Shared governance

Last week I was in a leadership retreat for a couple of day.  This gave me some ideas for some changes I want to make as a leader and how I make decisions on the unit.  As a nurse I have always disliked staff meetings.  It is just sitting there listening to the manager spit out information…..blah, blah, blah.
As a manager, I feel the same way.  I make the staff come in on their day off and blah, blah, blah I sit there and regurgitate information to them.  No wonder attendance at staff meetings is terrible.

What I decided is that if my unit wants to truly have shared governance and be a part of decision making on our unit, then I am going to change how I run my staff meetings.  For regulatory and hospital policy reasons, I will have to do the blah, blah part.  But, I am going to devote the majority of the time at my staff meetings to group discussion.  We will pick a topic each month (actually every 6 to 8 weeks) and discuss how we can make things better for our patients and for us by streamlining our operations.

By doing this, the staff will be accountable for making the decisions, deciding how it will be accomplished, and then can be held accountable for their outcomes, since they decided how things are going to be done.

Obviously I still have to have control, I will tell them the issues, where we are right now, and were we have to be when completed.  Beyond that, they can come up, within hospital policy, how we will get there.

I feel that nurses respond best to change when they can be a part of the change.  At least that how I have always been as a nurse.