Fast Company Response December 20, 1999

I read Ilene Sorensen's report on the Fast Company article, "Total Teamwork" which caught my interest right away. After I read Ilene's report, I read the article because I am very interested in the way hospital staff can work together as a team. I had the experience of having my mother in a big teaching hospital this summer for a month in intensive care, and saw how things worked there, which is very much like Ilene describes at Mayo clinic. I was very impressed by how the teams of doctors, residents, and nurses worked together, listened to each other's opinions, sought input from each other, and came to a consensus on what they thought would be right for the patient.

The team takes their time in deciding, as they do at Mayo, but this serves them well in the long term. Once they decide, they go right to action, quickly and effectively. Like Ilene said, there's lots of teams, lots of interaction, and lots of activity. Mayo's motto is, "No one is big enough to be independent of others." They hire those with the best attitude toward doctor-patient interaction, which is the primary element at Mayo. Decision -making is interactive and collaborative, not only with the team of doctors, nurses, and residents, but also with the patients.

I was happy to hear that Ilene feels that she works this way with her team of NEA's, relying on each other's strengths to get more work done. She also sees the team approach used in much of the University of Minnesota Extension Service. I see the team approach working with some groups at Extension, but I also see some groups being segmented into their own areas of concentration, and not as much interaction with other areas.

We are trying to work more as a team at our Extension office. With a staff of over 40 people, working in many different areas, we often don't know who each other is and what each other is doing. We are working on strategic planning as a staff, with small groups meeting with committees. We are also meeting bi-monthly as a staff to work on building our community. We are looking at ways we can work together better, so we can be stronger out in the community in our work.

One of the priorities we found in building our team and working more together is getting to know each other through a quarterly newsletter with information about each staff member's skills and interests. This will also help us collaborate on projects. Another way to build our team is to design a brochure about what each person's role is at our Extension office. This brochure could be used internally or externally to let people know what programs are available and who to contact at our office. I am very happy that we are working more as a team at our Extension office. It takes time to get to know each other and work together, and I am glad we are making time as a whole staff to become a team. I am feeling more support from staff since we started and am excited about where we are going. I agree with Ilene that "total teamwork" is an approach we can all learn from.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 1999