Concentration

Develop the skill of observation by testing yourself each day. Practice the following skills: focusing, noticing, and remembering. Find someone around you, inspect a photo, or listen to an overheard conversation. Focus on details that stand out for some reason or another, and then notice why the details are interesting or strange. Take your time with each section of this activity to ensure you do not stop observing too soon. When you are training your brain to observe, speed is not a factor. You are more likely to make a good observation and remember as you concentrate more thoroughly on the object of your examination.

The power of observation is used by employees to develop effective relationships with their co-workers. You are likely to emulate others in the same position in the work environment to find the appropriate level of assertiveness, humor, and familiarity with others in the work environment. Choose a person in your work environment that you respect. Observe their qualities and how they deal with different patients and professional situations. Watching others who are successful is a key step toward developing your own critical thinking.

In Focus

Are you focus-challenged? Even if you think you are not, the hectic pace of health care and the urgency of certain medical situations may confound your ability to narrow your attention. Learning to focus on the matter at hand requires good observational, concentration, and communication skills. You may have to become skilled at silent signals to keep others from interrupting your concentration. Try avoiding eye contact with others outside of your focus until you have completed the task at hand. Avoid interrupting others, and observe how other successful co-workers keep their focus. After an issue has been identified and the key features noted, your focus may then be diverted. Thus, your focus of attention can zoom in, and zoom out, depending on where you need to place your attention at any given moment.

Maintaining Objectivity

Education and reading are the best tools to open up your mind to possibilities beyond those you have already encountered in your own life. Learning about many different scenarios in school may have helped to broaden the way you think. How do you use this broader thinking to keep your main objective in mind? First, grasp onto facts, rather than subjective impressions. Don’t allow personal bias to make decisions before all the facts are known. Practice removing your automated mental shortcut shoes at the door and let your mind be free of stereotyping and preconceived ideas at work. If you are “barefoot” in your thinking, you will watch where you step and become more selective before reaching a conclusion.

Inference

Inference, which improves over time, is the ability to draw on past experiences to guide you through current issues and situations. In contrast with biased thinking, inference draws on successful resolutions to past problems and does not narrow to only one incident. It may combine many past events to help solve today’s issue. Using a prior situation and its outcome is helpful to problem solving. It will give you a basis for what to do and what not to do in healthcare.

As a new employee, you may be unfocused and overwhelmed by the many inputs and trivial details you encounter. As your experience grows, so will your confidence, objectivity, and organization skills. Employers value inference and experience. As a new employee, you should highlight your willingness to learn and be shaped and molded by the new input. An employer will value you when you build on each day to infer the routine for the days ahead.

Problem solving

Critical thinkers solve problems more quickly than those who have rote memorization of facts. In healthcare, this paid problem solving is invaluable. Start small to develop problem solving skills. Watch for issues that arise during a normal day and silently come up with possible solutions to the problems. Do your solutions match the outcomes you observe? If not, can you draw parallels between the solution used and your logic? Where are they different? Practice considering acceptable outcomes to train your brain into a better resolution station.

Learning to think critically in healthcare will require some effort at first. Each day we must be diligent about observing, focusing, maintaining objectivity, and building on past experiences. The benefit to putting in the time at the start of your career lies in fewer mistakes, greater confidence, higher salary, and above all quality patient care—the goal of any healthcare worker. Still, mistakes are also a part of how we learn. Keep your focus when dealing with new situations, and base your actions on solid concepts you have learned. Trust yourself with the basics. Confidence in problem solving will build on successes you achieve daily in your career.

Decision Making

In many healthcare situations, the decisions we make can change or save a life. Learning to trust our problem solving skills is the first step in making good decisions. Once the problem has been identified, use all relevant information to make a decision, and try to filter out irrelevant or unimportant facts. Chose the most likely solutions and then assess the risks of each outcome if you were to choose that solution. This process of elimination is a hallmark of your critical thinking.

