Ep. 13: Compensation - The ONLY Known Way to World-Class! (Pt. 1 of 4)
Creating the perfect company from the organizational experts MultiView Incorporated. This content is based on MBI's work with over 1,300 organizations extracting nine eighty nine data elements with nine twenty two cross calculations over twenty seven years on a monthly basis and then systematizing the operational success patterns of the ninetieth percentile. Our intent is to get beyond the brag and the boast and simply share insights from our experience without manipulation or coercion to sell anything except helpful ideas. These messages range from intimate recordings from the Awakened Forest to concerts, national conferences, and broadcasts.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to another exciting episode of creating the perfect company. And now we're gonna go into one of the more profound topics, and that's compensation, the only known way to world class. I mean, we're talking world class quality, world class economics. And in our decades of measuring hundreds of organizations, we have never seen an organization go to world class, let alone maintain it, without addressing their comp system. Now most of the material in this multi message comes from a national broadcast that we did for CEOs and senior executives for hundreds of organizations.
Speaker 2:But we have to realize, and this is primarily in the healthcare space, is that these best known success patterns or practices can be applied really to any business segment. Of course it takes a higher degree of intelligence to do that, but obviously you can apply this to agriculture, service stations, retail, almost anything you would be doing in the human domain. Why? Because we're working with human beings. And the fact that we live in this world of incentives and disincentives, sometimes people only want to have the incentive, the carrot, when really there's this negative aspect that has equal value that has to be recognized.
Speaker 2:And again, if we're bright about this, employed. And I'm gonna go into fairly deep philosophical explanations of compensation. Why? Because the lowest level really of developing human beings is to tell people what to do. Do this.
Speaker 2:Do this. Whereas the more sophisticated and intelligent thing to do is to explain why they're doing this. This gives practices roots so that they're not washed away with the breeze or the storm that comes by and people just forget it, I don't know why we're doing this, and it goes away. Whereas if people know the payoff or the benefit of their actions or of a practice, the more likely it is to last. At least that's what we've learned through these decades, through our magic engagements of helping people put in their people development systems, obviously their compensation systems, their accountability systems, and creating these world class organizations.
Speaker 2:We also have to recognize that virtually all of our frustrations in our respective businesses and enterprises can be solved via compensation. What it really boils down to is an organization has to decide what it wants to incentivize, that is what results we want to happen, as well as what are the disincentives that we want to provide so that certain things don't happen in our businesses. But intentionally designing your comp system based on your goals and the results you want. So with that said, let's get into compensation, the only known Way to World Class. Welcome everybody.
Speaker 2:We're delighted to have you here today at Compensation and the Model. And is deep and profound topic even though some people might look at it as a superficial thing, money, you know, all the superstition and dogma and ideas that we have about it. But the fact that you're even tuning in and participating in this program would inform me that you sense some directional correctness, that there's something to compensation and running an organization. And some people will just go, Duh. Of course, Andrew.
Speaker 2:But it's really more. It's not just an animalistic thing. It actually crosses, you know, I think spiritual planes, planes of beliefs. And all these things need to be considered. And of course, we're going to get into the actual mechanics of how to do that.
Speaker 2:And you've been provided different workbooks and things like that that illustrate how virtually all the positions in a hospice or home care organization, since, you know, MBI is not just hospice. I mean, you know, there's home health, private duty, inpatient units, even units of hospitals and nursing homes can be operated using these same principles. But besides just the mechanical aspects of it, in order to sustain a best known practice again, don't like to say best practice because that's arrogant but best known practice, in order to sustain that, it really requires a deep philosophical understanding as well, as do all practices because otherwise people will assimilate a practice and go, Well, you know that you know, do this. And so they do it, but then after a while they stop doing it because, Well, why are we doing this? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Let's just throw that away, when really it was impacting this, this, and this, and this. CAP scores were going up by 10% because of that. So the deep philosophical understanding. And let's face it. This is particular to hospice.
Speaker 2:If you've been doing hospice work for some time, most of us perceive that it's very profound work. All I know is that it has led me this journey. I've got a bracelet here that says the journey is the reward. That is like right now. It's not so much about a destination.
Speaker 2:But if you've been doing this work, you know, you realize that not many of us get out of this life alive. And even though the details of the future are not known, the general direction is known that in a life where we know the outcome with a great degree of certainty, why spend it doing something you don't want to do? And if you're going to do something, why not throw yourself completely into it and learn everything about it? And so for running a hospice, obviously a huge aspect of that is how people get paid in all forms of compensation. A lot of times it's limited or we think of it in terms of only the financial domain.
Speaker 2:But really, when you look at the world, it's a system of incentives, motivations, and that on some degree or some level our will is involved with the creation of that unknown future. Yes. We're part of that. And so I just say, you know, throw yourself into it. Go as deep as you can.
Speaker 2:But understand that this topic is one of the only known ways to get to that ninetieth percentile. I'm not saying there's an organization can't pay regular hourly and salary and get to the ninetieth percentile. We've just not ever seen it in the twenty eight years of Multi View. Not one. That's something to consider.
