Month: July 2014

Scary number of hospital workers not taking basic precautions against spread of infection

How would you feel if you knew your doctor hadn’t washed their hands after seeing the patient before you? Well, according a recent Yahoo News article, if you’ve had a hospital stay in the United States, there’s a good chance it’s happened.

Although washing hands is one of the single-most effective ways to prevent the spread of dangerous infections—ranging from pneumonia to MRSA, a life-threatening staph infection—in U.S. hospitals, hospital workers wash their hands only about 40 to 50 percent of the time, often because it’s inconvenient or they are overwhelmed by other tasks.

With approximately 75,000 patients dying every year due to infections actually picked up in the hospital this is a clear crisis, so why isn’t it being addressed adequately?

Every field has its own predictable, preventable crises, but they won’t be stopped without effort. Look around yourself, do the research, and really think, “what problems are we facing, and what are we likely to encounter?” Find your answers now, or find yourself on the back foot when it comes to managing a damaging crisis.

Series of potentially deadly failures raises major questions

Over the past couple of years we’ve frequently mentioned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as paving the way for government agencies when it comes to effective crisis communications. The agency has set a fantastic example, making use of information sharing and the latest technologies to keep the public informed regarding dangerous situations.

Unfortunately, the CDC dropped the ball big time in late June when internal failures led to more than 80 lab workers being exposed to live anthrax. Yes, you read that right – live anthrax. That’s not all, though. Investigators also discovered an unreported incident that saw a high-security CDC lab accidentally send samples containing a dangerous strain of bird flu to researchers as the U.S. Department of Agriculture in March. Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, this month saw the discovery of six vials of smallpox in an unsecured room at the National Institute of Health, including two containing live strains of the deadly virus.

The CDC has stated that “multiple failures by individual scientists and a lack of agency-wide safety policies” led to the worrisome slip-ups, but there are signs of a deeper issue as well. According to CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden, the bird flu incident was not reported to agency leadership at all. With questions being raised by the legislators and the public alike about the CDC’s ability to ensure the safety of its operations, Frieden is on the hot seat. He did show some serious crisis communications chops with his statement on the situation, which opened with one of the best mea culpas we’ve ever seen:

“We need to look at our culture of safety throughout all of our laboratories, I’m upset, I’m angry. I’ve lost sleep over it and I’m doing everything I can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

That is how you show people you care. Reading that one sentence, you know that Frieden sees how big of a problem these mistakes are, and that he means business when it comes to setting his organization straight. He’ll have to back it up with action, and soon, in order to avoid taking more damage, but it’s an excellent start.

Every organization will encounter crises, whether avoidable or not. The important thing is to step up, admit there’s an issue, and then take care of it, communicating like a human being the whole way through.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international crisis management consultancy, author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

Every year for the last five years I have written a Wishlist of Books for Nonprofit Folk at my blog – Marion Conway – Nonprofit Consultant. This is a curated list with recommendations made by thought leaders covering a wide range of topics including governance, finance, social media, board development, marketing,mergers and more. I also am maintaining a Pinterest Board with this title. For the last two yers I have also featured a giveaway book compliments of the author. Well, both of these resources have become very popular and are viewed many times all year long.

The summer is the perfect time to step back, think a bit, learn new things and plan for us “nonprofit folk. And so here are some ideas for summer reading from the Wishlist:

Measuring the Networked Nonprofit: Using Data to Change the World

I personally recommend Amy’s book –
it is both inspirational and practical. Amy and Allyson advocate integrating multiple
channels into your communications strategy and they use lots of excellent
examples and case studies. Social Change
Anytime Everywhere was a Terry McAdam Book Award finalist – recognized as one of the best
nonprofit books of the year. See all I
had to say at this blog post: Social Change Anytime Everywhere – Think MultichannelStrategy


Heather Carpenter, PhD, Assistant
Professor, Grand Valley State University recommendations:

Heather is a young PhD already with a wealth of practical,
academic and research experience in the nonprofit field. Heather is using these books as texts in her
courses this term and this is what she had to say about them: “These books are practical and provide
concrete help for successfully running a nonprofit… the research I’ve done
shows that nonprofit managers still need the core financial management and
fundraising skills to effectively run their organizations.” Hey, Heather,
I completely agree and this is an excellent set of current books which
address both basic and more advanced skills for nonprofit leaders.

