That Whining Sound

     Question: What do you do when one of your most valued paramedics approaches you to express her concerns about your agency's morale? Crews feel isolated from "management," she says. Leaders don't seem to be communicating with one another. And essential discipline is lacking, so leadership is considered inconsistent. Those are broad statements, and they surprise you. You consider your organization a pretty happy place to work, and you've been under the impression that most of your folks would agree. You don't need to ask before your medic cites specific examples. Only thing is, all of the examples seem to be originating with one of your folks who is a known chronic complainer.

     Answer: Ask yourself what motivated the criticisms. Would fixing them benefit this medic personally, more than anyone else? If so, your medic may not be as valuable as you think. But if her motivation is clearly oriented to help the whole organization (especially others and not necessarily herself), she may be more valuable than you thought. Thank her!

     My friend Jeff Forster is a battalion chief with the Rocky Mountain Fire Protection District in north central Colorado. He's been using a strategy for years in fielding complaints from crews. He doesn't accept them unless the complainant also poses a potential solution. He makes that known to people in advance. I had another boss once who would never accept a second-hand complaint.

     I think there are productive complaints (like the one in the above example) and nonproductive ones (like Jeff's view of complaints presented without suggestions). I think in healthy organizations, where leaders do hear and act on complaints, nonproductive complaining is whining. And I think every second-hand complaint warrants prompt, private, unannounced, direct contact with the alleged source of the complaint.

     You deserve to know whether the complaint is real or not. Or, you at least need to keep your whiners accountable for those pathetic sounds they keep making.

Thom Dick is the quality care coordinator for Platte Valley Ambulance Service in Brighton, CO. Reach him at boxcar_414@yahoo.com.