Speaker 2:My intention, of course, as in all teaching, is to be as helpful as I can. It's not about being Mr. Big. It's not about trying to impress you. I find when I try to impress people, I don't.
Speaker 2:So you just be yourself and try to to help out as much as as you can in sharing, you know, what what you know at that time. And that the other you know, the great thing about it is our our beliefs, our views of the world, our multi view is always changing. I certainly don't have the same beliefs now as I had when I was seven. And so hopefully we're advancing and progressing. Although I will say I had some pretty splendid things happen when I was seven and I kind of like that.
Speaker 2:Maybe I need to become more as a child. Anyway, I'm working on that. Okay, so let's get into compensation and the model. Okay, first question. The centering point.
Speaker 2:The beginning of the model is a question. And by the way, questions calibrate with more energy than answers. An answer is kind of a dead stop. And we all kinda know that it's all kind of a hoax to an answer because all topics are infinite. I mean, if we're humble about it.
Speaker 2:So questions have a lot more juice, the quest, the adventure. So what are you? And this first of three questions we normally start IDTs are really any meeting, whether in hospice, whether doing an IDT, All staff meeting. What are you? And, of course, what is it?
Speaker 2:And most of us that have been around this for a while, what are we by the way, let me just introduce. We got both Nancy and Bill, both magic implementers. And of course, we have others, Kent and JT and other people that do this type of work here with us. But what are we? A feeling.
Speaker 2:And so one of the things as we explore compensation in all of its forms, not just monetary, the big thing to pay attention to is the emotional impact that that that it has on people. I mean, let's face it. Some people, their self worth comes from what their salary, what their compensation is. The fact that people will hurl themselves out of skyscrapers when the stock market falls gives a subtle indication of how much people can get wrapped up in. Money.
Speaker 2:Okay. So with that said, again, we don't want to demonize it because money represents energy. It's actually really a disaccounting system. It only It represents value. It's not really value in itself if you really want to look at it.
Speaker 2:I mean, money, accounting money is about like temperature, inches, miles. It's it's it's accounting on on a certain level, but does tell something. So, again, pay attention to to the emotions. And, again, it it excites people too. Right?
Speaker 2:And and there's a motivational factor, and all that is wrapped up really in that feeling element. So what are you? You are a feeling. You are essentially sensations and consciousness. Consciousness is my preferred word even though we don't know what it is.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's certainly more than mind, but that plays a role, but it seems like it's much broader than that and connected, but that's my favorite thing. So we're sensations, consciousness, and that's all we really know from moment to moment is that we are experiencing something. When we really get honest, and we know there's at least two states of consciousness. They're too distinct. There's there's many, but two distinct.
Speaker 2:We have the waking state. We have the sleeping state or the dream state. And you can't tell one from the other when you're in it. I mean, that's just an illustration. So you are a feeling.
Speaker 2:These are the three questions we start all IDTs and stuff just so everybody knows. But we say to all the clinicians, this is what you wanna train your clinical managers to do since they're replicators. Right? The 70% ers. That, what are you?
Speaker 2:And all the clinicians go, we're a feeling. And then what do you see yourself ask? Question two. A teacher. And then the third question is, What day is it?
Speaker 2:And what does the class say? What do all the clinicians say?
Speaker 3:The class says the best day of my life.
Speaker 2:And then the teacher always follows it up with a question and goes, What does that mean?
Speaker 4:It means it's about ownership or accountability. It's owning your life and not blaming others or circumstances.
Speaker 2:That's right. It's about owning your life and not blaming others and circumstances for your life. And again, this third question is important and it ties into compensation, but it really ties into running a smooth organization because so many organizations are full of children rather than mature employees or where, you know, people will live in the world of excuse and say, well, I can't couldn't do this because the dog ate my homework, or I couldn't do this because of this or that. And so they live in this victim world, which is not very empowering, where at minimum people can own at least or at minimum their attitude towards life. Even if you're an iron lung because the drunk driver hits you, well, there's something you can do.
Speaker 2:There's a will that can be exercised and you can cry in your beer or you can go, maybe I can make that nurse happy when she comes in. Or maybe I can build a factory just from my mind by thinking it through fully, which people have done, actually, you know, iron lung. So Horace Viktor Frankl said in Man Man's Search for Meaning, the last of of the human freedoms is the ability to choose one's attitude in any given situation, even in a concentration camp. Okay. So those are the three questions, but the point is I'll say this.
Speaker 2:If you do this third thing and you teach people accountability, self ownership, an organization will be transformed. And to a large extent, your compensation system is one of the best way to teach personal ownership and accountability, where the system holds the individual accountable with very little effort on the part of the manager. That's where you want to get to. Because basically, what do most managers don't what do what do they don't like to do? Well, they don't like to they don't like to have that accountability talk.