Nonprofit Management 101: A Complete and Practical Guide for Leaders and Professionals

by Darian Rodriguez Heyman

Nonprofit Sustainability: Making Strategic Decisions for Financial Viability by
Jeanne Bell,
Jan Masaoka and Steve Zimmerman

Fundraising for Social Change by Kim Klein

Budgeting and Financial Management for Nonprofit Organizations by Lynne A. Weikart and Greg G. Chen

Content Marketing for Nonprofits: A Communications Map for Engaging Your Community, Becoming a Favorite Cause, and Raising More Money (The Jossey-Bass Nonprofit Guidebook Series)by Kivi Leroux Miller

Another important fundamental for nonprofits is marketing and no one knows more about nonprofit marketing than Kivi Leroux Miller. Amy Sample Ward called this booksimply “Great.” And that’s the word from the reviews at Amazon. This is a must have for nonprofit marketing. Update since the wishlist was written: This is a terry McAdam Award nominee for this year.

You and Your Nonprofit Board: Advice and Practical Tips from the Field’s Top Practitioners, Researchers, and Provocateurs edited by Terrie Temkin

I was so proud to be a contributor to this book. Terrie Temkin and Debra Beck offered these comments:

“This anthology is comprised of 38 strong, knowledgeable voices from around the world – each taking a different approach to deal with some critical aspect of governance. The reviews have been stellar. One reason is that the book speaks to governance as it exists today, not last year or even yesterday.” Debra says of Terrie: “She picked the brains of some of the great governance writers and practitioners, offering from-the-field wisdom about what it takes to support and inspire nonprofit boards to perform to their highest potential (and their greatest aspirations). Advice is highly practical as well, and infinitely do-able. “ See my post for more on this volume:

You and Your Nonprofit Board – Just Published

The Practitioner’s Guide to Governance as Leadership: Building High-Performing Nonprofit Boards by Cathy Trower

Nonprofit Governance: Innovative Perspectives and Approaches (Routledge Contemporary Corporate Governance) edited by Chris Cornforth and William A. Brown

Debra is a contributor to this volume and she describes it as, “articulate, inpractitioner-friendly ways, the best and latest research that has the potentialto impact board practice. Each chapter explores a different study and a different aspect of what actually happens in nonprofit boardrooms. It offers insights into some of the more pressing “how” and “why” questions and research that attempts to address them.”

See the whole list at 2013 Wishlist of Books for Nonprofit Folk.

Marion

Most of us “technology-minded” people think we are connected to the world, but we aren’t. Not really. Not in what matters. Now, that’s the real question. What matters?

Little things like humanity, a caring, giving society, right? Isn’t that what we hope for? Then, the stark reality sets in. Humanity be damned and survival of the fittest begins yet again.

In today’s economy, it’s not unusual that my students are generally older and already working… They are not always at the jobs they envisioned or credible at the level in which they wish to be perceived. My students seek jobs in IT, business management and medical records and technical support. Practical jobs. There’s the problem. Humanity is all around us, not just at work.

I hope what I said to my students via email resonates with everyone, especially trainers who may have to do the same job, will find the approach useful. It was one of the those moments when I felt I was on a roll and that my message might be useful to others. So, here goes:

Please don’t take this as a scolding. It’s more of a philosophical discussion to help you understand why we approach things as we are doing.

You are a great class. I love your enthusiasm however misdirected. Sometimes it gets off point and it seems we waste time, but we aren’t. We talked about me a lot last class. We need to talk about you. Personally, I don’t mind; I’m an open book. That’s just who I am. Because I have a lot of experiences I share them with you, and I apologize if you don’t think they are always on point. I try. Give me some credit; many of you are otherwise engaged and not listening (hearing doesn’t count, remember) to me. Your persuasive speech is about you. What you think, how you put relevant facts together and communicate your idea to us.

