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Alexandria Sutherland
Week Two/Paper Two
November 21, 2011
I currently work at a local community hospital for one of five administrators (four
women, one man). My title is Administrative Assistant. My manager, who is Jewish, runs 10
departments within the hospital. We are all middle class, White Americans with the exception
of one Black woman nurse manager and one Asian nurse manager. The hospital is mainly
composed of women, with most of the men being doctors. The CEO, CFO and the Human
Resource Manager are all white men. Nurses are mostly white with a few Asians and Blacks.
The doctors are a mix of all races and countries of origin. The community the hospital serves is
mostly the aged (we are located in Florida), a lot of Hispanics and Blacks, and lower to lower-
middle class people. We all tend to get along with a few bumps between cultures. For me the
bumps were people in the South are not as well educated as Minnesota or Seattle and they are
slower.
For my project, I did not do my wheel in four layers as Kinicki and Kreitner created but
only used two layers (page 6). For me, I think personality differences recreational habits, family,
and religion should not interfere with work. My wheel includes: Race, title, age, health, place of
origin, education status (where educated and what level), gender, ethnicity, spirituality, disability
and economic status. I thought all these can influence a person’s behavior prior to meeting
someone. A M.D. from Yale speaks louder than an M.D. from a small school. A patient with a
disability might already be labeled a problem patient prior to his visit. Spiritually, a person
might not be afraid of death while the doctor might be. A patient with no insurance might get
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Alexandria Sutherland
Week Two/Paper Two
November 21, 2011
treated like a less than yet pay the bill in cash at the end. A professional in the community might
be taken into the Emergency Room first even though he is not an emergency case.
In the center of my diagram I placed the hospital’s mission statement as it is the
foundation of what the hospital is there for. The mission statement could represent the hospital’s
personality and guide the behavior of the employees. A simple mission statement might be: to
improve the health of the community we serve by always bettering our skills and learning new
techniques. We are here to address the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of the patients and
their families. The mission statement could serve as the organizational level of control as well.
It serves as a guideline of what kind of people the employees are.
To begin the new policy writing, I would first identify what policies the hospital has, do
research and policy planning, have meetings with top managers and have them adopt the new
policies, make it a hospital-wide implementation of the new policies and finally policy review
and evaluation at the end of the year. To ensure that the policies reach the whole hospital
populace, I would attach the new policies to pay checks, go to departmental meetings to present
the new polices, put posters up and have awareness days. If there are individual people that have
diversity issues, send them to diversity training class.
Overall, I want to measure is where the hospital is in terms of how effective their current
policies are and then where they are after new policies are implemented. Also, to measure how
the new policies affect the hospital mission statement. Finally, to measure how improve the
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Alexandria Sutherland
Week Two/Paper Two
November 21, 2011
patients’ comfort level changes while in the hospital to improve their healing time. Statistically,
I would like to show how one decision correlates with the person involved such as a woman
patient would pick a woman doctor.
METHODS
1. To research data that is already gathered, such as going back through files to document
employee turnover, employee exit reviews, promotions and demotions, customer
complaints filed, financial reports, any employee surveys, how long a patient is in the
hospital, the length of time for recovery and any other records. Gather the demographics
of both the patients and the staff. Also measure for all groups the misperceptions of their
biases prior to meeting someone and find what past experience is being triggered to form
the incorrect judgement.
2. The rest of the information gathering would result in statistics and reports for the Board
Members and the Diversity Training Group. I broke the survey gathering down into
groups:
Medical Staff: Give surveys to the medical staff to see how they prejudge their patients
according to the categories listed above. Also, ask open-ended questions about their
preconceived notions about medical staff they work with. Give hiring scenarios of who would
you chose to work with based on photos and background information. Measure their level of
spirituality and views of death and pain.
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Alexandria Sutherland
Week Two/Paper Two
November 21, 2011
Support Staff: Give support staff surveys to identify how they judge people within the
categories who work above them and below them.
Management: Give managers more Golem questions to measure how they think about their
staff that works below them. I think using both survey and holding peer groups would be
beneficial. Using surveys to measure what kind of person they would want to work with.
Interviews uncover what approach the manager takes to deal with the discriminating conflict.
Measure how they deal with change-resistant employees.
Patients: Giving patients and their families surveys to measure why they would chose a specific
physician over another. Measure their comfort level on all of the categories, such as would they
trust someone who was young, in a wheelchair, or a doctor who went to an Ivy League school
over a school not in the United States. Measure how they view own spirituality especially death
as they might be more comfortable talking to someone who has the same views.
Diversity training in a medical community is important in that it affects everyone that
walks into the hospital. Patients that feel comfortable with staff heal better and spend less time
in the hospital. Having well-trained staff may attract more patients. Not taking rejection
personally, but seeing it more as a choice of someone that might relate better to the patient and to
the purpose of the community.
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November 21, 2011
Bibliography
Heifetz, R., & Linsky, M. (2002, Fall). Leading with an Open Heart. Leader to Leader, pp. 28-
33.
Kinick, A., & Kreitner, R. (2009). Organizational Behavior: Key Concepts, Skills & Best
Practices. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
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November 21, 2011
SPIRITUALITY
EDUCATION
STATUS
AGE
HEALTH and
DISABILITIES
LEARNING
DISABILITIES
PLACE OF
ORIGIN
TITLE
ECONOMIC
STATUS
RACE
GENDER
MALE/FEMALE
MISSION
STATEMENT OF
HOSPITAL AND
CLINICS