Speaker 2:They don't wanna have that uncomfortable conversation with an employee that's not doing either the performance or the behavioral standards of the organization or living up to, you know, the ideals of the organization. That's an uncomfortable situation. And so if the but if the system can do it, you can basically remove many of the negative aspects of management because the compensation system is doing the heavy lifting. Okay. Anyway, this is the best known practice that, again, if you're not doing this kind of thing at your IDTs, your all staff meetings, all that, you start to teach, hey, ownership.
Speaker 2:Ownership. Don't do this weenie blame victimhood mindset, and things will will get done. And because you want people to that one's because all of us usually go out of standard in something. You want people to say, you know, my bad. Hey.
Speaker 2:I'll do better next time. I understand. I'm glad that in fact, I'm glad you pointed that
Speaker 3:out. Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay. Most of us have our manuals, And, you know, it has a, you know, it's a pretty good sized manual. It's got a great table of contents as well as an index to help you find things, subsequently. But I will say this. This is this is This is a great manual.
Speaker 2:I mean, know I just have poured and poured over this topic. Why? Probably because it was very familiar with me when I came into hospice. Because anyway, I mean, I I just I I knew compensation from my prior work, which, anyway, we'll get get to in a second. And and so and this was really the beginning of MultiView.
Speaker 2:It was compensation. So, I mean, it's where it started. That's what got interest and even even the idea of of forming this noble, you know, endeavor. So but anyway, as we get in so let's get into the the the hymnal here. And obviously, we're not doing the testing in this virtual environment.
Speaker 2:Then let's go to page 13. And I will be following, the manual pretty closely because there's just a great amount of detail and I want you to also pay attention not only to the specific steps but also sequence. Because sometimes you can get something out of line and it'll cause a little bit of indigestion which could have been avoided if the proper sequence would have been followed. And the point is, let's just start out with this prelude to reality. All human beings and forms of life seek a payoff in all situations.
Speaker 2:We're all doing something for a purpose. You know, e even in in raising our kids, often people think or say I'm sacrificing for my children. Well, if you're really honest with yourself, you're actually choosing from among options. You know, does it feel better to actually try to raise my children or to just let them run wild? Well, obviously, we want to at least have the illusion of a degree of control when raising our kids.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, that good college try attempt to do a good job because that makes us feel better about ourselves, that we're doing on our obligation or what's expected of us. And so we're we are seeking a payoff there. And so the point is even the single celled organism, the amoeba, it does the same thing. The little amoeba, you know, is gravitating towards the faintest glimmer of warmth or food or that which sustains life and tends to go away from those things that do not give life or would threaten life or cause pain. And we do the same thing.
Speaker 2:Just being Willsville about that. So we're all again going in directions, exercising our will, choosing among usually a variety of options, and we tend to go in the direction that would have the best payoff. In fact, if you and this isn't in the manual but the point is, if you examine the brain, the brain is an efficiency seeking machine. It is constantly surveilling the landscape and picking like the easiest or most attractive or interesting things, you know, basically out of all the things that it perceives. And, oh, that looks fun.
Speaker 2:Oh, that looks interesting. Oh, that looks like an easier path than going through the briars. You know, I'll take, you know, and that's what is constantly happening. And so just even being conscious that we're doing this. So again, there's no point in demonizing this.
Speaker 2:And so in the compensation realm, there's nothing wrong with people that want to do better, that recognize that, Hey, if I make more money, for example, that it can expand my life, that it can give me more opportunities, that I can have a better place to live or send my kids to this school. I mean, there's all these implications from that. I have dreams I want to do. So all forms of life and human beings seek a payoff in all situations. Okay.
Speaker 2:I know we're doing this virtually, but those that have been to the conference center, okay, you come through the gates after driving into the game lands and all that and you go around the mountain. And again, it's just surrounded by nature and I put as much glass as I could into the conference center you know, without damaging the structural integrity of it so it'd fall down. But because I wanted people to look outside at nature and see the trees. Some people said, well, Andrew, why'd you do that? It kinda distracts people.
Speaker 2:I I don't think so. I think the more in tune with nature we get, the more in tune we get with the truth because I usually would point to those large windows and say, look outside, folks. What do you see? And what you're seeing out there is the truth. The truth of about how life works on this planet.
Speaker 2:And what we notice is that it's a system of patterns, a system of complete mutual alignment, alignment and dependency. Yeah, system of mutual reliance and that is all patterns. And if we tend to follow those patterns, we tend to have success or life or whatever. And that there's no random in that world. Like people would say, well, a meteorite is random.
Speaker 2:Well, it's really not random. It's just something doesn't happen on a regular basis. Random does not exist. Just doesn't happen as as frequently. And those patterns are hard to recognize.
Speaker 2:So nature as truth. And what we notice is it is a meritocracy. Meaning that basically if you get up early, you're the bird, mother bird, and you get the worm, you get to feed the babies in the nest. It rewards that effort. Or if you build, the nest, in this case, in in in a better limb than the weak one that gets blown away when the strong winds blew like last night.
