Quote from John Freeman on December 1, 2023, 11:51 pm

Hello TPM community,

a nice one from today.

There are two cases that we reviewed with the specialist. Now there is work to do based on his feed-back:

1. Change the report and resend it to their GP/pediatrician
2. Call the parents to tell them about the change
3. Plan a date for them with the nurse to come at the emergency
4. Order an X-ray for each patients
5. Welcome and evaluate the patients after they had the X-ray

I said to the team after the meeting: "I'm taking care of it" (see below when works shows up). So I sent an email to the team after the review along with the summary of the meeting and his presentation (2 things I did not have to do and that nobody did before me). I sent the email. And I specify in my email:

"For these two patients: I'm taking care of modifying the case and to write the report". In lingo speak, it means I'm taking care of 1-4.

I do all that. 1 patient comes and everything goes to plan: I call the resident and let them know what this patient is about.

2nd patient got the X-ray but left without step 5 (which is the residents job).

After the fail, the next day my colleague goes to the emergency and tells them that there were several fuck-ups the past week due to communication issues (not going into details). And that this 2nd patient slipping through the cracks is an example.

What do they say?

Three of them:"John said he was going to do it".

Slimy bastards. So basically, I'm supposed to do your work as well?

I laughed and said to my colleague: "That's the best joke of the day, I had not laughed today, this one is good. I did not say that at all".

And he said: "they said you wrote it in the email".

So basically they interpreted in the sense that I was going to do all the work.

His conclusion: "they understood what they wanted to understand."

I say: "yep, exactly."

So this is what I'm learning about people management/leadership: you see their dark side. You teach them, you help them and they shit on you. Yep, that's the kind of people I'm working with. I mean (most of) the residents.

It's one of their national sports: to push work on the other person/to shift blame.

He said when he pointed 3 other problematic situations to them, they all started to point fingers at one another. No team spirit at all.

So basically, I have a lot of work in terms of leadership, beyond this power move. This post is more about how people can shift blame/push work onto others because it's more comfortable for them. It's also about not being used for subordinates to push work on you.

In our team when some work comes up, everyone freezes. They wait and clench their butt cheeks hoping they won't get the work that just showed up: "Oh shit, there's work. Maybe if I stay silent, I won't get the work attributed to me". So no winner mentality here unfortunately.

Alternative I could have attributed the work to someone. But they fucked up so much lately than... Aaah. Light bulb: I have to attribute it to the most motivated/competent person. I know who this is. Alright so I could have attributed to this guy but still: too many fuckups these days. So I actually had to do 1-4 otherwise they would have not managed it.

Off-topic

In terms of leadership what I have to do to bring this team together is:

1. To explicit values
2. Have a vision for the team (our leadership does not have one)
3. Pull people together

I see their average performance as a reflection of my leadership, I have to improve it. I now understand why Jocko Willink talks about extreme ownership. If you don't own the fuckups of your team how can you improve? So when you're a leader you must own your fuck-ups and their fuck-ups. I don't mean apologising to parents for mistakes that we did. This is the easiest part. I mean actually fixing it.

/Off-topic

PS: if some of it is too lingo or unclear, please let me know.