Piping In or Checking Out; The Delicate Balance

[DwayneEMTP]

See, I hate the correction in private, unless someone is getting a written warning/termination level correction.

At the last service I worked at in the states I screwed the pooch on something and was called in and we discussed it. The next time that we had a full crew meeting I brought it up and mentioned what I'd done, why, and what my thinking was after our meeting. I thought that the supervisor was going to have a stroke! His face was all red, he looked really nervous, because I'd brought up our private stuff...but it was an honest mistake, and an excellent learning point.

At the meeting I said, "From now on, I'd like all of my private meetings to be held in public where everyone can learn from them. I give everyone permission to say what you think out loud in front of everyone.." and immediately was told, "That would not be appropriate..."

The thing I hate worse about non serious offenses being taken care of in private is that it help propogate the negative stigma attached to mistakes, instead of celebrating them as parts of life and EMS, it says, "You made a mistake...let's hide your shame behind closed doors..."

[paramedicmike]

The thing I hate worse about non serious offenses being taken care of in private is that it help propogate the negative stigma attached to mistakes, instead of celebrating them as parts of life and EMS, it says, "You made a mistake...let's hide your shame behind closed doors..."

I disagree. No stigma is being attached unless you're the one attaching it. If you fail to celebrate your learning as a part of life and/or EMS then that failure falls on you.

This is not a matter of hiding shame behind closed doors. It's a personnel issue that, for the legal protection of the service involved, does not need to be aired publicly. Your boss was pissed because even though you were the subject of the personnel matter you, by airing the process/discussion publicly, opened the service up to liability by making public what should have been a private matter. And your boss was right. It would not be appropriate to discuss it publicly regardless of your preference.

[DFIB]

See, I hate the correction in private, unless someone is getting a written warning/termination level correction.

At the last service I worked at in the states I screwed the pooch on something and was called in and we discussed it. The next time that we had a full crew meeting I brought it up and mentioned what I'd done, why, and what my thinking was after our meeting. I thought that the supervisor was going to have a stroke! His face was all red, he looked really nervous, because I'd brought up our private stuff...but it was an honest mistake, and an excellent learning point.

At the meeting I said, "From now on, I'd like all of my private meetings to be held in public where everyone can learn from them. I give everyone permission to say what you think out loud in front of everyone.." and immediately was told, "That would not be appropriate..."

The thing I hate worse about non serious offenses being taken care of in private is that it help propogate the negative stigma attached to mistakes, instead of celebrating them as parts of life and EMS, it says, "You made a mistake...let's hide your shame behind closed doors..."

Wouldn't be prudent. http://youtu.be/4fTl-2YzZMI

[Just Plain Ruff]

Dwayne, that's the thing about correction. you do it in private as a personel issue because that way they can demonstrate a pattern of HR correction. If you do it in public then you as a employee can come back and say that your correctoin or HR actions were public and therefore biased and that is why they do them in private.

In the service I mentioned, all the correction or discipline had been done and we were able to discuss the negative and positive aspects of the call in a non-disciplinary and learning environment.

Made it much nicer to work there.

Now if something was in litigation or similar, those calls were never discussed.

[DwayneEMTP]

You're probably right Mike, though I don't see how anyone is opened to liability as long as HIPAA/Pt confidentiality is respected.

And I don't think that I've personally added the negative connotations at all. Things that you are ashamed of you deal with in hiding, things that you aren't you deal with publically. I don't see where that's even a little bit of a stretch.

DFIB, if we use this definition,

pru·dent

/ˈpro͞odnt/

Adjective

Acting with or showing care and thought for the future.

Synonyms

cautious - discreet - wary - careful - circumspect

Then prudent is exactly what it WOULD be, right? I think that we've continued this tact because of tradition, not because it's at all prudent.

[paramedicmike]

It's not necessarily a matter of HIPAA or patient care related liability. It's a matter of employer liabtility.

For example, you were "retrained" in a certain area after making a mistake. Another employee was fired for making the same mistake. By you making your personnel incident and retraining public you've now opened the employer to liability and potential legal trouble because the former employee found out you were only "retrained" where s/he was terminated.

I don't understand where your idea of shame comes into play. There are just some things that do not belong in public discussion. They don't belong they not because they are shameful. Rather, they belong there because it's nobody else's business. It's not always up to you to make that decision.

[DwayneEMTP]

If your example is to be used Mike, that is a weakness in the punitive practices of the service. There is no way that publically discussing mistakes changes the consistency of those practices, only makes them public. If you're afraid of people seeing your decision making processes in public then perhaps the issues lie in those policies instead.

