While there is so much we can learn just by LOOKING, it is incredible how much more we gain when we Shift our Perspective. Applying a fresh lens to the way we view our life’s work, asking new questions, and seeking different vantages unleash exciting pathways to explore and create new Connections.
Perspective Shifting is a practice in empathy. We can better serve our team members, providers, patients, and guests when we are willing to truly see what they see and feel what they feel. Stepping out of our comfort zones to LOOK in new ways isn’t always easy but it has the potential to unlock a whole new journey in health care.
How Perspective Shifting Fits into LOOKING
Within the theme of LOOKING, Perspective Shifting provides us with a fresh vantage and awakens new possibilities. Beyond simply LOOKING up, down, and around, we slip on someone else’s shoes and practice empathy – LOOKING and seeing through the eyes of those we lead and those we serve. LOOKING beyond our own view of the world ensures that we meet the needs of everyone we touch.
Social media giant Snapchat changed the game when they introduced a physical manifestation of their mobile app: Snapchat Spectacles. And brands across industries Noticed. Spectacles are sunglasses that take 10-second videos from the user’s perspective. It is one of the first attempts to literally LOOK through someone else’s eyes. Brands such as Hyatt Hotels and L’Oreal Paris are using Spectacles to film behind-the-scenes views of team member Experiences around the world, while food delivery app Grubhub used them to capture day-in-the-life clips from their drivers. Last summer, Spectacles 2 were released, adding new colors with lighter lenses, new frame styles, underwater capabilities, and even prescription options. They also removed the yellow rings from the frames which alerted people to the camera, creating a more stylish, convenient, and subtle look.
How might the use of Spectacles give us insight into the Experience of those we serve? How would our Perspectives Shift if we could see what our patients see from their hospital bed or the waiting room? What about the walk from physician parking or the Experience from a team member break room?
Elle Luna is hosting her annual collaborative art initiative, #The100DayProject which invites anyone to explore their creativity every day for 100 days and post it on Instagram. One creator, Barbara Patchen, a design coach in Nashville, participated in the project with her own creative exploration: taking a deeper LOOK into her weekly Uber rides. What started as a casual observation of the seemingly mundane Experience of using a rideshare app quickly transformed into a beautiful study of humanity. Each time Patchen used Uber (about four to ten times per week), she challenged herself to view each ride as ethnographic commentary on our society. Uber drivers are, after all, a cross section of the American Experience: a diverse group with a range of ages, races, and religions. Not to mention education level and socioeconomic backgrounds. Barbara challenged others to join her on her 100-day journey to learn from strangers because “wouldn’t it be nice if someone who thinks radically different from you took a genuine interest in understanding your perspective?”
Much like Uber, our health care systems are cross sections of our communities and our society as a whole. How might we challenge ourselves to Intentionally and regularly interact with strangers to get a glimpse of their Experiences and perspectives?
Friend of the Experience Lab and leadership expert, Margaret Heffernan, reminds us of the dangers of willful blindness in this powerful talk. As she tells the brave Story of one woman’s quest for truth, Heffernan calls on us to consider: what might we Notice and advocate for when we take the blindfold off?
In the Spotlight: Roswell Park Cancer Center on Perspective Shifting
A Conversation with Kara Eaton Weaver, Executive Director of Patient and Family Experience, and Michele Benzin, Program Coordinator
As we close out the theme of LOOKING, we are thrilled to spotlight a true exemplar of Perspective Shifting: Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Kara Eaton Weaver and Michele Benzin provide a new lens for bringing The Experience Lab’s Essentials elements to life and activating the principle of Perspective Shifting.
What does the principle of Perspective Shifting mean to you at your organization?
Kara Eaton Weaver (KEW): Perspective Shifting is at the core of the patient Experience. We still tend to make decisions based on what a department needs or what a physician may want rather than having the patient consistently at the center. It is one of the most important topics we are facing as a leadership team – to truly LOOK and see. It takes walking in their shoes and seeing the Experience through their eyes to get people on the same page. For example, when we consider the millennials who will be cancer patients, where are they coming from and how can we meet their needs where they are at?
Michele Benzin (MB): Perspective Shifting has everything to do with what we are trying to accomplish. We want to get our team members to realize that they may be having a terrible day and yet how are our patients feeling? What are they Experiencing? How would we like to be treated and talked to? From housekeeping to executives, we are working to get everyone on the same page.
