I love to brag on my team! Our team is unique and if you’ve been in our office it is something that you can tangibly feel. Our average tenure is nearly 16 years so the team at OSS is comprised of many long term experienced team members. We have a culture which values and embodies respect, synergy and efficiency.
A few years back we spent quite a bit of time defining our team culture, and putting into words what makes our team so effective. We worked with Bruce, a consultant and team coach, who ran us through a great team exercise. The exercise began by each team member individually choosing the 10 most important principles in our culture. After each team member had their own top 10, we then combined all of the lists to see which principles repeated with the most frequency. This list then became the team combined top 10 principles.
After choosing our principles the team was tasked with finding ways to make sure that our work life embodies those principles. Each team group: clinic, front desk, lab, financial, supply, and marketing came up with their own list of actions and behaviors that are expected to consistently uphold the team principles.
Here’s an example of how we apply our number one principle in the office…When dealing with problem resolution we start with recognition of the issue and then take personal ownership of any problems that we encounter, PRIOR to communicating concern to others. Once an area of concern is identified, we ask questions to clearly define it and understand it in detail. We each look at our own individual abilities first to see what can be done “by me” to resolve the problem. Lastly if others need to change their behavior in order for resolution to occur one basic rule applies: We “Speak the truth to one another in love.”
The reason the team works hard to implement the principles in daily work is because the principles were not laid down by me or forced upon the team…they were chosen BY the team.
