Sell Your Success

I knew a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force who regularly walloped me at cribbage. His secret was a mean pegging game that he lost no time explaining to me--in excruciating detail--after each win. Laughing, he would say, "You can only gloat when you're ahead."

The good Colonel had a point--not to gloat, an ugly word connoted with malice--but to sell success while we can. Accomplishments should be celebrated and advertised to make others aware of your laboratory, something to think about as National Medical Laboratory Week approaches. Does your laboratory sell success?

There are two very good reasons for doing so.

First, selling success allows your staff to take pride in their work. Consider your hospital's efforts to celebrate nurses, for example. How much space is devoted in hospital newsletters, on bulletin boards, and in press releases to the success of these visible caregivers? How many service excellence awards are given to nurses for exceptional patient care? How often are the skills, education and credentials of nurses highlighted? Nurses afford this self-celebration.

Tell other departments about a drop in cost per test, a decrease in turnaround time or new technology. Highlight new certification, attendance at a seminar or professional affiliations.  Chances are, the rest of the hospital doesn't have a clue what happens in your laboratory.  Letting them know says, "We're great too!" and sends a message to staff that it's OK to feel proud.

Second, selling success allows others to take pride in your laboratory. As part of a healthcare team, the laboratory recognizes its own role in the success of other departments. The reciprocal is true, of course. Other departments should be allowed to bask in the unique success of the laboratory--finance for negotiating a cost-saving contract, human resources for helping recruit the best people and nursing for their complementary role in patient care.

To be recognized, you must be recognizable. Taking time to sell success will elevate your laboratory and motivate staff. Just don't beat the nurses at cribbage and gloat about it.