Speaker 2:You know, that's a good move. So it's a meritocracy for making good or better decisions. Okay? Again, we're back to payoff. So if this is the way of nature as a natural system of motivations, why demonize or fight against it?
Speaker 2:Okay. Let's keep going here. Now forms of payoff. Again, I'm just gonna go really quick now because I kinda wanna get into a different place. Good feeling, joy, happiness, those are all payoffs.
Speaker 2:Inner satisfaction, providing for others that makes people feel good. Recognition by unless you're a narcissist. Recognition by others that makes us you know, when people are recognized and pay is a great way of doing that. Spiritual merit, karma, and of course financial. And I tended to put the the inner satisfaction things first because those are the really the highest rewards.
Speaker 2:I mean, can strip a person of all their material possessions. I find myself going a little more hermit or majestic orientation because, yeah, you know, after a while, it's just more stuff. It's just more stuff, and it's more of a, you know, you become a prisoner of of what you own. But hey. But then, you know, it's cool to have it, you know, for at some point, but then but that's just it's all phases.
Speaker 2:So I put the financial belong. And then material things could be there too, you know, objects. Our organizational work should be based on the realities of human behavior and aligning with such or nature to the extent as possible. We wanna flow with life rather than struggle against it. Okay?
Speaker 2:And, again, recognizing that these motivations and, incentives and all that, are are part of this. And recognize we are human beings in human organizations serving humans. We better get human. We better get human. That includes incentives and compensation.
Speaker 2:That's the Basically, maybe you could say it like this. Incentives, compensation is the juice that makes the universe tick, because we all want to go someplace. We all want to we want to be doing something. I mean, if we make a choice just to sit and take it all in, you know, to be happy or to find inner peace or or or whatever, You're getting a payoff. Okay.
Speaker 2:So what are you? We've already talked about that, and I wish I could see everybody here. That's the one thing that I wish we could all be together, because I just I really like to get to know people because that that's the whole point of this. Right? I mean, we're you know, I help you.
Speaker 2:You help me. Because let's face it. Almost everything I have here is ripped off from someone else. I say it like that, but the point is I am completely dependent upon, you know, other I shouldn't say completely, but, anyway, I we all owe a great debt to each other. Let's put it that way.
Speaker 2:But anyway, just to explain myself really quick, you can call it this is me, but you can call it evolution or de evolution. I know now I look like a serious crossbreeding accent between a Sasquatch and a CPA, but if you can get past that anyway, but but my story is just quickly this. You know, I started out in in music, and, you know, I I had a, you know, contract with a major label, and then and my head same managers, Dom McLean, Janis Ian, Charlie Daniels, Bruce Springsteen on on on that. And then, then I decided I didn't like the music business due to all kinds of reasons. So I marched out to the top of the United Artist Building and told my manager, one of my managers, that I quit.
Speaker 2:But I had a six year contract. So then I basically couldn't do anything in musical context. I I didn't own a picture of myself. Didn't own any of my songs anymore. Just that I didn't own anything.
Speaker 2:Couldn't even play in a bar legally. So I had to basically recreate my life. So I thought, well, computers are probably important. So I taught myself basic well, programming basic C, C plus, things like that. And I worked on compensation systems specifically and and and and different accounting things that went along with that.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, hey, money is probably important, I became a CPA. And then a system analyst, of course, went with a lot of the programming work. So that's where I got a lot of the the the system analyst, you know, background. And then I I saw this little, ad in the paper to work for a Hawspice, and, of course, I wanted to work in something herbal. And, of course, you get into it.
Speaker 2:So I wanted a job basically, when I came to hospice. I didn't even know what it was. But I just I remember the day when the light kind of hit me and where this is very profound work. And so that means something and it just totally got in my DNA. So, know, long story short, worked with over 1,200 hospices mainly in The United States, but certainly overseas Pacific Grand European hospices, what what have you.
Speaker 2:For profit, not for profit from the largest hospices there are to, I guess, the smallest if there's zero. And, been on the boards of for profits, not for profits. I've started not for profits, started for profits, tried to basically work with private equity, owned hospices, sold hospices. I've basically tried to do everything in that domain just because I'm very interested. And again, if we get hospice work and it's meaning why do work that you don't want to do?
Speaker 2:And so that that base I've been the the CFO for eight. I've been the CEO. A lot of people forget that for three, especially in turnaround situations and all that. So, again, just and compensation has always been from the very first hospice part of the magic where when we put the compensation systems in, the first ones, which I would never tell you to do it like that now, which is more of an activity based compensation system, again, we had a 100% increase in productivity for all disciplines except for the spiritual people. We had four of our chaplains, as we called them then, and and two of them said, well, I'm not gonna do it for the money.
Speaker 2:And then the other two said, well, I'll take I'll take yours. I mean, now, do you want the full prayer or the half? I can do both. You know, so we only had a only had a 50% increase in productivity. And our documentation went to perfect as we or the standards of the organization at that time because, you know, perfect equals to the standards of the organization.
