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April 27, 2009 NEWSLETTER
Doug Wojcieszak, Founder & Spokesperson
Contact phone/e-mail address: 618-559-8168; doug@sorryworks.net
THIS WEEK'S EDITION:
Special - But Sad - Note from New Jersey
SORRY WORKS! EDITORIAL: Practicing Sorry Works! Daily with Your Spouse, Significant Other..
Notes from Guy Carpenter Meeting in Las Vegas - insurers, reinsurers
- Great article to share: "I want you to apologize"
SPECIAL - BUT SAD - NOTE FROM NEW JERSEY
A couple weeks ago we lost a good friend: Tom Ricker of New Jersey. Tom died from an apparent heart attack in his home.
We met Tom Ricker approximately three years ago. Tom was a retired Merck executive who had been seriously injured by medical errors. Tom used his experience to help form an organization called "Voices for Patient Protection (VPP). VPP was involved in the New Jersey Governor's medical malpractice task force, and the group invited Sorry Works! Founder Doug Wojcieszak for a presentation to the task force in Trenton. Tom and his friends actually set up several presentations that hot summer day in 2006, and this led to many more presentations over the last three years in New Jersey. Tom and VPP remained strong supporters and friends over the last three years. Recently, we've received encouraging news in New Jersey with two major hospital systems reporting reductions in litigation by employing Sorry Works! tactics - however, the same news article showed that much work remained; many medical and legal professionals in the Garden State are still skeptical about disclosure. Tom was both heartened and motivated by this article - unfortunately, he passed shortly after the article was published.
Sorry Works! received an e-mail from his New Jersey friends notifying us of Tom's death and desire to do something to remember him. Then, literally a couple days after we learned about Tom's death, Sorry Works! received an e-mail from a major New Jersey hospital saying they had some extra Sorry Works! Books that they wanted to donate back to our company. This hospital had paid for a bulk order of Sorry Works! Books for Doctor's Day, and had over 100 unused books to donate back.
So, in Tom's memory we will be shipping these donated Sorry Works! Books to hospitals, insurance companies, and medical associations in New Jersey. Hopefully, this slew of Sorry Works! Books will push the discussion on disclosure further in New Jersey. We are sure that Tom would be happy.
Still, very curious timing about Tom's death and then, a couple days later, receiving the notice of unused books being donated back. There is a God, and good people like Tom Ricker are with Him. Rest in peace, Tom - you will be missed. And your family is in our prayers.
SORRY WORKS! EDITORIAL: PRACTICING SORRY WORKS! DAILY WITH YOUR SPOUSE, SIGNIFICANT OTHER...
by Doug Wojcieszak
As the Sorry Works! Founder, I spend A LOT of time hopping in & out of airplanes, and left home to take care of the three-year child is my wife of five years, Jeanne. Usually, when calling home, I can tell within five seconds if our three-year old, William, is being a good boy or not. I can hear it that quickly in my wife's voice.
Well, last week Jeanne got to tag along to the Guy Carpenter meeting in Las Vegas last week; William spent the week with Gram and Grandpa in Cincinnati. At dinner after the Sorry Works! presentation, one of the insurance company executives jokingly asked Jeanne if I was any good at apologizing.
We had a good laugh about the question, but the humorous inquiry did bring up an interesting point: Saying "sorry" to your spouse or significant other can actually be harder than apologizing to a customer, patient, family, or colleague. Reason being with your spouse you have a close, intimate history, and not all of it is good, whereas with a patient or customer you have an arms-length relationship that, up to that point in time, has generally been positive. Fights between couples can easily drudge up your last 10 or more fights, and one or both parties can also lob unrelated items into the fight such as in-laws, the kids, money, the holidays, or other hot button issues in the relationship. "Not fighting fair" is how relationship experts define this destructive behavior. Furthermore, husband/wife fights or confrontations can literally blind-side you...they can happen so quickly and so unexpectedly. Everything is great, then WHAM. No hiding behind a secretary or nurse, nor can the confrontation be scheduled at 10am next Tuesday. Of course, it's very easy to be defensive and not acknowledge your spouse's feelings, which only aggravates the situation.
Case in point - flying home from Vegas last week, I cut it close at the airport. Truth of the matter, I always cut it close at the airport...it's a game and a challenge to park the car 25 minutes before the departure time, get through security, grab a drink and a sandwich, and jump on the plane before they close the door. Jeanne didn't like this game...she's four months pregnant, we had shuffle quickly past 20 gates, and she had to really, really go to the bathroom. Triumphantly walking down the jet way, I asked Jeanne why she was upset. When Jeanne unloaded, my response was: "Well, we made the flight, why are you so upset?" Bad answer to give a pregnant lady!
To Jeanne's credit, she gave clueless Doug a roadmap: Say you're sorry, acknowledge my feelings, give me a kiss and a hug, and promise never to put me through that stress again. Good response and good lesson.
It's so easy to be defensive with our spouses, family members, and close friends. So hard to say to sorry because of our shared history and past fights. So easy to forget the rules of Sorry Works! and common courtesy. But, this is what makes our personal relationships great training & great practice for strengthening our Sorry Works! skills so we are sharp when an otherwise happy customer comes to us with a complaint.
"But, Doug, if you screw up with your wife, you spend a night on the couch with a cold ham sandwich. I screw up with a patient or family, I'm staring a lawsuit in the face...I don't see how the two situations are equal or even why the comparison is being made?"
The situations AREN'T equal. In a loving relationship, yes, the stakes are usually lower, but it actually can be harder to say sorry...harder not to be defensive...harder to acknowledge the other person's feelings....talk about great practice so when the stakes are higher (lawsuit, complaint to medical board, etc) you're ready to do and say the right thing.
