Stories About Hospitals
Sometimes experience matters. There was a patient. She "didn't feel too good (Gawande, 1)." The medical student assigned to her had done his best. The nurses were watching. All seemed well. The resident wasn't buying it. His experience told him that that patient warranted close following, more than the medical student was providing, so he took it upon himself to continue to follow up. This time, the patient was lucky. The resident found a problem on one of his frequent, unscheduled, visits and made sure things were put right. A good result for the patient. A good result for the medical student. A good result for the resident.
Even without the resident's close attention, basically, the patient got the best care in one of the best hospitals. However, without the resident's willingness to admit that he didn't feel good about what was going on, the patient would have probably had a wholly different outcome. His experience - call it gut reaction, if you will - made all the difference.
So, strategically, what's the difference? Lots. We might say, "Trust your instincts and act," and we'd be partly correct. There's more. Follow-up takes work. Showing up and asking questions repeatly is a part of success. Training the staff - the team - that doing things by book might not be enough seems obvious. Sparking their interest in following-up is part of your job. Not easy, I know. However, relying on "following the book" isn't enough. So, it takes two things to succeed, at least in this instance. Do things by the book, yes. But, at the same time, you've got to focus on the patient and the book. Keep looking when things don't feel right. Showing up isn't enough. Show up engaged works better. The trick here isn't easy, however. You've got to figure out how not only how to motivate yourself to show up engaged. You've got to do the same thing with your team.
References
Gawande, Atul. Better. A Surgeon's Notes on Performance. Picador. 2007.