People say that they hate change. But it’s not true.

We love babies, weddings and graduation. We love new homes and cars and retirement.

Everyone loves positive change that we control, but we get stressed when other people make us move.

So most of us avoid asking for change. We know it threatens people. Asking for change means we want something better, or different.

Change & The New OMA

The OMA started renovation this spring: a new group of Board members, a governance retreat/renewal and then a major strategy planning session. Now the hard work begins.

Change means we find new and better ways to act. It means we work in concert.

Kotter

Change interrupts usual workflow. We stop doing some things, start doing others and redefine ourselves in the process. Change is scary.  If it isn’t, it probably isn’t real change. Continue reading “Change & The New OMA”

Every doctor has seen or done something horrible to an old, dying patient.

Armed with good intentions, we spot a gasping 95 year old and jump into action. We snap open a laryngoscope blade, hoist her jaw into the air and shove in a tube to relieve her “upper airway obstruction”.

Our technical prowess is matched only by our moral purity. But we accomplish something grotesque and wrong.

Doctors must learn to identify sick patients and how to resuscitate them. But these skills cause harm if doctors do not learn what comes between diagnosis and treatment.

Before treatment, we must ask: Why?  

Purpose Before Process

A governance expert entertained a large group of doctors in Toronto this weekend. He summarized a graduate textbook on board governance in 40 minutes, for a group who had very little board experience.

It was brilliant, funny and almost useless. Continue reading “Governance Renewal – Ask Why Before How”

In 1880, doctors got together and built a house called the OMA. It was a small house with a big living room and magnificent doors that were always open.

The house helped doctors. That was its only purpose.

Over time, caretakers of the house found that friendship with power helped doctors. Soon the house was full of courtiers, with the doors closed. And soon after that, the doors stayed closed all the time.

The magnificent doors came to represent the whole building. They protected the building. It was their fiduciary duty.

Today, the OMA is on fire. Politicians lit the fire. But once the fire started, those in charge of the OMA ignored the smoke. In fact, many say that the caretakers could have prevented the fire altogether, if they had spent less time wringing their hands and courting power. Continue reading “The OMA is on Fire”