$240B Lost Productivity by Waiting

If you arrived for your noon meeting on time and the sales rep you were supposed to meet didn't show until 1:45 pm with no apology, no reason, no information and seemingly no remorse, would you still buy? Would you respect them ever again?

So how come this has become an acceptable practice at a doctor's office? Why do you lay down and take it and not say anything? Your time is just as valuable as the doctor's time. The doctor runs a practice which is a business. If enough people complain about unacceptable wait times, the doctor, in good conscience, will stop triple-booking appointments and start informing you when they're running two hours behind so you don't have to sit there un-respected for two hours.

Waiting in doctor's offices accounts for $240 billion a year in lost productivity (Source: Alan B. Krueger, Economics Professor, Princeton University) from waiting 847 million hours in waiting rooms unnecessarily.

Airlines have found a way to inform you when your flight is going to be late (phone calls, email and text updates) and delayed flights impact hundreds of passengers at a time. I got a call yesterday that the Simon and Garfunkel show I have tickets for Sunday has been rescheduled. There were 20,000 tickets sold and 20,000 people were notified by phone. So how come doctor's offices can't tell 6 people the doctor is running an hour late? It wouldn't take 5 minutes to inform an hours worth of patients by text message, phone call or email that the doctor is running an hour late. All it would take is a small dose of respect for the patient.

If you are scheduled to visit a doctor today, make him or her accountable to your scheduled time (15-20 minutes late is acceptable). Say something. Complain. You have a right. It may be that the doctor is not even aware of how the office staff is scheduling and stacking patients. Make the doctor aware. Tell the doctor that you don't feel respected. And if you've been hit financially because of the wait, send the doctor an invoice for your lost time.

Filter-Free Friday™ is the day you speak up, get the respect you deserve and help others become better at what they do. Sitting in a waiting room for hours needlessly is not acceptable so don't pretend that it is. Speak up and say something.
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Kevin Burns - Excellence Attitude/Culture Strategist
Speaking Web Site http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

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Attitude of Workplace Integrity

Question: What is the best approach if integrity in the workplace is compromised? I am preparing material to teach integrity in the workplace and one of the questions I have in my brown bag discussion is how one should respond if he/she thinks integrity is compromised. I would like to emphasize that integrity in the workplace can also be as simple as not honoring a contract or agreement with an employee with a justification that management has had a change of mind and direction; or it can be a case of reporting incomplete data to the boss so you make a good impression. What is your suggestion?

Answer: Someone with personal integrity wouldn't shortcut answers so reporting incomplete data wouldn't be an issue. Not honoring contracts or not honoring agreements, again, are all PERSONAL integrity issues.

There is NO corporate integrity since all decisions and all actions are carried out by people, ultimately it comes down to one person's decision to do the wrong thing consciously. If you work with someone like that and it goes against your integrity, then you are consciously allowing that other person's lack of integrity to be stronger than what you believe.

And you can't say that you don't have a choice. You always have a choice to do the right thing - unless your courage is less than your integrity.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: If you don't have the courage to speak up when you see something wrong, if you refuse to act or voice your concerns because you're afraid then you are allowing someone else's beliefs to dictate what you do. It means you don't have integrity of your own. Allowing unfulfilled agreements to go on means that you don't really stand for anything. That means you can't play the integrity card. Your actions would dictate your lack of it.

If you're afraid to voice your concerns on honesty, fairness, truth and respect then you really need to find a new line of work - something where "integrity" won't be an issue.

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Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

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