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The Trap
Let's Do More
Better Is Better
How can we make our business better? Maybe the best answer to that question is to not look for something else to do but to do a better job on what you're already doing. We get so caught up in the idea that more is better that we lose sight of the absolute truth that, no, actually better is better. Looking for more extras to add and cherries to put on top can actually be counterproductive. Stay focused.
Lost in Trying to Be the Best
Michael Heard is a former minister, therapist, and stand-up comedian. More to the point, Heard is one of the best business thinkers I know. He is a principal of 3 Big Questions, a consultancy that “helps organizations triage, stabilize, and prioritize action plans through facilitation and conflict resolution services.”
Heard told me a story of one of his clients who fell into the trap of looking beyond what mattered the most in their well-intentioned efforts to do more. I asked him to share that story:
Being the best at what matters most is sometimes lost in the effort to simply be the best. Case in point. A hospital I was working with had achieved phenomenal success in improving their patient satisfaction in a rather rapid period of time. Over a period of three years, they had improved their patient satisfaction scores from the low 40 percent mark to the middle 90 percent range, placing them not only in the top quartile but in the top 10 percent of high scores in the country.
They worked hard to achieve this ...
