Wooden's Wisdom | Leadership Resource Center

Issue 669 - "Successful Innovation" (Daniel Coyle and John Wooden)


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 13	Issue 669
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"SUCCESSFUL INNOVATION" (DANIEL COYLE AND JOHN WOODEN) John Wooden Video Clip (1 min. 36 sec.): Coach Wooden (at age 98) is asked by Terry Donahue to share his poem: "Don’t look back". Coach Wooden wrote: "All change may not be progress, but all progress is the result of change." If change is to result in progress it must be made properly. In his book, The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle provides a wonderful example of how to do that: "In 1998 a team of Harvard researchers led by Amy Edmondson tracked sixteen surgical teams learning to perform a new heart surgery procedure. Each of the sixteen teams took the identical three-day training program, then returned to their hospitals and started performing the procedure. The question was, which team would learn the fastest and most effectively? The Chelsea Hospital team looked like it would win. Chelsea was an elite teaching hospital in a metropolitan area. Its cardiac surgery team was led by Dr. C, a nationally recognized expert who had been involved in designing the procedure and who had already performed it more than sixty times. At the other end of the scale was the team from Mountain Medical Center, which was smaller, not a teaching institution, and located in a rural area. Its team was led by Dr. M, a young surgeon who had never done the procedure and who had a similarly inexperienced team around him. Chelsea’s team did not win. To the contrary: It was slower to learn, and its skill plateaued after ten procedures. After six months, Chelsea ranked tenth out of sixteen teams. The Mountain Medical team, on the other hand, learned fast and well. By the twentieth procedure, Mountain Medical was completing successful surgeries a full hour faster than Chelsea and were reporting high rates of efficiency and satisfaction. After six months, Mountain Medical ranked second out of the sixteen teams.v The sixteen hospitals fell into two groups: teams that had high success and teams that had low success. Two of the clear differences between the successful and unsuccessful hospitals were: 1. Explicit encouragement to speak up: Successful teams were told by team leaders to speak up if they saw a problem; they were actively coached through the feedback process. The leaders of unsuccessful teams did little coaching, and as a result, team members were hesitant to speak up. 2. Active reflection: Between surgeries, successful teams went over performance, discussed future cases, and suggested improvements. For example, the team leader at Mountain Medical wore a head-mounted camera during surgery to help facilitate discussion and feedback. Unsuccessful teams tended not to do this." How do you implement innovation? Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 669. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 669. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE Don’t Look Back by John Wooden written at age 94 The years have left their imprint, on my hands and on my face, Erect no longer is my walk, and slower is my pace. But there is no fear within my heart because I am growing old, I only wish I had more time to better serve my Lord. When I have gone to Him in prayer, he has brought me inner peace. And soon my cares and worries and all my problems cease. He has helped me in so many ways, He has never let me down. Why should I fear the future, when soon I could be near His crown. Though I know down here my time is short, there is endless time up there. And He will forgive and keep me, ever in His loving care. May I not waste an hour that is left, to glorify the name, Of the One who died that we might live and for our sins took all the blame.
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