I can see no way that I can give management permission to air my private issues publicall that would give them legal issues in the future. Though I've admittedly not worked in any services at politically charged as those that you have. Maybe that's where our difference of opinion lies?

[Just Plain Ruff]

I for one do not want my correction by management to be public. Dwayne, you are more than welcome to bring that correction into the public eye on your self but I don't want others to know that I've been disciplined. For one reason and one reason only. It's not anyone's business but mine and the companies.

If I make a stupid but human mistake and I'm disciplined, I want it private. I will tell those I want told, not everyone.

I know you well enough Dwayne to know that you are a open person and your willingness to have your mistakes out in the open speaks volumes of your willingness to teach but I'd rather implement my teachable moments on my terms not when and if a supervisor decides to discipline me, that I'll say "Nope, if you are going to discipline me do it in public so everyone can have a teachable moment". NOPE I'm not like that and if I mis-read your post earlier then I apologize and take this paragraph back.

But I want my discipline in private. Simple as that.

[DwayneEMTP]

I think that where we're looking at it differently is you guys seem to see the addressing of mistakes as a punitive issue always. And I don't really. In fact, unless someone has been purposely lazy or simply morally/ethically corrupt, I think that no mistakes need to be punished, but instead learned from. This attitude also makes it much more likely that people will admit and try and mitigate their own mistakes in the future...

I was recently in a Safety meeting where they'd discovered that a few weeks before a critical screen had been damaged by a boulder. No one reported it and it ended up in that whole machine being dmaged and shut down, as well as the entire mine process, for nearly two weeks costing millions of dollars. They were discussing how to prevent this from happening in the future. At the same meeting it was brought up that a man had accidently backed his truck up into a wooden pole in the dark. No significant damage to the pole or the truck. He'd parked his truck and reported it, as he was supposed to. It was decided at this meeting that he would be terminated for not paying attention, and then immediately the conversation went back to "how do get people to stop hiding their mistakes?"

I said, "Wait! How can you not see that you can't terminate the truck driver? He did exactly what you're wanting everyone to do and you're going to punish him for it? Does no one else think that that's a little bit crazy??" But they did it anyway, and the cycle continues...

The same in the EMS workplace. Employers say, "We need to discuss and learn from our mistakes. We need to be honest and open about them so that we can all improve." But then when a mistake is discovered it changes to, "Come into my office, we need to deal with this in private."

Does no one else see the counter productive inconsistency here?

Some of the most productive learning moments in my career have been when going into the ER having made a mistake. I'd say, "Doc, this is what I did...Sorry." and later, when there was time the doc, with only one exception that I can think of, would come and say, "So this is what happened, this seems to be your thinking, this is the path that would probably have been better, do you see that?" Very productive...Now, that's not been my experience very often when reporting mistakes to ER nurses, but with Docs it's almost always been positive and productive. Why should our daily workplace be any different?

[paramedicmike]

If your example is to be used Mike, that is a weakness in the punitive practices of the service. There is no way that publically discussing mistakes changes the consistency of those practices, only makes them public. If you're afraid of people seeing your decision making processes in public then perhaps the issues lie in those policies instead.

No. This isn't it at all.

This is not about a weakeness in what you are now calling punitive practices. This is strictly a personnel issue. It is not about being afraid of people finding out my decision making process. It is about protecting the employee(s) AND the service. That is what my example is trying to outline for you.

I can see no way that I can give management permission to air my private issues publicall that would give them legal issues in the future. Though I've admittedly not worked in any services at politically charged as those that you have. Maybe that's where our difference of opinion lies?

Then you're not looking past the surface of the example I offered. I think part of that is because, as you've noted, your experience may be at different types of services. But I also wonder what kind of previous management experience you've had in any industry as these practices have been in place in every single job I've ever had in my entire professional career.

I said, "Wait! How can you not see that you can't terminate the truck driver? He did exactly what you're wanting everyone to do and you're going to punish him for it? Does no one else think that that's a little bit crazy??" But they did it anyway, and the cycle continues...

The same in the EMS workplace. Employers say, "We need to discuss and learn from our mistakes. We need to be honest and open about them so that we can all improve." But then when a mistake is discovered it changes to, "Come into my office, we need to deal with this in private."

These are two completely different situations and scenarios and they don't relate to one another. Having someone come forward and admit their mistake is different from counseling after the fact. Had you said they pulled this truck driver aside and counseled either privately or publicly that would be more appropriate to the conversation at hand.