Speaker 2:And I started out with home health. I didn't even start with the hospice. I started with the home health agency and totally revolutionized that. So and then just just to finish the story out, and then after the six years, I got a call from Shania Twain's guitar player who said, we'd like to cut a number of your songs, and that got me back in the music thing. So that explains me.
Speaker 2:That explains this. Okay. Just so people aren't confused if they see drums and guitars and stuff all over the place or recording studio or whatever. And, they've had some good recent we produce a lot of things that have hit the billboard, but I had a thing a couple years ago. This is actually, one from just last year.
Speaker 2:Got to 15 on the billboard adult contemporary with strangers. And then, yeah, just really good on on the charts. The weekend's blinding lights, of course, can't get past that. But, yeah. And then on the Andy charts really well.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, enough of that. That way people aren't confused especially if you're new to MBI because there's been a lot of new companies that are on. Okay. So on page
Speaker 3:looks like
Speaker 2:15. Let's take a look at our definition of compensation. Noun. Typically or something, typically money awarded to someone as recompense for loss, injury, suffering. Oh, that's pretty bad.
Speaker 2:Anyway, reward for doing something, you know, payment, reimbursement, the action or process for rewarding someone. Money, again, and all that, or employee, and that's really what we're talking about. So that's the traditional, you know, definition of compensation. So, with that, we're going be talking about what outliers do. Again, and so let's get very clear about most of the stuff we're going talk about is stuff that people are not familiar with or they may think they're familiar with but they're not doing or whatever.
Speaker 2:So let's understand that. And that's probably especially important in the compensation topic Because when you think about it, MBI started out with compensation, but if we had to live off of implementing compensation systems, we would probably starve. Why? Because people are afraid of it. Now, with that said, we've put in tons of them, especially over the last few years.
Speaker 2:So, incredible amount of experience. But, anyway, but it's new. And so let's just get real about the nature of best known practices. Why do people have such a hard time implementing so many of the model practices, which is model equals best known practices? And and let's use this as an example like penicillin.
Speaker 2:They discovered penicillin. And how many years it take for for it to catch on? It's like twelve years. They could give it to people, watch them get cured, and people still wouldn't use And we do the same thing. We go into a hospice.
Speaker 2:We put in the compensation system. We watch it turn around, and most of the hospice world is either they don't believe it, what they've seen, or you gotta be kidding. You both of you put in compensation systems. I mean, why don't you you talk. I've been yapping too much here.
Speaker 3:There there is a great deal of fear about about changing the way people are are are compensated. Fear that, oh, it won't be fair, or fear that the biggest one, Andrew, you know what it is, all the nurses will leave.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everyone will quit.
Speaker 3:That just doesn't happen.
Speaker 4:It's always the first question we get.
Speaker 2:Everyone will quit.
Speaker 4:Yeah. How many people usually leave the organization?
Speaker 2:By the way, let's and I'll add my experience of putting in systems in organizations, hospices or home health or whatever. I mean, how many people?
Speaker 3:In my experience, very few leave because of the compensation system. Now, the compensation system, it flushes out people over time that should not be there anyway.
Speaker 2:Right. The people that are nervous are the people that should be nervous.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that is true. That is
Speaker 2:true. But the point is, you don't see really sometimes hardly anybody leave. I mean, people you want
Speaker 3:to leave, don't leave. Frequently that's the case.
Speaker 2:Right. And so, anyway, I've just never seen it. So, then one thing is just getting past that fear. And okay, what about the results? Let's, Okay.
Speaker 2:So that's that's the fear that keeps people, but when people actually end up having the guts or balls to do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I've seen this happen many times. I'll give you the example that I told you about a couple three months ago. Our friends in the desert. Yes.
Speaker 3:When you and I went out there to kind of I know that most of you have been working with them since their inception many years ago. But when they really decided to implement the model with compensation, there were a lot of service failures. They were going crazy. Service failures taking place every week and it was making the CEO and the clinical director just just nuts. So you and I fly out there, we spend some time with them, and then you have me out there every month.
Speaker 3:We're working to change things. And about three years later, I get a call from the clinical director who now is the executive director and she says Bill things are so much more peaceful now. Now Andrew in that time their census had nearly doubled.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's up 100%.
Speaker 3:And she's saying things are so much more peaceful now. There difficulties in the organization as they implement the model in the sense that those people who didn't belong there it took time to move the people who didn't belong out, move the right people in, but they will tell you, they'll look right at you and say it was worth it. It was worth it. CAP scores, by the way, okay, have improved significantly at this organization. And
Speaker 2:the point is you can just go across the country from the East, model implementations where they put in the comp set system. And, you know, and I mean from all the way across from like even ones in North Carolina here, you know, you see their quality go up, and of course, as a result of quality going up, the financials go up. Friends in California.
Speaker 3:The big one? Yeah. Yes. Yes. I got an email from her, oh goodness, I don't know, a couple months ago where it said accountability is king.