When your co-workers begin to trust your decision-making skills, you are given more responsibility and respect, which translates into good performance reviews and increases in income. This, in turn, increases the level of critical thinking that becomes part of your work reputation. Your co-workers will not feel they have to “carry you “when times are busy or rushed, and you will gain a new confidence that is bound to show.

Bring Solutions to Your Supervisor

Pretend you are a supervisor. Two employees knock on your door at the same time and want to talk about the same issue. Which one are you more eager to listen to? Employee A or Employee B?

When you bring a problem to your manager, make sure to include solutions. While your manager gets paid to find solutions and make good decisions, that doesn’t mean she is a dumping ground for your problems. Consider the following questions when you encounter a problem at work: Is this a problem you can solve yourself? Are you authorized and empowered to solve this problem? If you are unsure, ask your supervisor for clarification. Otherwise, solve it.

Your manager wants you to communicate with him about the problems you encounter, but he will value you very highly if you simply let him know what the problem was and what you did about it. If you are seen as a problem-solver, you will be empowered and maybe even promoted to solve more of them. You also empower your boss, freeing him up to concentrate on problems that only he can deal with. Even then, you can still make his job easier by presenting a problem in as helpful a way as possible, employing these three tactics:

By being thoughtful and creative, you can become your manager’s partner and advisor in solving workplace problems, instead of being part of the problem yourself.

Seek Your Manager’s Guidance

Your manager is there to offer you training, guidance, feedback, criticism, and encouragement. Rather than waiting for your manager to bestow these blessings on you, it will be easier for your manager if you seek them out, to help guide you in making better decisions, getting more work done, and achieving the mission of your employer. In Figure 9-1, a health professional seeks guidance from his supervisor.

Supervisors differ in their personalities and work styles. Some are highly focused on work, and your relationship with this supervisor will be solely based on work issues. Many other supervisors are more relationship oriented. They feel that the best way to work is to motivate their team, and they strive to develop relationships with the people on their team. Still others are creative types who are always seeking new, better, and more innovative ways to work. Finally, process types are sticklers for detail and seek smooth operations. Your response to your supervisor depends a lot on the supervisor’s preferred style. Work to develop compatibility with your boss’s work style, so you can approach her more effectively.

In addition, you should observe the habits and preferences of your boss. What is the best time to approach him with your ideas and suggestions? When will he be most receptive? Is he a morning person, or does he spring to life later in the afternoon? Is he more formal, preferring meetings and appointments to discuss issues? Or is he more informal, receptive to hallway conversations? Pay particular attention to your manager’s communication style and preferences. Does he prefer verbal communication, emails, or both? How should you use email to communicate with your boss, and what issues should you copy him on? Some supervisors want highly detailed emails so they have a written resource they can use later. Others prefer short messages such as reminders or questions. And still others want to be emailed only when they are not available personally. If you are uncertain about your manager’s communication preferences, ask him. It is important to approach this matter correctly.

When your manager asks you to do something specific, and you are able to do so, you show respect for your boss when you drop everything to complete the request. Often, the manager’s request is an urgent matter anyway, such as attending to a patient in need. If, however, you are unable to comply with the request immediately, you will gain your boss’s respect by explaining the circumstances that prevent you from performing the new task immediately. In fact, you may even ask for guidance. “If I do the guided tour for the Deputy Mayor this afternoon, I won’t be able to get our monthly newsletter to the printer today. Can you guide me on my priorities here?” You compliment your manager by asking for her advice. In no case should you ever promise to do something you can’t complete by its deadline or commit to conflicting tasks.

Conversations with Your Boss

Your manager’s time is valuable, but you and your work are important as well. Plan to speak with your boss when you need guidance, when you have something important to communicate, when your needs are not being met, or when you have ideas and solutions to problems. Think about your conversations before you have them. Visualize and anticipate them. Imagine what could go right or go wrong. When you plan for a successful outcome to a conversation, you will more likely get one.

