveness
“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” -Charles Swindoll
The best leaders are responsive to their customers, staff, investors, and prospects. Every stakeholder today is a potential viral sparkplug, for better or for worse, and the winning leader is one who recognizes this and insists upon a culture of responsiveness. Whether the communication is email, voice mail, a note or a tweet, responding shows you care and gives your customers and colleagues a say, allowing them to make a positive impact on the organization.
7. Adaptability
“When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.” -Ben Franklin
There has never been a faster-changing marketplace than the one we live in today. Leaders must be flexible in managing changing opportunities and challenges and nimble enough to pivot at the right moment. Stubbornness is no longer desirable to most organizations. Instead, humility and the willingness to adapt mark a great leader.
8. Passion
“The only way to do great work is to love the work you do.” -Steve Jobs
Those who love what they do don’t have to work a day in their lives. People who are able to bring passion to their business have a remarkable advantage, as that passion is contagious to customers and colleagues alike. Finding and increasing your passion will absolutely affect your bottom line.
9. Surprise and Delight
“A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.” -Charles de Gaulle
Most people like surprises in their day-to-day lives. Likeable leaders underpromise and overdeliver, assuring that customers and staff are surprised in a positive way. There are a plethora of ways to surprise without spending extra money – a smile, We all like to be delighted — surprise and delight create incredible word-of-mouth marketing opportunities.
10. Simplicity
“Less isn’t more; just enough is more.” -Milton Glaser
The world is more complex than ever before, and yet what customers often respond to best is simplicity — in design, form, and function. Taking complex projects, challenges, and ideas and distilling them to their simplest components allows customers, staff, and other stakeholders to better understand and buy into your vision. We humans all crave simplicity, and so today’s leader must be focused and deliver simplicity.
11. Gratefulness
“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” -Gilbert Chesterton
Likeable leaders are ever grateful for the people who contribute to their opportunities and success. Being appreciative and saying thank you to mentors, customers, colleagues, and other stakeholders keeps leaders humble, appreciated, and well received. It also makes you feel great! Donor’s Choose studied the value of a hand-written thank-you note, and actually found donors were 38% more likely to give a 2nd time if they got a hand-written note!
The Golden Rule: Above all else, treat others as you’d like to be treated
By showing others the same courtesy you expect from them, you will gain more respect from coworkers, customers, and business partners. Holding others in high regard demonstrates your company’s likeability and motivates others to work with you. This seems so simple, as do so many of these principles — and yet many people, too concerned with making money or getting by, fail to truly adopt these key concepts.
Which of these principles are most important to you — what makes you likeable?
News and Comment from Roy Lilley
Tomorrow is the birthday of the NHS. It will be 65. The Nuffs have asked me to write for their NHS@65 web-page; there are some fabulous contributions. This is mine, be sure to read the others.
-oOo-
I was born before the NHS. My Dad was a window cleaner and Mum a shop worker. He saved the equivalent of 3 week’s wages to have a ‘midwife’ come and help his young wife through 12 hours of labour. No gas, no air and no prospect of going to hospital. Her first born died and she nearly bled to death. A woman at risk but determined to start a family.
When the 1948 NHS Act came along it lifted, from the shoulders of working people, the anxiety of sickness, injury and accident. It was an heroic piece of politics, built on belief and vision.
Today, that young wife is a frail widow being cared for, in her own home, by a hospital in-reach team. Her husband died years ago but his life was extended by an aortic valve replacement. At the time it was innovative, new and must have cost thousands.
I started life without the NHS and I expect to meet my end without it. Today’s politicians are driven by balance sheets, not beliefs. There are no visions or convictions, just focus-groups and practicalities. The eagerness to get the costs and liabilities of the NHS off the nation’s books will become more urgent. The damage to the economy has hobbled the NHS and the grim economic prospects with cripple it. The NHS is running up the down escalator of time, costs, and demand.
Can we learn or legislate to make fat people thin? Can we find a way to help old people remember who they are? Can we turn the feral into families? Probably yes; but we don’t have the time or the money or the know-how.
Yes, the NHS has to be efficient and safe and clean but it has to be central to a political desire to promote, encourage and endorse social medicine and its values. I judge it is not. If we want an NHS we have to pay for it. No politicians have the courage to ask for the money.
We can fiddle with technology, jiggle with data and lean care-pathways but the truth is; the NHS is about smart people with a strong sense of vocation. There is no shortage of them but the places that can employ them will become scarce.
In ten years we will be well on our way to 20 giant hospitals, vertically integrated with privately run health and care shops in the high street. Basic services will be available, top-ups common and a major source of NHS income.
Nurses will provide their own uniforms, patients will buy their pills on-line and in-patients pay for their meals. As maternity is a condition and not an illness, mums will pay for their deliveries – just like my Dad did when I was born.
My message comes from the past, delivered in the present but meant for the future. ‘We tried, we did our best but they wouldn’t listen. Not enough of us saw it coming and too few noticed it going. I’m sorry‘.
What's Dave Tomlinson up to now? 