Speaker 3:Okay. Because and yet I got another one from her, and I don't know if I've told you about this one. She said, yeah, when they were implemented the perfect visit and perfect means according to our standards. Okay. When they were implementing the perfect visit, she said, CAPS scores skyrocketed.
Speaker 3:Skyrocketed. That's her word, not mine. And in the conversation she used that word three times. CAPS scores skyrocketed. Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, and I'm thinking about one that is another magic engagement. They were at minus three as far as their economics, and of course, last month they were at 21. And of course, their cap scores are as high as they can really go, I mean, practically speaking. And and that was, you know, that represented like a 14%. I mean, they weren't that good before.
Speaker 2:And so that's the sum Nancy, you you anything to say I
Speaker 4:just was thinking, fair often comes up in the conversation when we're talking about fair, yeah. And it always strikes me as interesting that organizations don't really know what their clinicians are doing. And once they implement the comp system and you start measuring these things on a universal basis, that's when you see it's not fair to have that rock star nurse who's able to do so much more and then gets paid around the same amount as somebody who's doing a third as much work. That to me is not fair.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny I never thought about that, quite like that, that it actually increases the consciousness of really what's going on. I know it causes people to have to dig into because you had to in order to get a comp system, you gotta you gotta define standards. And, you know, I'll just say this, you know, performance standards as well as behavioral standards. And then obviously there's that measurement aspect because you want your system to be sensitized to detect any deviation from standards so that people can be rewarded or pinched.
Speaker 2:You know, so it goes it goes both ways. Okay. So again, was talking about, you know, penicillin. You could give it to people. I could give it to people.
Speaker 2:People could watch people get cured, and people would still not do that best known practice just like a comp system, you know, or, the idea that washing your hands cures or prevents, infections. Well, that guy went to his grave before the world figured out that what he was saying was the best practice. And of course now it's like a course. So the first thing when we're talking about these comp practices or any best known practice is unfamiliarity. Humans tend to gravitate towards the familiar and the comfortable.
Speaker 2:We are habit creatures and new habits or thinking takes effort and often courage, especially with the compensation system. It takes courage. Okay. Two. Lack of confidence or belief in the practice.
Speaker 2:And and the reason that we have such strong faith in things because we actually see the results. We see the before, after, you know, that hospice after hospice after hospice, it's just evident. Whereas if you you haven't really been there, it's like, oh, man. It's it's kinda like trust me, baby. And, you know, we can say, Well, call up this hospice or call up this hospice and see what the results are, they'll talk and still won't do it.
Speaker 2:So that again, all that is a signal that you're dealing with something that's superpowered from a societal standpoint or whatever. We all just kind of get that we've got to have a certain amount of nuts in this world. Right? And that money itself is emotional or is tied to feelings. So, that's And I'll just say this, because money is emotional, that is why compensation is effective.
Speaker 2:And that is why a smart person with some courage and integrity too is going to look at compensation as a tool. Hey, this is something we can use And we don't have to do what the herd or the huddled masses are doing. Okay. Third factor here. For CEOs, it's the fear of public humiliation.
Speaker 2:This can also be other leaders that, hey, if we put this in and it doesn't work out, the hospice world is going to look at us. And public humiliation, that is one of the greatest fears in humanity. You see all the stuff going on in social media. And sometimes it's not the financial penalties that people pay that they fear. They fear their name in the paper.
Speaker 2:You know, they fear people looking bad. And, of course, a spiritual person wants to be in good standing with everybody. You know, careful not to offend people and and respectful and and kind of that razor's edge. But, for CEOs, that is a reason that a lot of folks won't do it. What will my peers think?
Speaker 2:A lot of times, I'll just say this. This is this is another kind of strange thing about groups, peer groups, and all hospices getting together. We're gonna share best known practices. Well, guess what? That group often is what's gonna hold you back.
Speaker 2:That group will hold you back. It's just like in Hawaii. Virtually all the hospices in Hawaii are MBI. It's been that way for years and we love Hawaii. And but they I they told me the story about the black crabs.
Speaker 2:And, you know, there's a guy on the beach and he had this pail of black crabs and, of course, the tourist comes by and says, hey, you better put a lid on that. You know, they're gonna get out. And, you know, the guy, the Hawaiian said, yeah, you don't have to worry about that. As soon as one of them gets its leg up and starts to get out, the other ones will pull them back in. And that is what groups and often what peer groups will do to folks.
Speaker 2:Now, I'm not saying not to be part of peer groups. You want to glean what you can from those groups, but the inherent nature is if you start doing really well, they're gonna hate you. If you're gonna I mean, if hey, you better do words. I mean, you're making us all look bad here. I mean, can you kinda like cool your quality?
Speaker 2:Screw up more. I mean, that's sometimes the kind of message or vibe that sent off. Bill, you want to say something there?
Speaker 3:What you're talking about reminds me of one of the most courageous CEOs that we have worked with. She was in a state group, and she wanted to implement the model and compensation. And these people actively derided her. They belittled her for thinking that that she could be better than she was. Let me put that a little differently.
