Friday, June 3, 2016

E-Learning Item 4: Innovation Starts with the Heart, Not the Head

The article “Innovation Starts with the Heart, Not the Head” on Harvard Business Review by Gary Hamel discussed about the importance of compassion in innovation by sharing a story about Lakeland Health where compassion is found in their working style. The article showed the story of Dr. Loren Hamel, the CEO of Lakeland Health which faced the problem of having poor patient satisfaction scores despite the above average care treatment provided and the changes Dr. Hamel implemented. I agree with the article that innovation starts with the heart instead of the head. I think that Dr. Hamel’s innovative ways to improve Lakeland really shows the importance of empathy and compassion in innovation.

In the article, Dr. Hamel’s idea of improving the patient satisfaction scores Lakeland received was by encouraging his staff to bring their hearts to work by saying simple words of care and concern to the patients to help the patients forget their worries and feel cared for. Dr. Hamel also did some research to understand the emotions and feelings of patients admitted to the hospital so that the staff of Lakeland could more effectively connect with their patients so that they will feel cared for. Dr. Hamel also went further by doing rounds to learn about the progress of his staff on making heartfelt connections and also helping them learn how to do it even going further by commending each effort of every staff in making a heartfelt connection by rewarding the staff with a heart to pin on his or her badge (Hamel, 2015).

I feel that Dr. Hamel was very innovative and resourceful in his ways to improve the patient satisfaction scores by firstly understanding them before having his staff to make heartfelt connections to each patient so that each patient will feel cared for. Through the acts of heartfelt connections of Lakeland staff with patients, the patient satisfaction scores of Lakeland soared which shows the effectiveness of Dr. Hamel in having empathy in his innovative ways to improve the satisfaction of each patient. One of the stories of Lakeland included the meltdown of a husband whose wife was dying. One of the employees of Lakeland showed a simple gesture of offering a hug to the devastated husband to help him recompose himself which helped in keeping the situation under control (Hamel, 2015).

In conclusion, it is important to have compassion and kindness in innovation as it is only through empathy where the needs of others can be addressed successfully which is shown in the article where patient satisfaction scores improved. If Dr. Hamel only improved the care provided to patients, the needs of patients might still not be addressed which results in a waste of effort and resources. As Dr. Hamel was empathetic, he was able to find a new and innovative way of improving satisfaction scores by showing patients how much the staff cared about them instead of just improving healthcare like other hospitals which further supports the point that innovation comes from the heart.

Reference Articles
Hamel, G. (2015, June). Innovation Starts with the Heart, Not the Head. Harvard Business

Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2015/06/you-innovate-with-your-heart-not-your-head 

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