“It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.”
There is a tension in leadership between attending to the person and to the operation of “the machine.” Automation is a system of operating a process by highly automatic means that reduces human intervention to a minimum. Complex systems like healthcare require the efficiency and lack of variation of automation in order to insure the highest predictability and the best outcomes. Unfortunately, the most important cogs in the machine and the most critical consideration in the outcomes of any business are people.
Alterity is a philosophical term that means “otherness” (from the “other of two,” in Latin “alter”). The word implies the ability to distinguish between self and not-self, and consequently to assume the existence of an alternative viewpoint on a given subject. Leaders demonstrate alterity when they are willing to look beyond the “machinery” of their organization and consider its individual members with empathy.
People are the least predictable part of the machinery of production and the most variable part of the product. They have bad days, bad weeks, bad moods, bad weekends that spill into bad Mondays and so they hurt, are distracted, are grumpy at the very times when we need them to be focused, selfless, responsive and loyal. Employees want the efficiency of the machine when it comes to the processing of their pay, leave and vacation requests. Customers want service efficiency. But both groups resent being treated like they are cogs in a machine when they are hurting, frustrated, angry and need to be heard. Continue reading