Focus on the Results, Not the Qualifications

I’ve spent over 20 years in the manufacturing industry. What matters most in manufacturing is results.

Shipping product.

Reducing scrap.

Improving the process.

All those metrics cause the main outcome we want - improving margins.

Manufacturing companies that succeed work on these metrics on a daily, if not hourly basis. They require results. The customer wants a product. The manufacturing company delivers it. The product must satisfy the customer’s need. Or the customer returns it. For a refund.

Bye bye bottom line.

When I transitioned to healthcare with my assisted living homes, I saw far fewer people focusing on results.

Instead they often focus on qualifications.

If a doctor says to do it, you do it.

When you go back to the doctor and tell them what they said didn’t work, their answer?

“Try this instead”. Or “Hmmm”. Ever ask for a refund from a doctor or hospital?

Good luck.

Most of the time when you bring a car into a mechanic, they fix the problem. They can diagnose the issue and then fix it with a new radiator or brakes.  They wouldn’t send you home with a “Try this instead”. You would be upset they didn’t fix it the first time.

Granted the human body is a whole lot more complex than a chunk of aluminum you might machine in a manufacturing plant. Or even an internal-combustion engine in an automobile.

It’s that complexity of the human body that is the reason we don’t have all the cures yet for chronic disease. And many bodies are different. Pretty much all Toyota Camry’s rolling off the assembly line are exactly the same.

Yet there’s this arrogance in medicine that if you don’t have the right training or educational degree you can’t question anything.

Like this video. The condescension is unbelievable.

They don’t brag about their results. They brag about how they know the names of different parts of the body, or how many bones are in it.

They don’t tell you that they have cured anything. Sent patients home completely healthy.

Because they haven’t. Sure there are lines in it that say they opened up a chest and kept a heart beating. What was the outcome of that? Did the patient survive? Longer than 6 more months?

They said they’ve saved lives. That is a relative term. My performance reports during my time in the Air Force would say that I saved the lives of my crew members because I successfully landed a plane with an engine shutdown.

Shutting down an engine for a problem is part of being a good pilot. Military planes have all kinds of issues. I never thought of myself as a lifesaver for doing what I was trained to do.

Cars are improving. Technology is improving. Yet health outcomes are worse. Chronic disease is increasing. Costs are skyrocketing.

Having a degree is nice. But it doesn’t always correlate with performance. Look at the academic world. There are all kinds of people with PhD’s employed by universities that spend most of their time applying for grant money.

What I’m trying to say is that I am pretty shocked at the arrogance of the medical world sometimes. There are some amazing people in this industry. I just wish we would focus more on results, rather than be judged on whether we followed a procedure regardless of the results. Or how many degrees we can rack up.

When we can make those results happen. When chronic disease is decreasing. When you do what your doctor tells you and it clears up your problem.

Then. Then maybe we can be a little arrogant. Until then, let’s stay humble.