What gets measured, gets managed

And the show marches on! When I have these stretches of work, I often lose track of days and what day of the week it is. However, it was painfully obvious in our house that today was a Monday. Exciting week ahead however with conference presentation on this Thursday, Faculty Development next Thursday. My other academic activity is teaching critical thinking and diagnostic skills, so I help students and residents work through a mystery case every Wednesday and will be back at that on Wednesday. The mystery case and improv workshops are really formalizing the things I like most about my job and then coming up with activities for people to practice the skills. It’s nice. I like being busy in this way

On to healthcare and improv. I think the benefits of improv tend to be more of a feeling, so the challenge for me and multiple people that I have discussed using improv with is that tangible outcomes from improv training can be difficult to quantify. As I plan for the workshop on Thursday, I have been thinking of assurances I will provide attendees. I will let them know that the workshop won’t fundamentally change them (they won’t go from introvert to extrovert, they won’t become comedians, they won’t be asked to go so far outside of their comfort zone that they are crushed by the weight of it all). So, what can a person expect to receive from a healthcare improv workshop? Great question. No matter where an attendee is starting with a particular skill, my hope/expectation of myself is that each attendee will find an opportunity in their life to practice getting better at the skill. Our workshop will not make a hard thing (changing your communication patterns is hard) into an easy solution. I am comfortable with that. I think if we promised easy solutions to hard problems, then we would either be lying or well, yeah, we would just be lying. As I have stated in these entries, the challenge to develop these skills doesn’t return to zero after a prescribed amount of time. I think even taking one class at a theater moves people further in developing their own framework to improve communications with all whom they encounter. That is also impossible to measure or quantify. Again, my hope is that attendees experience what I experienced with improv. That is the laughs and activity serving to knock down people’s defenses and then find opportunities for improvement in some aspect of communication. I wish there was a way to measure that. I have even done focus groups with people who attended 5 or more workshops. When asked if they used the skills from the workshop, they said “No.” When asked if they were better listeners, they said, “Yes, I pay much closer attention now compared to before the workshops”. Their answers pointed to the participants internalizing some of the skills by practicing them frequently. That is what has happened to me. My default communication skills are better than they were before I started doing improv. When I face a difficult communication situation, I don’t stop the conversation to get ready to use my improv skills and then continue communication. I am more likely to catch myself making a mistake now, but the main benefit is my immediate communication responses are more productive than what they used to be. There is no way (that I have figured out at least) to reliably or even approximate that change in default response, and it would be even more difficult to say that it wasn’t just me maturing (anyone who knows me is aware that that is not the case, but it is a potential argument someone could make). That is a big part of the challenge to more widespread use of improv for healthcare providers. I don’t advocate improv as the only means of accomplishing improved communication in the healthcare world, but it is the best suited modality in my very biased opinion. Now please read this article. This article discusses this problem for the business world. I really like the emphasis that there is a false corollary of what can’t be measured, can’t be managed that persists in many aspects of life. For me, improv has helped me manage how I interact with the people and events in my world, to great benefit

Ok, thanks to anyone who has made it to the end. Feel free to share with people while you are here! Comment if you have any other challenges you have faced or solutions that may help! Hope you don’t have a case of the Mondays!