What Hospital Care Teams Can Learn From NFL Receivers

We live in a world of constant stimulation, of more is more, and, as a result, of multitasking. Most of us think we’re pretty good at multitasking, and greatly overestimate our proficiency at doing two or more tasks at once. I think I’m better at multitasking than most, but I guarantee that if my wife reads this she will bust a gut laughing … I can’t even listen to her with the TV on. I’m not alone here, am I?

As we’ve shown in earlier posts, multitasking simply doesn’t work! A recent Harvard Business Review post said multitasking leads to as much as a 40% drop in productivity, increased stress, and a 10% drop in IQ. I don’t know about you, but I need all of my IQ to be a benefit to anybody.

We practice team multitasking in the hospital too. We try to fix everything all at one time and it’s highly unproductive. We make 4 changes to our process and then we see that we have improvement. This leaves us doing 3 things that don’t help at all because we have no clue what it was that really made the difference, but we’re now too afraid to stop doing any of the other likely useless protocol changes.

Super Bowl 50 was everything we hoped it would be, especially if you are a Broncos fan. Denver’s defense is the best in the country and boy are they fast. Did you notice how many dropped passes the Carolina’s offense had? It’s been said that there are only two reasons a professional NFL receiver will drop a pass: either they tried to run with the ball before they completed the catch, or they heard the sound of the defense coming and they took their eyes off the ball, anticipating the hit from the defender. BUT, when they focus on catching the ball and that alone, they make the catch ... they are that good at what they do.

What would it look like for your team to focus only on the ball? What is the tendency of your team? Are you so focused on where you want to go that you execute poorly? Are you so concerned with what other hospitals are doing that you take your eye off the ball and miss the pass completely?

Focus is a very powerful force that can change the way your team works. When you combine focus with grit, over time you produce a momentum that is very difficult to slow. At Pulsara, one of our core values is grit. Grit is synonymous with courage, backbone, fortitude, toughness, tenacity, perseverance or endurance.

As the leader of your team, you have to help them focus. At Pulsara our focus, or our football, is to improve the lives of patients and caregivers through innovative communication. What is your focus? Whatever it is, don’t let any other team make you take your eyes off of it.