Speaker 3:For thinking that she could use something as mundane as compensation, something as base, as low as compensation to to to raise her scores and productivity. And the fact that she actually wanted to live on on on operational, k, profits or residuals rather than on just public donations. But, you know, she did it anyway. And now she's very profitable. She's very strong.
Speaker 3:Her cap scores are very high. And theirs? I'm thinking of two. Two of the hospices that were really tough on her. None of the above.
Speaker 3:None. Yeah. None. And rather than seeing that as a win and wanting to duplicate it, they're angry.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And unfortunately, that's again, this is get real feel. That's the nature of herds. Okay.
Speaker 2:So anyway, so in troubled times, I mean, put this way, troubled times are usually the ideal times to change a compensation system. Okay. So if an organization is in some trouble, almost out of business, or just has some real warts or things they don't like, that is the perfect time to implement a compensation system. That is the natural world giving you an indication to pay attention to something, to do something to heal this situation. Pay attention to me.
Speaker 2:Do something. The world, nature is providing motivation to do something. So, troubled times, good thing. Not demonize anything. So again, quickly, almost everything that can be measured can be put on a normally distributed bell curve.
Speaker 2:By the way, and and, you know, probably the highest calibration things are beyond measurement. So really only the lower order things can be measured. I mean, try measuring love or compassion or even a hit song. I mean, I don't have a thermometer I can stick in a song and say, hey, Like when I we put out a fall the world overwrite, I had no idea that was gonna show up in the billboard. Okay.
Speaker 2:So the higher things in in life are beyond measurement. A lot most of us get that, But those lower order things have great value and, of course, help us a great deal, especially in this empirical sciences and all that. So here we have a normally distributed bell curve, and here's the fiftieth percentile, which we'll call the mean or average median. That's the place where all the measures of central tendency converge or the herd or the huddled masses. We have to know the fiftieth percentile that have any legitimate claim of being a professional in anything.
Speaker 2:Right? Again, if I was in Detroit and an expert on automobiles, would I not know the average cost of a bumper? And what can I do with the knowledge of the average cost of the bumper? Well, I can look at bumpers and say, hey, that's a that's an expensive bumper or that's a low cost bumper, but without that, I am an amateur. And most people in hospice land, and I find in most professions or professions know very little about what they actually do or even the central measurements of where most folks are.
Speaker 2:But we have to know that that fiftieth percentile. So but what we're talk what we're talking about in this program is the red x or what we call the ninetieth percentile, the outliers, and that's why there's they're they're different. And we know three things three things about every hospice we've ever seen or home care organization that lives here. Every one of them have this. They have unique and powerful methods of people development.
Speaker 2:They have great training systems, basically. They have focused on that because they know that the mission is only done or accomplished through people. Duh. So you work on your people system. Okay.
Speaker 2:Developing. All all our assets and as well as liabilities are walking in the halls. Okay. Two. They are highly spiritual organizations.
Speaker 2:This is especially in the case of a hospice. Now, where does that show up in the financials or in benchmarking or It doesn't. You'd actually have to probably know the CEO or the leaders of that organization or get them vibe because there's just not a GL account that said spirituality or meter. But and this makes sense when you think about it because what is the central demographic of people that work in hospice? They're spiritually oriented.
Speaker 2:When they come into it, what are the words they use to describe it? That I was called, I was led, which means they're looking for meaning and purpose. I wanted to do significant work. So, every one of those either consciously, all the CEOs, either consciously or unconsciously had the spiritual element that caused them to be able to attract these special people as well as retain these people. And if you have turnover, I just did a presentation for NHPCO yesterday.
Speaker 2:If you have turnover greater than 20% and really it needs to be 10%, you don't have really much quality going on because basically you're turning over people all the time, which means you're not nurturing the very demographic that they signed up for which is meaning and purpose, significant work. Because people don't leave an organization because they burn out because it's hard work. No. It's that they lose the vision. They lose their sense of meaning and purpose.
Speaker 2:A form of compensation which is environmental, which is the highest form of compensation. It's not really the money. It is the work atmosphere. So let's be clear about that. Okay.
Speaker 2:So spirituality. And three, each one of these organizations in the red x or the ninetieth percentile have unique and different compensation practices. You won't find just salary, hourly, just stuff you can see anywhere. They'll have they're doing it different. They're either paying a lot more or we have some, like one one of our hospices pays a lot less or uses a lot more volunteers or whatever ism.
Speaker 2:But they're all but they're doing it different. Because how in the world could you expect to get a different result unless you're unless you were doing things different, which translates into operational practices, what you're actually doing. Okay. Just like when we are building this hospice, this is the only Baldridge winning hospice. We started it in the holiday and looked at each other, me and the CEO, and said, hey, let's let's just use take everything we know about the model and put it in one place.
Speaker 2:In the six years, we grew from zero to about a thousand patients. Here is the highest valued hospice in history at the time. And I sold my block a long time ago, but this is the only hospice that's ever ever won at Baldrige. And that's beating out not just hospices. I mean, you know, you're going against Federal Express.
