It was the best hospital in the entire state run by a group of efficient, dedicated and extremely knowledgeable doctors. Dr Anatomy, Tommy as he was known, was the most admired among the lot. Years of practice and hundreds of critical and successful surgeries up his sleeve, Dr Tommy was revered by not just the medical team in the hospital, but by doctors’ fraternity across the state.
Dr Tommy led a group of proficient medical team, each one of them being the best in their respective fields. The anaesthetist, the surgical assistants, the nurses, and everyone else were simply the best. They all knew exactly what they were required to do and absolutely followed every instruction from Dr Tommy which ensured a hundred percent success rate for the team.
It didn’t stop there. Dr Tommy ensured that he gave enough room to learn to all his interns and assistants. They were trained so well that when an opportunity presented itself, they were allowed to perform surgeries independently with only a supervision from him. The story went on to the extent that most of the well-known surgeons across the state once worked with Dr Tommy. His legacy lived on.
One day everything changed. Dr Tommy had to pack his bags and move on. He was replaced by Dr Autonomy, Nommy as he came to be known later.
Dr Nommy was given a briefing of how the hospital functioned and especially the high-performance team. After learning everything, he introduced a new way of working for the hospital. He was a true believer in teams being autonomous. Hence, he suggested that they eliminate the concept of a team leader. Everyone was equal and played equally important roles.
He also brought in a dramatic change in terms of skills. Dr Nommy didn’t believe in specialists, instead he wanted the anaesthetist to assist in surgery, the interns to perform anaesthesia and the nurses even could handle a scalpel if need arises. Cross skilling was the order of the new world. What was even more clear was the fact that no one in the new team knew what exactly they were expected to do and when.
Surgeries continued to be performed, patients as earlier got admitted for surgery but unlike in the past, many of them didn’t leave the hospital by their own. They were all carried out in decorated caskets as the new team slowly but steadily helped the hospital to be in the record books for the greatest number of failed surgeries leading to partial or full loss of precious human lives!
The last update was that Dr Nommy lost his job and the hospital is searching desperately for Dr Tommy to bring him back.
Disclaimer: If this story has any resemblance to how agile ways of working was implemented in your organization, it is quite incidental.
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