Improving Healthcare Team Performance: The 7 Requirements for Excellence in Patient Care

"Great leadership starts with deep personal reflection. This new addition to leadership library will help create the conditions for sustainable change and transformation. It blends theory with practical how–to tools." — Hugh MacLeod , CEO, Canadian Patient Safety Institute Improving Healthcare Team Performance is a practical handbook that provides the knowledge, tools, and techniques required to develop a team–based culture within a healthcare environment that will result in exceptional patient care. Most importantly, the authors emphasize that effective teamwork goes far beyond team dynamics—and provide strategies for fulfilling each of the 7 Requirements that differentiate high–performance healthcare teams from the rest. As healthcare leaders strive to ensure patient safety and a high quality of patient care amid the challenges of shrinking resources, less–than–optimally–functioning teams, and low staff morale, this book recognizes those challenges and offers actionable steps to improve performance by Depicting clearly what constitutes a high performing, patient–focused team Offering targeted solutions, including team development exercises complete with facilitator’s guides and handouts, tips and recommendations, and a step–by–step approach for effecting necessary change at every level of the organizations Providing a set of online development tools to help the reader quickly and easily apply the knowledge gained Designed for leaders working in healthcare environment, Improving Healthcare Team Performance not only provides specifics on how to develop high–functioning teams, but also offers guidance on common healthcare challenges along with the tools to create needed change.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix FOREWORD BY DR. KEN MILNE xi INTRODUCTION 1 PART I: THE 7 ELEMENTS OF A HIGH PERFORMANCE HEALTHCARE TEAM 11 CHAPTER 1: When Groups Become Teams 13 CHAPTER 2: Healthy Climate: A Cornerstone of the Staff and Patient Experience 19 CHAPTER 3: Cohesiveness: Achieving the Common Goal of Exceptional Patient Care 41 CHAPTER 4: Open Communication: The Heart of Quality Patient Care 59 CHAPTER 5: Change Compatibility: From Rigidity to Flexibility 75 CHAPTER 6: Team Members’ Contribution: The Sum of the Parts 87 CHAPTER 7: Shared Leadership: The Path to Empowered Team Members 95 CHAPTER 8: Shared Learning: Propelling the Team Forward 103 PART II: MAKING IT HAPPEN: ACHIEVING IMPROVED TEAM PERFORMANCE 117 CHAPTER 9: The Team Development Process 119 CHAPTER 10: The Leadership Balancing Act 137 CHAPTER 11: Facilitation: The Skill that Determines the Success of the Process 151 CHAPTER 12: The Leader as Coach 173 PART III: THE TOOLS TO MAKE IT HAPPEN 187 CHAPTER 13: Team Development Exercises 189 ENDNOTES 259 BIBLIOGRAPHY 263 ABOUT THE AUTHORS 265 INDEX 267

About The Authors: Leslie Bendaly is recognized as a forward thinker and practitioner in the areas of leadership, teamwork and organizational change. She is the founder of Kinect Inc. and author of several books on leadership including Strength in Numbers , Winner Instinct and Leadership on the Run . Her models, tools, and publications are used in organizations worldwide and her books have been selected as mandatory reading for MBA and other postgraduate programs in both the USA and Canada. Nicole Bendaly is president of Kinect, Inc. and has developed a reputation as an acute observer and interpreter of organizational behaviour in healthcare. She applies her knowledge and experience to the design and implementation of learning solutions and assessment tools that support the development of patient–focused cultural change and improved leadership and team performance. A number of these are used in over 200 healthcare organizations across North America.