Viewing ‘Polarity Management’ Category

Seeing, mapping, tapping polarities: try this one – Activity/Rest

by Laurie Levknecht

Do you find yourself hardly able to make it to work on Monday morning because you are so sore from all the great exercise you did on the weekend? (Weekend warrior!!)  You say “I thought they said exercise was good for you. From now on, I think I will just lie on the couch.”

Perhaps knowing about polarities can help you with this dilemma. Polarities are seemingly unsolvable issues that are really interdependent pairs that need each other over time in pursuit of a common purpose. In this case, the common purpose is a healthy life! These polarities can be placed on a four quadrant map that contains upsides and downsides. All four quadrants must be acknowledged and acted upon. If you do not pay attention to both sides of the polarity (in this case activity and rest), there is 100% predictability you will end up in the downside, just like our weekend warrior.

Here is what the activity-rest polarity looks like when it is “mapped” (the paradoxes are placed on the four quadrant map). The content of the quadrant, the action steps (keeping you in the upside or moving you there), and the early warning signs (telling you that you are in the downside) can be specific to you.

Fill in your own map and “tap” the oscillating energy to keep you BOTH off the couch AND active in a healthy way.

Next time, I will map a healthcare polarity for you to SEE-MAP and TAP!

To learn more about Polarity Thinking for Healthcare we have some workshops and free webinars available. You can download this flyer for more information.

2011 ANIA – Caring Conference: Polarity Management™: Identifying and Managing “unsolvable problems” in Health Care Technology

by Laurie Levknecht

Just last month, I was fortunate to have a poster accepted for the 2011 ANIA-Caring conference in Las Vegas. The purpose of the poster was to stimulate conversation around those polarities that show up in health care technology. In case you have not heard about polarities, they are seemingly unsolvable issues that are really interdependent pairs of opposite or competing values or points of view. These polarities can be placed on a four quadrant map that contains upsides and downsides. All four quadrants must be acknowledged and acted upon. In addition, organizations must know the action steps to manage each polarity, and recognize the early warning signs that are predictive of movement towards the downside.

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Transforming Healthcare in Partnership with Management Engineers: My Key Learnings

by Laurie Levknecht

I had the good fortune to present at the recent Society for Health Systems conference in Orlando, Florida held prior to the large HIMSS Annual Conference. I thought I’d share a few of my observations with you about what it was like to be at a conference that brought another perspective to our transformation work.

The Society for Health Systems, a part of the Institute of Industrial Engineering, is a resource and support association that serves the needs of healthcare professionals throughout the world by contributing to the improvement of healthcare processes through systems engineering, analysis and process improvement methods. SHS applies engineering principles to health care to improve efficiencies, quality, safety and cost.  Hospitals and health care systems may employ or contract with industrial health engineers or healthcare management engineers to co- lead process improvement work, often through the use of LEAN and/or Six Sigma tools.  Web site:  (www.shsconference.org)

There were about 350 people at this conference, including clinicians, health care administrators, process improvement leaders, academic colleagues and performance engineers.  It was a delight to hear so many perspectives on the work necessary to transform healthcare.

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