Friday, April 13, 2007
Lessons Learned
This week has been provided its share of excitement for the Los Angeles Mission. The drop off, dumping or delivery of Mr. Moses Davis in front of the Mission has once again raised the awareness of the on-going problems of hospital services, legal obligations, moral obligations and police responsibility.
Being the type to want to make lemonade out of lemons, I have asked myself and my staff what we can learn from this recent situation. Here are my top 5 lessons learned.
1. Media attention is fast, fleeting and flawed at best. Real problems linger on way after the camera stops rolling.
2. You can never create enough laws to legislate morality or compassion.
3. You might think you communicated clearly but the answers you gave were to the wrong questions. What was implied in the question you were asked was not what you heard or expected by the question.
4. Working together takes time and requires team work. It reminded me that Patrick Lencioni suggests in his Five Dysfunctions of a Team; results come from a basis of trust, build upon with healthy conflict, layered on with commitment, topped with accountability and peaked by attention to results.
Within the Los Angeles Mission we are looking at the situation in hopes of improving our services to those in need, the ultimate result for us. We are pushing forward toward implementing the Los Angeles Central Providers Collaborative draft model to assist homeless being discharged from the hospital who need an overnight bed. We are looking at ways to better communicate with those outside the mission to avoid confusion and increase customer satisfaction. In the end we are looking to better our delivery of services to the homeless as we do so with dignity, compassion and hope.
--Herb Smith, President
Being the type to want to make lemonade out of lemons, I have asked myself and my staff what we can learn from this recent situation. Here are my top 5 lessons learned.
1. Media attention is fast, fleeting and flawed at best. Real problems linger on way after the camera stops rolling.
2. You can never create enough laws to legislate morality or compassion.
3. You might think you communicated clearly but the answers you gave were to the wrong questions. What was implied in the question you were asked was not what you heard or expected by the question.
4. Working together takes time and requires team work. It reminded me that Patrick Lencioni suggests in his Five Dysfunctions of a Team; results come from a basis of trust, build upon with healthy conflict, layered on with commitment, topped with accountability and peaked by attention to results.
Within the Los Angeles Mission we are looking at the situation in hopes of improving our services to those in need, the ultimate result for us. We are pushing forward toward implementing the Los Angeles Central Providers Collaborative draft model to assist homeless being discharged from the hospital who need an overnight bed. We are looking at ways to better communicate with those outside the mission to avoid confusion and increase customer satisfaction. In the end we are looking to better our delivery of services to the homeless as we do so with dignity, compassion and hope.
--Herb Smith, President
