A voracious reader, I’m only too happy to put in the extra book work that a career as an author and public speaker require. It’s one of the best ways I’ve  found of quickly gathering source material or perspective on a topic. Though our town has a beautiful new library, the selection of business and related reference titles is weak, to put it charitably. Hence, I wind up buying a lot of books that might otherwise be borrowed from the library.

In reading Yvonne Perry’s blog earlier this evening, I was reminded of some very good money saving advice. In her post, Ms. Perry advocates buying used titles on Amazon.com and then reselling the books (also via Amazon) when you’re through with them. As both an Amazon merchant and customer, I can vouch for the fact that they run a tight ship, and there is practically no risk in selecting used titles from their partners. Try it, I think you’ll like it.

As a result of having an 85 year old father who has been hospitalized almost continuously since November, I’ve been dealing with the health care system a lot lately. In so doing, I’m reminded of two things:

1. When it comes to having the capacity to practice some really great medicine, improving and saving lives, the U.S. takes a back seat to no one. Whether it is miracle surgeries performed by the likes of pediatric neurosurgeon, Dr. Ben Carson, profiled earlier on this blog or producing pills with miniature cameras attached to them for filming the insides of your digestive system as they work their way thru the body, we have some truly remarkable medical  capability. And, we’re blessed to have some medical practitioners who are as caring as they are gifted; people like Dr. Raymond Jeffers of Collierville, TN., who always makes an extra effort to fit patients in, and has been known to take a half hour out of his busy day to ream a sclerotic insurance bureaucracy on behalf of a patient who is being jerked around and denied treatment.

2. We also have an incredible, almost diabolical knack for frustrating much of that capacity by virtue of antiquated systems that don’t mesh, funding/reimbursement schemes that inspire neither best effort nor the most appropriate forms of treatment, and a tort system run amok.  Moreover, as I’ve rediscovered of late, it just makes people crazy.

For these reasons, I’m delighted that President Obama today demonstrated chutzpah by initiating a serious overhaul of our health care systems. Unlike a lot of folks, I haven’t staked out a position on one of the fringes of this issue. I’m not especially looking forward to government having a greater role in my life, but I am very unwilling to live with a status quo, where:

- our competitiveness on the global stage is marginalized because our employers are saddled with the lion’s share of the health care insurance burden,

- 15% of our citizens (and growing) are uninsured,

- we spend more for health care per capita than any nation on earth, and fail to get results which match that expenditure, and

- darned near every visit to a health care provider involves more time filling out forms than getting treatment.

Since it is obvious that as a nation we are now going to have this conversation, I am strongly urging  clients, associates, and friends to take steps to educate themselves on the real issues of this dilemma. One good place to start is a wonderful book by respected health care analyst, Regina Herzlinger entitled, “Who Killed Health Care?” A professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School and Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Dr. Hezlinger offers cogent analysis and  comprehensive solutions aimed at creating a much more patient-centric delivery mechanism.

Whatever you do, get the facts, then speak up.

Last evening as I waited to board a flight in Cincinnati, my million-miler sensors  detected what appeared to be just a little too much dialogue between the ship’s outgoing and incoming captains. Though we boarded reasonably close to schedule, once all were aboard, there continued to be a fair amount of “fiddling around” on the flight deck. After a bit, one of the pilots announced what my jet lagged ears were really hoping not to hear – that we had a “minor mechanical” that would need to be fixed before departure. The pilot announced that he had summoned maintenance personnel.

Then, a couple  minutes later, the same voice came back on the PA and told us that, before the maintenance personnel arrived, he was going to try a work-around by recycling the aircraft’s electrical system. He further explained that in about 80% of such cases, the mere act of shutting down all the power on the craft and then restarting it caused the undescribed problem to go away. The plane was then plunged into darkness (but for the emergency lighting) just as the pilot had promised, and a minute or so later, the lights came back on, and we could hear the systems coming back up.

The pilot then announced over the PA that the problem we had been experiencing had “gone away”, just as he predicted, and that we would soon be on our way. At that moment, a 40’ish looking fellow strode to the front of the cabin and asked the flight attendant just what the maintenance issue had been. Somewhat startled, she said, “I don’t know, but you can be sure it has been taken care of. Now please take your seat.” Pressing the point, he said that before we took off, he wanted to know exactly what had gone wrong, and to be assured that it had really been fixed. She then ushered him back to his seat, with him muttering something about not wanting to be treated like a child. Moments later, after some consultation between the flight attendant and captain, the fellow was brought back up to the flight deck and given a more comprehensive personal explanation. Though this fellow had been somewhat bolder in his approach (his NY accent may be involved), he was likely conveying some of the same concerns that other passengers had.

Clearly, the pilot in this case was trying to do the right thing. Rather than keeping his passengers in the dark, he was attempting to tell us in a  timely and forthright manner what was going on, and what steps the crew was taking to remedy the situation. Unfortunately, the manner in which he did so didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

A few thoughts:

1. Be conscious of the fears and apprehensions that will inevitably arise as a result of your message. At a time when passenger planes have landed in the Hudson River and fallen out of the sky over Buffalo, there are no “minor” maintenance issues to the average passenger, any more than there are minor over staffing issues to the average employee.  Are we talking loose engine bolt or an in-op “idiot light”? To assuage those fears, the pilot  might have done well to offer that, “out of respect for everyone’s time, he was going to initiate a procedure that is recommended for such situations”, AND, “out of an abundance of caution, in any event, we would not push back from the gate until a mechanic had signed off on the plane’s airworthyness.”

2. Listen to your message through the ears of your audience before emoting. Had our pilot done so, he would have heard something that sounded more like, “while we’re waiting on the maintenance professionals to arrive, I’m going to try some DIY remedies.” Yikes. Further, the statement, “the problem has gone away” was nowhere near as reassuring as, “the problem has been fixed.”  The same holds true for those of us in the corporate world when we’re announcing a layoff to our workforce, and, too often, the “survivors” are left wondering if the danger has merely gone away for now, or management truly has no intention to make further cuts.

3. Use analogies to help explain your message. In this case, the pilot’s message would have gained much quicker acceptance had he explained that what he was doing was tantamount to restarting a computer, something that nearly everyone can associate with.

4. Alternatively, our pilot might have opted to go the minimalist route with his communication by announcing what he knew (that we had an inoperative indicator light on the potable water system), that he didn’t expect our delay to be lengthy, and that he would get back to us with more information in 15 minutes or less.

Clearly, the lessons here don’t just pertain to pilots, but all of us who occupy leadership positions and occasionally (regularly of late) are called upon to communicate difficult news. Just as delayed airline passengers are in an agitated and confused state, so are the bulk of the people on our team at work these days. It is our job to make meaning out of the mission, goals, and circumstances, and keep them moving forward toward a common purpose.

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com