How does humility play a vital role in back-office success? The Modern Healthcare Back Office podcast recently invited Prochant’s VP of Client Success Diana Di Pierro to speak about intellectual humility in HME back-office operations. Explore the benefits it can open up for your team and how it can help with your personal goals.
Intellectual Humility
Understanding and incorporating humility into both short-term and long-term strategies is essential for lasting achievement. Having intellectual humility means you have the ability to listen to others’ thoughts and recognize that sometimes you might need to change your mind or open yourself up to alternative ideas.
This concept is incredibly important for HME. After all, what’s the one major consistency across the industry? It’s in a state of constant change. Embracing intellectual humility can improve day-to-day communication within your back-office team.
What does it mean to be humble? Humility encourages you to check your ego at the door.
If you’ve been in the HME industry for years, you probably have a certain way you like to go about things. For your new hires, some just coming into the industry, their experiences and perspectives can make it seem like they come from an entirely different world, especially in the age of smartphones and new tech.
As a CEO or manager, be willing to hear ideas from staff about how to solve an issue, share your own experience, and then, together, figure out the next step. You might be surprised by what you learn.
Who to Surround Yourself With
“The best thing any person can do is surround themselves with people who have different opinions or ideas,” Diana said on the podcast. Be able to relax your mind and not get defensive. Unfortunately, none of us has all the answers. As the famous saying goes, “Be teachable. You're not always right.”
Practicing Humility in the Workplace
To further apply intellectual humility to a business environment, take your team meetings into account.
Presenting new ideas
If you have an idea you’re excited about, have the confidence to present your idea in a meeting and do not get defensive about it.
Diana often tells her team, “Be careful, because you just called my baby ugly, and nobody likes for their baby to be called ugly.”
If you realize you get defensive when someone disagrees with your approach or asks too many questions, say to yourself, “Wait a minute. They don't even know my baby. They've never seen my baby. What they're saying is, ‘This thing you just mentioned, I've got an idea about it. I'd love to see your baby, show me more, but first, here are my questions…’”
Be able to separate your idea from yourself and understand people aren't necessarily attacking your idea just because they have a question or new thought about it.
Connecting with your whole team
If there’s someone on your team who’s very intelligent yet quiet, who you know will never speak up in a meeting, make it a priority to get that person’s perspective as well. Don’t only listen to the people who are extremely vocal and opinionated.
Getting everyone’s perspective will ensure you have a well-rounded conversation that will also strengthen team bonding.
Give yourself some slack
As you practice having more intellectual humility and active listening skills in the workplace, give yourself some slack as well. It’s okay to ask for help as you navigate through new challenges. After all, that’s an important part of having humility.
Interested in learning more about this concept or how to better communicate within your back office? You can connect with Diana on LinkedIn here.
Listen to the full episode:
Prochant has a proven track record of helping HME and pharmacy providers meet their financial goals. Our scalable solutions, years of experience, and advanced technology provide best-in-class results to the healthcare community. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, our client base includes national pharmacy and HME providers and health systems.