The Danger of "Work-Around" Cultures

(MoneyWatch)  In many hospitals, nurses overcome obstacles to providing good patient care by inventing work-arounds. For example, they might grab a blood pressure kit from another unit without following procedure.

Work-arounds might also be part of organizations that empower front line workers to "put the customer first, no matter what the price."

But work-arounds, if they are deeply ingrained in the culture as a normal way of getting things done, can have an insidious effect on an organization. That's because the problem that prompted the work-around in the first place is not dealt with.

According to Harvard Business School professor Anita Tucker:

"When nurses engage in a work-around, they report the problem just 7% of the time. So the people who know about problems lack the authority to fix them, and the people who can fix problems don't know about them."

In hospitals, these "patch-it" solutions lead to more errors, wasted time (up to 1 hour in a 7.5-hour shift), promote burnout and create a sour culture of 'That's just the way it is around here.'

Tucker's current research is focused on determining solutions to work-around cultures. But clearly, here's one you can do as a manager: Promote an environment where institutional bottlenecks are reported, rather than worked-around. And if that's not always possible, keep any eye out for work-around employees and understand the problems they are trying to fix.

Are work-arounds a part of your company's culture? Are people who create them considered heroes?

(Photo by Flickr user chrisdlugosz, CC 2.0)