"If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less."
General Eric Shinseki (quoted in Re-Imagine!)
Re-imagine, by Tom Peters, is a book about business, not health care. Yet, all the ideas in it can be applied to health care and how we can change it (and ourselves). Peters' theme is that businesses and individuals need to change radically rather than incrementally (Re-imagine!) in order to succeed (or even survive) in today's economy.
He's looking at life from a business point of view, but if you read this book wearing health-care goggles, it makes incredible sense for changing the way we provide service (yes, service) for our patients (dare I say, clients?).
The book's design makes it a fun read, full of asides and anecdotes. He takes his own advice in imagining a book that goes well beyond rows of text.
At about 350 pages, it's hefty, but I found myself stopping every few pages to ponder his ideas and consider applications to medicine.
I highly recommend this book!
If you want a taste of Peters' style, visit his website and flip through some of his (many) Powerpoint slides.
1 comment:
It's good to see another physician seeing how much we can take from business in order to improve medicine. I just finished an MBA which gave me time to read some business books on the side (as opposed to during orthopedic training, which isn't so forgiving). I found a few books that really spoke to me. One is Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. It has given me a far more guarded opinion of expert advice. The other that lead me to question my leadership was Judgement by Tichey and Bennis. It reviewed decision-making in leaders and gave food for a surgeon's thought.
There is definitely a lot of important thought going on outside medicine that we seem to insulate ourselves from!
Dr. Jesse Shantz
www.mdhealthyself.blogspot.com
Post a Comment