What does ZenStorming mean to you? What do you want to see more or less of?

Hi ZenStorming Readers!

I am writing a quick note here to ask what it is that you are looking for.  After all, you’re reading this blog for a reason – something is resonating with you.

I’d love to hear what it is that you like about the blog, what you don’t like, what you’d like to see more or less of.

Would you like to see me offer services of any type? Coaching?

This is your opportunity to make the ZenStorming blog more useful to you on a personal and professional level.

Please drop me a line at Michael (at) Zenstorming (dot) com.  You can also click on the “contact” tab above and click on my email addy to send an email.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you.  If I don’t hear from you, I might just start picking readers at random and touching base 🙂

Thanks for your time and efforts!  I truly appreciate it!!

Mike (aka: Plish)

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What Healthcare Providers Can Learn From This Taco Bell

 

There’s a Taco Bell that I’ve been stopping by for a quick taco or two.  I would stop there to get medical tests if I could.

??? What???

You see, every time I’ve visited and someone at the register needed to go and help on the food assembly line, that person has done something amazing.

Well, at least it’s (unfortunately) amazing by healthcare standards.

The person washes her hands.

I’m not talking the typical ‘bathroom’ wash that you see most people do.  You’ve seen it, it goes like this:

1. Turn on the water
2. Use a little soap if around
3. Wash for about 5 seconds, maybe 10
4. Shut the water off (if it’s not automatic)
5. Shake the hands and grab a paper towel to dry(maybe)
6. Leave

In fact, researchers have found that only about 5 percent of people wash their hands properly.

But, these folks at this Taco Bell are amazing.  They wash the way hands are supposed to be washed, which I must say, I usually don’t see consistently happening in healthcare facilities. (I’ve even seen healthcare workers skip the easier anti-microbial hand sanitizer squirt!)

The Taco Bell folks do the following:

Courtesy of http://interestingthings.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/how-to-wash-hands-hand-washing.gif

I actually counted to see how long these people wash and rinse and they’re following best practices.    It also doesn’t matter if they’re busy or slow.  I’ve seen workers take the time to wash (and follow with an antimicrobial squirt) no matter how crazy the atmosphere or how long the lines.

This is a TACO BELL people!

Customers are there for their food and they want it quick.   Employees could easily pull a line that’s often heard in healthcare hand-washing studies: “I don’t have time to wash.” But, these conscientious workers have made it a part of their culture to make sure they wash their hands.

What’s even more important is that if employees are taking the time to wash, they certainly are doing other things right as well.

Congrats Taco Bell on Grand!  Keep up the good work!

For all the healthcare facilities out there, it might be worth doing some self-examination and asking, “Why can Taco Bell do it and we can’t?”

If you can’t find the answer, pay Taco Bell a visit and watch.

 

 

 

 

Lessons in Innovation From Songwriter Eric Carmen

I was listening to classical music the other day, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Opus 18 to be exact.  One passage struck me as familiar….very familiar.  That’s when I realized: All by Myself by Eric Carmen.  It was a song I had heard in my youth.  I don’t particularly like it, catchy as it is, though I’m in the minority.  All by Myself reached number 2 on Billboard’s Hot 100.   (In 2011 it even made it into an episode of Glee!)

Anyway,  I thought that it was an amazing coincidence that this song had classical echoes, and then I read on how the song was written.  All by Myself does indeed contain the passage from Rachmaninoff.  It also contains parts of a song called Let’s Pretend that was also written by Carmen. Said Carmen, “I just took those notes and took it from there. I thought, ”Let’s Pretend’ was a nice melody.’ The song didn’t go quite as far as I thought it should have. I’ll go back and steal from myself for this.”

“Steal from myself.”  I love it.

He wasn’t afraid to take  a good thing and reuse it in another context – and in fact, the new creation was more successful.  Keep journals and notebooks of your ideas and inspirations.  Even if you use something, don’t be afraid to leverage it again – perhaps it can be used more effectively somewhere else.

Carmen didn’t stop with that inspiration.  He also borrowed from the Rachmaninoff piece.  Being that it was a classical piece, Carmen assumed the music was already in the Public Domain, meaning he could use the song for free.

He was wrong.

The Rachmaninoff Estate heard the tune, contacted Carmen and a deal was reached.  Carmen would give up a hefty 12 percent of what the song made as royalties.

There are multiple takeaways here.

First, Carmen  took something that was in the realm of Classical music and transformed it into a pop song.   That’s a pretty radical stretch.   This highlights how it’s important to look to other industries and technologies for inspiration.  After all, if an innovation existed in your own industry then everyone would already be using it, right?

Second, as the world becomes more and more ‘open source’, don’t make assumptions about ownership.  Lawsuits are very real.  This story has a happy ending.  All parties involved got something out of the deal.

But I still don’t like the tune…

Maybe you will.  Give it a listen…