How do you at Roswell Park apply this principle?
KEW:Perspective Shifting is the proposed topic for our July “Spark Program,” our internal engagement Experience designed and created for leaders and team members. Rather than executive rounds, we plan to have leaders take on the role of team members. They will shadow and assist. Our leaders will LOOK at wayfinding and signage among other important issues. They will help the transport teams move patients so that they can Notice how challenging it is for patients to get around with crutches and wheelchairs (no automatic doors for example). We feel it’s important for our leaders to be a part of seeing the change so it’s becomes more than just approving the cost for a new door. They are a part of the solution.
MB: We also continue to experiment with the Echo Dot, a curiosity from the Perspective Shifting Experience Essentials Action Kit, toengage our patients and families in the Bone Marrow Transplant division. We hit a few small snags with our IT department switching from a public WIFI to a private network, however, we are solving for that with new innovations. And our patients continue to LOVE it. We share the new features Alexa offers – from reading Stories to playing music to answering health care questions. We also have a holder for the Dots to hang on the wall so that no one touches it and have Clorox wipes at the ready. Infection control wanted to ensure we solved for that.
What advice do you have for our Lab Partners?
KEW: The Action Kits – there are a lot of them. It can feel overwhelming. I felt like I had an obligation to do something right away. All the books were amazing; I felt completely flooded with great information and it actually took finishing the year to say, “wow look at all that we have: the kits, Sparks, materials. What do we want to do?” Soak it all up, step back, think about it, let it all in. You’ll have so many ideas and not enough hours to implement them. Yet the cost for us to bring these ideas to life is minimal and the impact is huge. We have fresh flowers in our lobby, we hosted a Mother’s Day tea for our patients and guests, and everyone from local vendors to team members are stepping up to help us be successful.
MB: Whenever I would open a kit, I’d ask myself, “what can we do with this?” How might I implement a singing bowl with my work for my patients? I’d take a minute to think about how it could make sense – not literally, but an idea that could work in my day-to-day practice.
In this brief but emotional human interest Story, we Experience the power of literally seeing with new eyes. Watch what happens when William Weeks, uses Sight to see his family with detail and clarity for the first time in 33 years.
What are we “blind” to in our day-to-day lives? Our journey through our day can become so routine that we forget to truly see. How can we open our eyes again to the spaces, places, and people around us? What would we Notice if seeing as if for the first time?
Stanford Children’s Health asked parents to share their perspectives on their children’s stay. While designing and building their new children’s facility, Stanford engaged parents in several intensive scenarios to reach an understanding of their young patients that parents could provide. What do the children need? What do parents need? What worries them? How could a room improve their Experience? As a result of these insights, room configurations were altered to create an Experience more conducive to comfort and healing for both patients and their parents. From the placement of paper towel holders to the addition of purse hooks, Stanford Shifted Perspectives and LOOKED through the eyes of parents to ensure not just patient-centered care but also family-centered care.
What are ways that our organizations could engage the unique expertise of our team members, providers, patients, and guests to provide input on Experiences across our different places of work? How would a patient’s reflection on the LOOK and feel of the waiting room compare to a team member’s?
Our devices are constantly collecting our data and inputs to shape how we see and interact with the world around us. But how do our devices Experience the world? Designer Kim Albrecht challenges viewers of his art to truly understand the inner workings of the devices that take up so much of our lives. Albrecht hopes that as our society gets more and more comfortable with the notion of artificial intelligence guiding our every decision, purchase, and Experience, we won’t lose sight of the fact that our smart devices are computers, not humans. In his series, Artificial Senses, he uses data and a variety of outputs from devices to guide the creation of his colorful, almost alien visualizations.
Like complex technologies, there are many words and tools in health care that feel foreign and unapproachable to patients and guests. How might visualizations of these procedures, processes, tools, or body parts Shift their Perspective about the Experience they are about to have?
Sometimes the youngest of minds can provide the most refreshing Shift in Perspective. Take a LOOK at this short and inspiring Moment that a mom captured of her young son reminding her that anything is possible if you set your mind to it.
When we were growing up, we all had dreams that got lost along the way. How can we take the “anything is possible” perspective of young minds and apply that to our places of healing?
