Medical Excellence and the Four Foot Tall Milkweed

An important life lesson I have learned is that when you think you have things going really well, think again. At The Cat Hospitals of Denver we really (okay, I really) strove for excellence in our delivery of medical care and customer service. Over the years, I saw that about one percent of my employees did too.

We had weekly meetings to teach our staff and doctors medical knowledge and excellence in customer service. A true "learning organization." Everyone got paid over-time to be at these three-hour long, Wednesday afternoon meetings, that were very fun and interesting. I even had some employees that could parrot back some of our key service axioms like, UA-Fecal-EAG, and "it's not customer service, it's customized service."

So with all this going on, I thought our staff members had a real grasp on doing an excellent job in taking care of the clients and patients. I even didn't feel it necessary to make weekly stops in at all my five Cat Hospitals to check up on the people working at them. Then one late summer afternoon, I had to deliver some special surgical instruments to my Lakewood Colorado office, and I was aghast at what I saw.

As I pulled up and parked in front of the hospital, I saw a client coming out the front door with her cat in a carrier, and she lifted her leg up high as she STRADDLED OVER a three to four foot tall milkweed right in the center of the front step. I was so embarrassed, I sat in my car until the client drove off. I went inside and asked who let a four foot tall milkweed grow right in the middle of the front steps.

Of course, no one knew, and it must have just grown up over night. After all, we had daily duty rosters that included sweeping the front steps and making sure there was no trash or debris around the entrance of the vet hospital. But I have to give them credit, because the duty rosters did not mention anything about pulling up milkweeds if they were growing right in the front step, where the clients walked in.

The even odder part, was that two of my supposed top people, let's call them Carol and Brent, were working at this hospital and were entirely responsible for it. They were let go soon thereafter, because the inside of the hospital was a pig-sty as well and those two employees had also worked it out that they were clocked in all the time and were rarely even there.

So it comes back to the lessons I learned from reading William Marriott Junior's book about his Marriott Hotel Chain. You have to check on everything yourself. Bill Marriott actually goes into his various hotels and checks under the beds, and behind the toilets, and under the sinks to make sure his hotels are actually being cared for to the standards that are the Marriott Brand. You would think the president of a multi-billion dollar Hotel conglomerate would have better things to do, and he does, but it is this single step that rattles the chains and keeps his well paid employees actually doing what they are paid for. I wish the world was a better place.

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.ikelerbooks.com/

http://www.lifeextensionbooksbydrdougikeler.blogspot.com/