NOTES FROM GUY CARPENTER MEETING IN LAS VEGAS - INSURERS, REINSURERS
Last week Sorry Works! Founder Doug Wojcieszak spoke before the Guy Carpenter meeting in Las Vegas. The crowd consisted mostly of med-mal insurers and re-insurers. During our presentation we highlighted the training we have provided to the physicians, lawyers, risk & claims managers, and senior staff of PLICO of Oklahoma. We trained nearly 500 PLICO doctors this Spring along with their defense attorneys and staff, and will be training more PLICO physicians this Fall.
We received a good response from the Guy Carpenter audience, and we hope to provide additional training for many of the insurance companies represented at the meeting. To learn more about Sorry Works! presentations or training, call 618- 559-8168 or e-mail doug@sorryworks.net
GREAT ARTICLE TO SHARE: I WANT YOU TO APOLOGIZE
This finish this week's newsletter, below is a great article on apology to share with colleagues and friends. Enjoy!
Peter Bregman - I Want You to Apologize
Tuesday April 7, 2009
Crisis management, Leadership
I was backing out of a space in a mall parking lot in New Jersey when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement and instinctively slammed on my brakes. Another car sped by, missing me by inches.
I was instantly furious. I pulled out fast to chase the other car, leaning on my horn and flashing my lights. Finally, the car stopped and I pulled up right behind him, still honking. We both got out of our cars.
"What the hell were you thinking? You almost hit me!" I screamed.
"I didn't see you!" he yelled back.
"Of course you didn't. You were driving way too fast!"
We yelled at each other for a few seconds and then he opened his arms wide and shouted:
"What do you want from me?"
An awkward silence hung between us for a moment. That was actually a great question. What did I want from him?
I knew he shouldn't have been driving recklessly and I was angry enough to drive recklessly behind him to tell him. What I really wanted was impossible; I wanted him not to have done what he did. Well, too late.
So what did I want now? Why was I screaming at him? The brief pause calmed us both down a little.
"I want you to apologize," I told him.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Thanks," I said feeling strangely better, and we both got back into our cars and drove off without another word.
We have big problems in this country. Wall Street played recklessly with our money. Banks made bad loans. Insurance companies guaranteed stupid risks. People took out unrealistic mortgages and borrowed too much to buy things they couldn't afford. Companies are going out of business and laying off workers. And, the government is bailing people out and billing our kids.
It would be easy (and tempting) to go on. But we have one more, deeper problem that's making all these other problems worse.
No one is apologizing. No one is taking responsibility for what they did to contribute to our problems. They're all blaming someone or something else. We have a kindergartener's problem and it's tearing us apart.
A friend of mine, Paul Rosenfield, was skiing with his six-year-old son Yonah when Yonah fell. It was not a terrible fall, but the binding didn't release and Yonah broke his leg. After an emotionally wrenching day spent in the emergency room tending to his child, Paul went to the shop to return the skis and speak with the owner.
The owner of the shop immediately became defensive. He claimed the bindings were set within the normal acceptable range for Yonah's 40- pound weight (in fact one reading showed the binding set above 60 pounds). He claimed he used a special machine to calibrate the setting, a machine that had been used in several court cases. And he initially resisted Paul's request to see the printout from the machine's test.
Paul went into the shop to have a conversation and he left angry enough to sue.
I asked him what the shop owner could have said that would have given him a different feeling.
"If he had been more concerned with the injury than protecting himself, if he had apologized, if he hadn't tried to cover over the fact that the bindings were too tight, if he hadn't given me a hard time about asking for a copy of the measurement printout, if he hadn't mentioned how many times his machine was used in lawsuits, then I would have left feeling less angry."
We try so hard to protect ourselves from lawsuits that we bring on lawsuits. We forget that we are human beings dealing with other human beings. And what human beings want more than anything is empathy - to be cared for and treated with respect.
By avoiding responsibility, empathy, and apology, the shop owner became a target for all of Paul's anger about the accident.
In a study of medical malpractice lawsuits, the top five reasons people gave for initiating the lawsuit were:
- So that it would not happen to anyone else
- I wanted an explanation
- I wanted the doctors to realize what they had done
- To get an admission of negligence
- So that the doctor would know how I felt
And the number one thing the doctor or hospital could have done to prevent the lawsuit? An explanation and apology.
When the University of Michigan Health System experimented with full disclosure, existing claims and lawsuits dropped from 262 in 2001 to 83 in 2007.
Apologies work. Real, heartfelt empathy between one person and another diffuses anger and builds relationships. Defensiveness and resistance to admit mistakes creates anger.
Whatever you think about President Bush, admitting mistakes was not his strong point. If you don't admit mistakes, you can't apologize for them. And if you don't apologize for them, you will generate anger and fighting.
President Obama has shown his ability to apologize for his own mistakes. One of his earliest apologies was during his campaign when he apologized to reporter Peggy Agar for calling her "Sweetie." Most recently he apologized for his joke in poor taste about the Special Olympics on the Jay Leno show.
And now he's apologizing for America's arrogance towards Europe in the past few years. He apologized for being "dismissive, even derisive" towards our allies. For failing "to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world."
And while he chastised Turkey for not coming to terms with their treatment of the Armenians, he admitted "our country still struggles with the legacy of our past treatment of Native Americans." And he reinforced our commitment to do better: "we recently ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed, and prohibited - without exception or equivocation - any use of torture."
President Obama is being criticized by some for apologizing. Because, they say, apologizing will reduce America's standing in the world. I couldn't disagree more. The world needs less anger and more apologies. And President Obama is a great example, a role model, for how we can diffuse anger and repair relationships.
Apologizing is a humane gesture, a way to treat others with respect. And, not for nothing, it might just keep us out of a fight.
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