To help establish rapport with your boss, mirror her body language, as you learned in Chapter 7. Proper body language helps people bond and treat each other as professionals engaged in a business discussion. Smile if it is appropriate. Make small talk at the beginning, but keep it short. Get to the point, and state the purpose of your conversation clearly. As in all conversations, practice active listening skills, as you learned in Chapter 7. The more your manager talks, the more you will learn, and the better the questions you can ask.

Be appreciative of your manager’s time, but be sure you clearly understand any directions you receive or promises you make. Ask questions to be sure you understand. If necessary, summarize your understanding verbally or in a follow-up email. Always inform your supervisor of actions you took in response to your conversation. Clarity and follow-up are two qualities all managers prize in their employees. Box 9-2 reviews some of the most common mistakes people make when communicating with supervisors.

Your Performance Evaluation

At regular intervals, usually annually (and sometimes more often if you’re a new employee), you can expect to receive a formal performance evaluation from your supervisor. This evaluation covers the entire period since the last evaluation, and it becomes part of your file in Human Resources. Sometimes the performance evaluation is used to determine pay raises. Regardless of whatever salary implications it may or may not carry, the performance evaluation is a major opportunity for you and your supervisor to agree on your strengths and weaknesses and decide what developmental and learning goals you will work on in the coming review period. Of course, this periodic evaluation is not the only time you should solicit feedback from your boss. Between reviews, refer to your practice’s performance evaluation form as a reminder of growth opportunities. See Figure 9-2 for a sample evaluation.

It’s natural for you to feel a bit nervous before your annual performance evaluation, but keep in mind that it is not an easy time for managers. First of all, they may have many performance evaluations to perform, and they have a deadline to complete them all. Often, doing quality performance evaluations is one of their own developmental goals. Moreover, they probably don’t have a detailed file of your performance and all your achievements over the past year. Instead, what they do have are general impressions and a fading memory of recent events. On top of that, conducting the performance evaluation itself is usually an anxiety-provoking event for your manager. Is the evaluation accurate and fair? Will there be a disagreement or conflict? Will a disappointing evaluation lower the employee’s motivation rather than raise it? Performance evaluations are a high-stress time for everyone involved.

You can help, and actually raise your profile in your supervisor’s eyes, by preparing on your own evaluation. First, start a file of your accomplishments, including dates and details; keep track of aspects or skills you’d like to improve. Then, a week or two before performance evaluations are due, and before your manager has a chance to write yours, compose a “self-evaluation” and give it to your supervisor. Tell her that you hope her general impressions of your performance are in agreement with your own assessment. Be as objective as you can be in your self-evaluation. Your honest self-evaluation is certainly an opportunity to cast yourself in a positive light and show initiative. Your manager might have forgotten events that happened months ago, but she will be impressed when you remind her of them in your detailed evaluation, a document that will also reflect positively on her when her boss reviews it.

In the event that your manager strongly disagrees with your self-evaluation, at least you will know that you are not on the same page as your boss regarding your performance, and the ensuing discussion gives you a chance to work to improve your performance, regain your supervisor’s confidence, and take specific actions to ensure that your work is visible and appreciated.

Continual Feedback and Improvement

Your goal in seeking regular feedback is to keep a pulse on your supervisor’s opinion of you and your performance, and learn how you can do an even better job. By learning about general concerns on your boss’s mind, you can identify opportunities where you may be in a position to help him. But in seeking continuous feedback, you do not want to be seen as an insecure person constantly seeking praise and reassurance: continuous means regular, not constant.

So how often is enough? It is certainly appropriate to make an appointment with your manager every several months to review your progress on your developmental goals for the year and to offer solutions for any problems you’re facing, such as the need for training, a proposed reorganization of work, an arbitration plan, and so on.

Approaches to Dealing with Your Manager’s Difficult Behavior

Instead of suffering and venting, think about how to handle the situation. Ask yourself some of the following objective questions:

Stay updated, free articles. Join our Telegram channel

Join