HOW WELL DOES MANAGEMENT LISTEN?

Communication, as ever, plays a vital role in healthcare management today. One example of its importance was aired on the BBC recently (8-10 Jan). They featured a series of programmes charting the progress (?) of a certain business guru, Sir Gerry Robinson, who believed that any organisation can be made to run well, including the NHS. This was somewhat reminiscent, for those of us old enough to remember, of a certain Sir John Harvey-Jones saying similar things back in the early 90's.

The programmes captured Gerry's visits to Rotherham General Hospital, the purpose of which was to find ways to reduce waiting times over a six month period. Each of these programmes seemed to enforce the same underlying message – a distinct lack of communication (and subsequent action) between management and staff within the hospital. Many of the scenes showed him getting people together and talking to each other about the problems and how they wanted to see them resolved.

What struck me what not only the simplicity of what he was trying to do, but the fact that getting people to talk to each other is only part of the solution. What was also clearly needed was some way to help those talking to each other to really listen as well as hear what was being said.

All of this is great of course if you can hear, but what about those who can’t? What is illuminating is that it is often the case that people who are deaf or hard of hearing, listen better than those of us who have so-called 'good' hearing.

So perhaps some refections?

• If you don't want to know the answer, then don't ask the question
• If you ask the question, then have the good grace to really 'listen' to the answer
• Once you have listened - TAKE ACTION AND CHANGE SOMETHING!

The programme, produced with the OU raised a lot of other key managerial issues affecting healthcare managers today - why not read about others' views on the programme and maybe even have your say and post a comment on the OU discussion forum