This is all for you. I am fully engaged in helping you improve on what I think is one of the most important aspects of work and life. People who communicate well generally do better than those who don’t. Not all us have the luck or the heritage or money or even guidance to have had the early breaks to success. Now’s time to make up for it. The world has so much to offer that to exclude anything because you don’t know much about it just seems wrong.

The group evaluations were particularly telling about you as a class. You support each other. You care that everyone gets a good grade. You even make excuses for those not there. None of this is bad, but there are times to see yourself as part of a group, and times when you are an individual. There are times to step back and look at what it really takes to do a job as an individual with a past life of experiences. That will make you a compelling communicator.

If you work hard and take advantage of what is offered, you can’t fail. On its appearance, most people assume this is an uncomplicated subject and easy class. Wait ’til these people come in to take it.

You know how complicated and intricately woven communication is. I try to make it basic because it is basic–perhaps so basic as to be overlooked and taken for granted. People just say “I can’t do that,” or “That’s not my skill set,” or “I don’t do Sushi.” What happened to, “I’ll try it,” “I’m game,” or “Gee, that’s interesting, tell me more?” Do you understand the subtlety here? One group is passive and the other active. It’s not introvert and extrovert; it doesn’t matter. It’s how you approach whatever it is you want to do.

You should know by now that I don’t break down into little pieces what we do and “spoon feed” them to you; still, I simplify the process as much as I can. I don’t want someone to answer specific questions because there are no specific answers, and so there is very often no wrong answer. This is one of those subjects. (Think softer skills training.)

Why do I do I not “spoon feed” you the answers? It’s simple. I want the ideas and processes to ingrained in you forever, not forgotten after the tests. It doesn’t matter if you know what something is called specifically–only if it works and you do it. It becomes a part of you. Then, you have learned it.

We learn what works well when it comes to work. To be successful at anything as you should already know, we need to do more than the expected to be noticed in the workplace. Sometimes having a novel idea will rocket us to the top, but not that many of us do that. I could give you tiny details like someone telling you exactly point-by-point how to do your job, but I don’t.

You can see that in the speech evaluation sheets you get back from me. You can see I look at areas and how hard you tried to accomplish the general task. I give you general guidelines for a specific product and leave a door wide open for you to discuss if you have an issue or a problem. I try to make common sense out of what we are talking about and relevant to you because, after all, there no hard and fast answers.

Enough of the motivational speech (I wrote this here and now–not previously). I really want you to see that giving you examples and being human like you is to make you a human presenter. If you only fill in the blanks and get them right, you lose in the end.

You may have thought this isn’t a class for everyone (at least in everyone’s mind), but it really is. Not so much “philosophy” next email. I have some helpful additional sources and precautions I need to share relevant to the next two speeches.

That’s right. This is coming at the end of the class. It has taken this long to pull many students into the discussion, into the idea that communication is as important as the details.

Hopefully, they see for themselves now the very idea that humanity is losing touch unless we start communicating personally as well. Our current lack of communication skills has been extrapolated and commented on in many recent films and novels, all of which are usually very dark, where people are dull-witted, despairing and fearful of the future. In dystopias–not utopias. We know our society is on a wrong path, and we ask the question: how are we going to survive? If we aren’t, we should be.

Are we falling into Internet Space? No, but we’re holding on to the proverbial edge of reality.

By the way, this is not all I do. I believe in connections. Information and communication is applicable in training and development as well as education. If you are interested in my approach here or in other offerings on the site, you might also be interested in my book, The Caveman Guide to Training and Development. “Cave” and “Man” can be separate on purpose, I think. And more meaningful.

The “cave” is simply where we train. I promise there will be a II and III based on my articles here. If you like what you see here, I have a blog site, Shaw’s Reality, where I look at the world’s reality from a variety of perspectives. I have also published a young adult science fiction dystopian novel, In Makr’s Shadow.

By all means though, check out The Free Management Library’s complete training section.