Breaking crayons aids creativity - exploring creative potentials for to improve the healthcare industry - Management Issues - Column

Healthcare Financial Management, Nov, 1993 by Robert Alan Black

"Class, take out your pretty crayons. Remember, we want to keep them neat. Don't peel off the paper wrappers. Handle them carefully. We don't want to break them."

Across the United States, school teachers tell their young students this daily. Why? Are teachers trying to teach students orderliness, or how to use some wonderful tools?

Keeping crayons neat, not peeling them, and not breaking them limits the creativity of children and eventually diminishes their creativity as adults.

Crayons can be seen as metaphors for tools. Too often, teachers, parents, employers, friends, and workers squelch natural creativity by emphasizing neatness, orderliness, and limited, selected use of tools.

What are crayons? They are simply portions of colored wax. Are they pointed because crayon manufacturers think they would look and work better if they are shaped like pencils? The pencil shape restricts the possibilities of line widths and shapes. Why do crayons have wrappers on them? Manufacturers want children to remember the color's name (in small print) and to reinforce the brand name (in very large bold print). Rarely do children or artists refer to colors by the manufacturers' chosen names. After all, the name of the color is not important. Visual recognition of the color is important.

If we take the teachers' crayon lessons literally, we learn to use tools only in a manufacturer's prescribed way. As a result, we limit our potential capabilities as tool users, problem solvers, and creative human beings. Breaking crayons symbolizes an act of change that is especially needed in today's healthcare industry.

What policies in the workplace have you been following without question? What procedures have you not analyzed or challenged for relevancy? What job assignments have you recently reviewed for their necessity? What work tasks have you reviewed this year to better serve your patients? Break your crayons!

Does your department have a policy that requires multiple signatures for purchases above $100? Perhaps the policy was put into effect in 1963. Break this crayon. Can the dollar value be raised to $250 or more in today's dollars? Reexamine how long it takes for signatures to be collected and who actually secures signatures. Perhaps in 1963 the three or four people who then signed requisitions were located near each other, but now are in scattered locations at your facility. In 1963, it took a few minutes to collect the signatures. Today it might take three or four days using interdepartmental mail. Break this crayon!

Have you recently examined the location and usage of your facility's equipment, department by department and shift by shift? The locations may be based on decisions made in 1978. Perhaps your department has undergone five separate renovation projects since then. Break these crayons!

Examine your facility's record storage area. Have the records been purged recently? Research indicates that very few stored records are ever used again, even though storage is required by law. Determine if your department could condense its record storage without sacrificing completeness. Do multiple copies of records exist? Can the records be stored more efficiently? Break these crayons!

Is the floor plan of your facility like a box of unbroken crayons--limited in its flexibility and outdated for today's needs? Are doorways in their best locations? What about the placement of lighting? What about the type of lighting? Does it suit your needs in 1993? Are the colors of your walls, floors, ceilings, equipment, and uniforms appropriate?

These crayons at your medical center, hospital, or clinic may need to be broken and reexamined, modified, or replaced to suit today's needs.

Flexibility and the ability to change will be critical to survival in the healthcare industry in the 1990s. Those who break their crayons will discover and develop more efficient policies, procedures, tools, methods, and systems.

Peel your crayons. Break them. Experiment making as many different kinds of lines as you can with the broken ends, the unbroken ends, the sides. Hold several different pieces at one time and discover what you can create. Challenge rules, policies, procedures, and traditions. Try doing things differently, at least in small ways.

Using our tools only as prescribed teaches us to follow instructions and not to think or create. It limits the possibility of discovery.

Break a crayon today. Discover as much as you can. Encourage employees to break crayons. Call a staff meeting and give everyone the opportunity to break their crayons together. Remember, your crayons are tools that may have endless uses when natural imagination and intelligence are applied to a challenge.

Robert Alan Black, PhD, is a leadership consultant, Creative Leadership Services, Athens, Ga.