Last month, we celebrated Everlab’s 1st birthday. It’s been a wild year and we’ve accomplished a lot over the last 12 months.
But things have also gone wrong (more than we’d like).
Here’s one example of something that went wrong recently, and how we’ve tried to learn and improve from it.
One of our members was scheduled for an ECG with one of our partners. One day before their appointment, Fergus (our care manager) called the partner to confirm they had a working ECG machine on-site. The very next day, the ECG machine was broken when our member arrived. Our non-scalable solution (calling in advance) didn’t work - but I’m glad we tried it anyways!
What did we learn?
1/ Plan for all scenarios (e.g. pre-mortems).
Problems are inevitable. Spend some time upfront planning out what could go wrong. But recognise that you might still get caught out. Shout out to Fergus, who thought ahead to call and check for the member, exemplifying our Customer Obsession company value. Great planning, process and execution, just not the result we wanted.
2/ Don’t make excuses (e.g. say sorry).
It's easy to get defensive. After all, we did call the partner and confirm the ECG machine was working. But at the end of the day, the buck stops with us. The member put their trust in us, and we were the ones at fault. A simple “I’m sorry” goes a long way. Take responsibility.
3/ Swarm the problem (e.g. find a fix).
We created a Slack chat, and the relevant folks jumped in and prioritised solving the issues with one clear owner driving the outcome (Fergus again). In our next retro, we identified what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future. And then we updated our Hulk board ("Days since last incident" KPI).
As we reimagine preventative healthcare, we aim to deliver high-quality service 100% of the time in an operationally complex business. But even when we do our best, we still somtimes come up short. And this will only get harder as we start to move into our next stage of growth.
What do you do when things don’t go as planned? Share your thoughts. 👇
Motion Graphic Designer at Lantek
2wMine is already at home! ❄️🎄❄️