Secrets of Our Success - Secret #1: The Power of Really Caring

AdvancedMD has been astoundingly successful in a highly-competitive, ridiculously complex market. Having been with the company since the beginning, I may be able to provide unique insight into the secrets of that success--insight that only a few others may have.

With the objective of sharing that insight, I will be posting a "feature", if you will, called "Secrets of Our Success" from time to time, as ideas manifest themselves. This is the first installment.
---
During the 6 or so years that I led the Engineering efforts at AdvancedMD, I developed a great respect and, I have to admit, affection for the people that reported to me. As my role has changed, I've often paused to reflect on what makes them so special, both as teams and as individuals.

First of all, you have to understand that our Engineering staff are highly skilled professionals with unique and varied backgrounds and experience. Maybe that's enough, but what I think is more important is that they truly care about the quality of what they do.

It's certainly true that everyone makes mistakes at times. We focus on the wrong tasks, or we misunderstand instructions from the "business side of the business", or whatever. Mistakes are made at AdvancedMD just like everywhere else.

But the fact that our developers, QA techs, technical writers, business analysts, and project managers care about what they do reduces both the number of mistakes that are made and their impact.

What is really important in terms of the overall success of AdvancedMD is how much everyone across all departments sincerely cares about the services and software that we deliver to customers.

One of the side effects of this caring--a side effect that is simultaneously painful and beneficial--is occasional conflict. Maybe it's obvious, but I'll say it anyway: Any time two people approach the same problem from different points of view, there will be some butting of heads. If both parties really care about the problem, the butting of heads can be uncomfortable.

So it shouldn't be a surprise that at AdvancedMD, a company of over 150 employees who nearly all care deeply about what they do, and who have over 150 different points of view, occasionally we butt heads over differences of opinion, some trivial and others vitally important.

What makes this conflict constructive, though, is that we care enough to butt heads and enough to discuss and resolve our differences frankly and openly, with a willingness to give ground when needed.

Most of us have worked in environments where the majority of the employees didn't really care about their work. We've heard phrases like, "she's working for the paycheck" and "he's always on the 5 o'clock train". Fairly or not, many government agencies are notorious for not really caring about what they do, or the people that they are supposed to serve. (I could tell you some stories about the DMV in Tucson, Arizona...)

No one likes to work in that kind of environment...except, perhaps, people who don't care and don't want to care.

In contrast, AdvancedMD employees, for the most part, genuinely enjoy working at AdvancedMD, even if--or, perhaps because--they occasionally butt heads with other employees who also care.

I could name a dozen occasions over the past month when I have walked away from a conversation or meeting with another AdvancedMD employee where I could have been deeply offended by what they had to say. But, in the end, I couldn't be offended, because I recognized that our disagreement, or their (usually constructive) criticism, stemmed from the fact that we both care. And I'd rather be miffed by someone who cares than pandered to by someone who doesn't.

I've theorized that perhaps AdvancedMD employees care because, besides being conscientious professionals, they recognize how important healthcare IT is to our customers and their patients. Our software and services have a direct impact on peoples' health and well-being.

Whatever the reason, the fact that we care is, I believe, one of the reasons for our success. I highly recommend it. If you're an entrepreneur or executive trying to build a successful business, hire people who care. If you're looking for a job, find a company where the management and employees care. If you work with people who don't care, figure out why and try to change the culture.