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Veterinary Practice News Editorial Blog:
Friday, October 9, 2009
Playing Hopscotch with the Org Chart
By Katherine Dobbs, RVT, CVPM, PHR
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Do you remember playing hopscotch? There are those numbered boxes, one on top of the other, sometimes two in horizontal row, stretching out in front of you on the sidewalk. You throw a rock on to the next numbered square, and hop along the trail of boxes, skipping the one with the rock in it. Hopefully you have the picture. This may be a fun game to play on a summer day with friends, but it is no way to manage a veterinary practice.
So let me be specific. Every business has an organizational chart, whether it’s written on paper or not. It is simply an image representing the flow of authority, and therefore communication, within the group. If you have a problem, you go to the next box above yours. If they need to, they take this problem up to the next box above them, and so on. Even without the diagram being drawn on a page in your employee manual, you probably have a good idea of who you’re supposed to report to. It’s probably also the person who is your immediate supervisor.
What happens when I have a problem that is ABOUT my direct supervisor, and I’m at the bottom of this organizational chart? I’m allowed to skip that box right on top (pretend it has my rock in it), and go to the person above THAT person—likely the practice or hospital manager. What should THAT manager do? They should try to help me, but there is a specific way this should “go down,” as they say.
After I spill my guts, that manager should ask me if I’ve tried to work this out yet with my supervisor. I have not, because I don’t like confrontation (let’s pretend), and that’s why I’m in the manager’s office. If that manager now takes my concerns to my supervisor by themselves, what do you think will happen? Well, the supervisor is going to want details that the manager probably can’t provide, the supervisor is going to want a dialogue or discussion which cannot happen with the manager, and so the manager goes back and forth between us trying to resolve this issue. Not good, and we get nowhere.
Instead, the manager should now wear the hat called “Mediator.” He or she should listen to my concerns, and then invite the supervisor in for a meeting with me. With the manager looking on, and interrupting only as needed, the supervisor and I need to talk this out. I talk about my feelings, he or she tells me about their reasons, and we come to some sort of mutually acceptable conclusion. Would this have happened without the manager’s intervention? Maybe, but not necessarily. And then there would be no witness; it is simply my word against the supervisor’s as to how the conversation went down. This way with the trio meeting, the manager has heard us try to work it out, heard what resolution we arrived at, and can monitor the situation to see how things go in the future. It’s the best of worlds for each of us.
The next time you have a problem, think of hopscotch. How far do you need to throw your rock?
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Playing Hopscotch with the Org Chart
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