Corporate assigned a new junior executive to our hospice site. I'll call him Toad. So far he's been very quiet. That can be a sign of someone who prefers to watch and learn, but that's been a rare practice of prior Kindred vice presidents. Toad's predecessors preferred to:
A. Talk over listening
B. Jump to conclusions over researching issues
C. Shoot any messenger raising legitimate concerns
D. Foster or avoid conflict rather than manage and reduce it.
E. Play favorites
F. Beat people up over numbers
Our new VP arrived at a time of incredible division within our hospice. Conflict increases when leaders use strategies that keep people separated and uninformed. Ninety five percent of conflict can be resolved with one simple intervention, help people complete communication. This solution has been a mystery to Kindred managers who sow division and manage by whim.
Our hospice divide deepened when staff sold their soul to horrific management for the illusion of personal protection and connection to power. Kindred leaders took information nuggets from soul-selling staff, instantly twisting and misusing them as weapons. Enough hospice staff made this sick deal that our hospice culture could be terminal.
It will take a sophisticated VP with deep leadership skills and experience to save our historically great hospice. Such people are rare in today's EBITDAR obsessed, capital optimizing, human abusing, compliance lip service-oriented world of healthcare mismanagement.
Kindred does not have systems to find and employ such leaders. It's just not in them. We'll see how bad Toad's venom is. Will it be more or less toxic than those who came before him?
Anonymous (Waiting for next Kindred axe to fall)
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