Lack of Engagement: Misunderstood Motives

Last week, we began exploring the lack of engagement pervasive across the healthcare industry. Nearly every healthcare professional, physicians in particular, will be subject to this struggle at least once during their career. Often, healthcare leaders misunderstand this apparent lack of engagement as a physician withholding their “best effort”, as mentioned last week, which leads us deeper into the chasm of misunderstood motives.

Nearly every time I present to a group of physician leaders, someone inevitably complains, with some variation, that physicians only care about money. 

I see where this complaint comes from. I’ve been on both sides of situations where physicians demand more money or leverage their position against some monetary ultimatum. But once this complaint is fully unpacked, it’s an incomplete observation at best. When physician leaders do interact with their physicians in a one-on-one capacity (as discussed previously in our Lack of Communication section) it’s often already a negative situation. Commonly, a physician is at their wits’ end with their work situation, feeling unheard, unsupported, and not treated like the highly trained expert that they are. So, they come into their supervisor’s office angry, ready to play their final card: ask for a raise that may tempt them to stay. 

All the physician leader hears is, “I want a raise, I’m not respected,” not realizing that they have, perhaps inadvertently, neglected to meet their physicians’ daily work needs and pushed them towards playing this desperate card, working with the only currency they have left.  

From the physicians’ perspective: They’ve risen above competition to get into medical school, taken on an absurd amount of debt, and paid their dues in the typically unsupportive environment known as medical residency. All under the impression that they would one day be treated as a respected expert in their field. Now, their current boss doesn’t communicate well, and doesn’t seem to be willing to understand their professional or personal needs in their new work environment...so they attempt to negotiate for at least better pay. 

While it may be an easy story to imagine and understand, it’s a difficult problem to solve. Seemingly different motives from physician leaders and physicians, plus the other essential elements lacking in a typical hospital or health organization environment, create a web of dysfunction that’s a challenge to untangle.

Next week we’ll continue to weave this web of problems, interlocking, interlacing and overlapping one another. As we can already see, lack of communication greatly contributes to the lack of engagement seen across the industry, leading inevitably to a lack of retention over time. No problem is an island. And while it may seem overwhelming while we’re in the weeds, for the daring healthcare leader, solutions do exist. Don’t despair quite yet!