Leaders: Don't Confuse Communication with Engagement.

Here at Pulsara, our entire focus is on communication. When things break down in healthcare, the root cause is almost always a breakdown in communication. This communication breakdown is what drove our clinician founders to invent a solution so that our patients don't have to suffer for our mistakes. We believe that there is a communication crisis in healthcare that's costing hundreds of thousands of lives every year.

But communication alone cannot make teams fully effective -- no matter the advances in technology  -- if those teams are lacking engagement. From being in the field helping struggling teams, we've found that many confuse communication and engagement, and they are not the same. Whereas communication is defined as the imparting or exchanging of information or news, engagement is emotional involvement or commitment to a cause.

We live in a world where it seems like change happens every minute of every day. When the world is changing right before our very eyes, we need something more than communication. We need to engage the hearts, minds, and souls of those we lead. Why? Because engagement is that key ingredient needed to make any change effort successful. And if we can't change with the times, we cannot hope to be successful. 

If we are talking about improving patient care, communication is essential -- that's why Pulsara is in business, after all. But we have to go back a step further before we even start to fix our communication problem. When we are trying to help clinicians see the need for a better process in the first place, we need engagement. Sending an email will not get the job done. Making an announcement in a staff meeting will prove to be woefully inadequate. If you want to engage the people you lead, you can't talk at them to give them the answers. Sometimes as leaders trying to drive change, we need to provide our teams with the right questions and then let them chew on it. 

When something as ingrained as your processes or best practices needs to change, leaders have to search much deeper than communication. Your "why" will drive you, but it will not drive others. As a leader, you must help others discover what motivates them.

Pulsara will fix your communication breakdown when the stakes are high and time is of the essence. But communication will never convince your teams of the need for Pulsara. That's where leaders come in -- help your teams find that "why" that speaks to them before you try to tell them why they should buy in. You'll be amazed at how invested your team becomes in finding a better way for your patients.