Speaker 2:You're going against so you've got to have incredible quality. But that's the outlier thinking. Okay. And the cool thing, I'll just say this, is that bell curve is always with us and that the herd is slow. And so you can just get so far out in front of your, friends, competitors, peer group that they don't even see your dust.
Speaker 2:Okay. But you have to see it before you can build it. So let's build this compensation system. Okay. In the manual, again, I said I was gonna follow this to a great extent.
Speaker 2:Okay. Page 22. Again, a fat bank account is the most convincing evidence of profitability. Why? Your investments, all that are accumulation of profits over time, whereas anybody can slash costs in the short run and have a great bottom line, at least temporarily.
Speaker 2:But is it sustainable? Right or wrong, the world measures success in financial terms. Just recognizing that we live in a superficial world that judges on appearance and portrayal glittering generalities rather than the real substance of life, which is, as hospice people, we better get. It's about now. Past is that.
Speaker 2:Future hasn't even happened. All you have is today. So, we have a world that, again, very superficial, external oriented rather than internal. Okay. Okay.
Speaker 2:Page 23. What are your options if you don't use creative compensation practices? Okay. So, just follow along in the manual. There are four options.
Speaker 2:You can use the same traditional methods and you're going to get the same results just like we talked about. You're gonna get mediocrity normally if you're average. And by the way, your numbers are your truth. So wherever you are with your measurements, that's where you are. By the way, that's the best you can do too.
Speaker 2:Because if you knew better, you'd be doing better. I've had CEOs say, Well, Andrew, could do better than this. And I said, No, you can't. First of all, if you could be doing better CEO and you're not, you should be fired because that totally stinks. It lacks integrity.
Speaker 2:You may intellectually know what to do but the fact that you don't have the emotional whatever to actually do what's right, to me, disqualifies you from your position. Of course, I say it in the nicest way possible. Okay. Two, you can use hard ass management. So if you're not gonna use this compensation system, okay, you can put on your your your big boots and kick people in place and micromanage and make sure people are doing their jobs like, you know, old school management would tell you.
Speaker 2:The model would never tell you to do that. They want peep. The model is not about making sure people do their jobs and overseeing people, lording over people. It is about creating conditions for success where people can self regulate, self regulate, self control, where they know the standards and they know when they go too far here, they need to go back here and that is what the model so very different than traditional management. But if you're not gonna do this kind of system, you don't have many options.
Speaker 2:So get on the big boots and start kicking people's ass. Not a very pleasant way to live. And guess what? Most people won't do it, especially hospice people because we're so nice and should be. I mean, I want goodness flowing by the cord through our veins.
Speaker 2:Okay. Three. You can also become a highly, highly spiritually evolved organization. And you hire people that just want to do the standards of the organization and they just naturally self regulate and do what's necessary and good because it's just flowing out of them. And that's pretty easy to manage.
Speaker 2:But my question is, I mean, you either got big boots or you can highly evolve people, but I mean, how many people have done that? How many hospices have done the highly spiritual? Some think they're angels and have halos. Okay. Or your fourth thing is you can use creative compensation practices based on what others have done and get fantastic results.
Speaker 2:Okay. So page 24 here. Again, why and really would say we'll we'll talk about the compensation system as an accountability or empowerment pay. The language we use as we go through the rollout, you know, shortly we're going be getting into how do you roll these systems out and all that because that makes a big difference. A lot of it has to do with your language, how you phrase it, how you teach it, especially in that initial phase where people are getting used to the new.
Speaker 2:Later on, it'll become ingrained and people won't even think about this is just the way we roll here. But so your language. So that's why I'm using the words rather than like performance pay. You'll see performance pay sometimes in the manual. Kind of going away from that because you kinda kinda has that feeling.
Speaker 2:Again, you can set yourself in the feeling, you know, the patient chair or employee chair and start testing words like performance pay. God, I kind of feel like I'm in in in the squirrel cage, you know? Or what about empowerment pay? That that actually the compensation system is empowering me. I like that a lot better.
Speaker 2:Or how we teach accountability, owning your life without blaming others and which is the topic of liberation. Oh, okay. Well, there's lot more to that. Okay. So, why this?
Speaker 2:Because it works. Okay. Again, we've already said this. People behave the way they're paid and we all get paid in every situation. Even volunteers get paid.
Speaker 2:Mother Teresa got paid. How'd she get paid? Through karma, feeling good. All your volunteers are getting paid. They're not doing it just for nothing.
Speaker 2:They're getting paid through feeling better. And so, again, we're just recognizing this reality. And that an organization's biggest gains will come from its attraction and retention and compensations of talent. And compensation is the number one tool to shape behavior.
Speaker 1:We hope you are having the best day of your life. If you need something further, just visit one of the Multiview Incorporated websites or contact us through social media. Smoke signals, carrier pigeons, telepathy have not proven reliable. All calls are answered within three rings by a competent real person. Thank you for listening.
