12 Keys: Are your co-workers equally dedicated?

My daughter came home from the school the other day with steam pouring out of her ears. Being a mom, I can see these kinds of things.

I asked her what on earth was wrong, and she began to tell me, with a great deal of emotion, about a school project that was supposed to be completed by a small group of students. Each student had a part to complete, but the final grade would be made on the project as a whole, no matter how well each part was done.

Of course, there was a slacker, one student who was too busy with sports or musical tryouts or boyfriend drama (or in this case, all of the above), to complete her assigned part of the project.

The entire group got a bad grade and my daughter was fuming. Who could blame her? She worked hard on her part, focusing on detail and design as well as the assigned content. She felt great about her part of the project, but lousy about her final grade and the outcome overall. Most of all, she felt that the final project didn’t reflect on HER ability or effort.

If you’ve put your heart and soul into a project, it really sucks to have someone else come along and mess it up. If you’re working with a frail, vulnerable person and you’re passionate about providing quality care, it more than sucks if you feel your co-workers may be taking short-cuts when they come on shift to take over for you.

Maybe that’s why day shift always complains about how few rounds night shift made, or evenings complain about how much laundry day shift left them to do.

Or your caregivers seem less than fully engaged.

It takes a team to accomplish great things; it takes a team focused in the same direction, each pulling relatively equal weight, to reach your organization’s fully engaged potential.