MPowerment Matters

Summertime Blahs

July 2007

All year long I try to fill this newsletter with information helpful to those who read it. I try to choose my topics carefully and keep my style as interesting as possible. I never know if I succeed. While I occasionally get e-mails or calls from friends about a particular article, I rarely know what most people are thinking.

I have added a blog to the Management Mpowerment website, and would love to get a dialog going with some interested parties. Please feel free to come to www.managementmpowerment.com and ask questions or voice opinions. Soon there will be new blogs added to cyberspace on specialized topics.

Why is it harder to talk about serious issues in the summer? Does everyone take a vacation in July or August, or at least think about taking one? We are certainly critical of the Iraqi Parliament for wanting to take August off. We would be furious with President Bush if he took a vacation after having turned the world into such a mess.

Maybe a vacation is like a "time out", an opportunity to re-gather ourselves, to locate a source of focus and energy, to give our brain cells a needed rest and our muscles a needed flex. Employers want energized employees and nothing zaps energy like too long a stretch without a break.

So, I hope everyone gets some time off to golf, sail, camp, travel, work on their homes, see loved ones and just lay back. It is 5:00 on a Saturday for me, and this is the first time I have sat at my computer. That is clearly a record for me.

I went to the movies and saw "Sicko", Michael Moore's new "documentary" about health care in America. It definitely has a point of view and its overall premise is important. Our health care system is broken and needs fixing desperately. We need to change its accessibility, its quality and its cost. There are movements afoot to push all of this, but the system is so huge and involves such powerful parties, like the Congress, the insurance industry, the hospital industry, the American Medical Association, etc. that it will take a superhuman effort to fight through the various bureaucracies, overcome the powerful lobbyists and make change happen.

There are three new books on what can be done that are of interest. First is "Who Killed Health Care?" by Regina Herzlinger. She is from the Harvard Business School and writes like a true believer that change can happen.

Next is "Redefining Health Care: Creating Value Based Competition on Results". It takes a somewhat economic approach and states that the whole system is a zero-sum competition taking place at the wrong level, and neglectful of the ultimate purpose-patient care.

The 3rd is "Innovation Driven Health Care" by Richard Reece. It is more a text, but it offers 34 innovations in health care that will improve the system.

There is much to be done, but it can happen.

A few websites to visit when noodling around on the internet this summer:

http://www.corporateoppression.com
http://www.last.fm.com
http://www.breathinearth.net
http://www.startupnation.com
http://www.bizstats.com
http://www.quotiki.com
http://www.idiagram.com
http://tul.com

Lastly, if you have business issues that are troubling you, give me a call or drop me an e-mail and we can brainstorm together about them. If not, enjoy the summer months.