AHRA’s 2016 Spring Conference kicks off on March 15 in Chicago, with several guest speakers scheduled to appear.

One of those guests is author Sandy Geroux, the founder and chief entertainment officer of WOWplace International. Geroux spoke with RadiologyBusiness.com and discussed her presentation, “Leadership is Not Easy, But it is Actually Simple: 5 Rules for Being a WOW Leader.”

RadiologyBusiness.com: Your philosophy on leadership touches on the importance of “being more human” and showing empathy. Has that become more difficult as technology has continued to advance in recent years? How do you strike that balance?

SG: Being human and compassionate hasn’t become more difficult because of technology, it’s just that we are so distracted now by that shiny object syndrome and we’re being bombarded every minute of every day with something “cool” and “new” and “flashy.” We’re being distracted from the fact that technology is all well and good, but we use technology. We still live our lives in the human world, and that’s how we connect with each other. We’re forgetting about the human side, because the technological side is so flashy and so convenient, but it’s the basics that we need to remember. That’s how we connect on the deepest level; heart to heart and human to human, not smartphone to smartphone.

The big thing is, technology should serve the human side—we use it, we need it—but we can’t forget about the fact that we’re all living in a human world, especially when you are talking about patients who are coming into a radiology practice and are already under stress. Maybe they even already know something is drastically wrong; how do you connect with your phone? 

Do you have any advice for those in the healthcare industry who want to do a better job of “being more human” and more empathetic?

SG: Get back to basics. When you talk to salespeople, [they say] sales falter when they forget the basics and they take them for granted. “Oh, that’s been around forever” ... yeah, but it works! That’s why it has been around forever.

I have a few tips on how to get back to basics when it comes to our human experience and how to wow people, and the first one is show them your human side.

For example, I went to the x-ray department at Florida Hospital down here in Orlando one time, and when they walked me back to the radiology department, right there on the door was the department’s mission. I can’t tell you how wonderful that made me feel to see the whole department had a mission. You have all this great technology, but this was a piece of paper on the door that meant so much to me. When I’m going in there for that test, I’m nervous, I’m scared, and just seeing that they wanted to take good care of me, that helped.

The second point I like to say is, knowledge is comfort. A lot of times in business, we say “knowledge is power,” but in this world, knowledge is comfort. So, do you leave the patient alone for long periods at a time? They don’t know what’s happening, they don’t know if they’ve been forgotten, they don’t know what’s going on. Remember, the human in them is probably making up stories as time goes on. “Oh my gosh, something’s really wrong. They’re not coming back. Did they forget about me?” All these things are going through their head, because we’re forgetting that they’re not a computer that can wait patiently until we can get back to the keyboard. This is a person.

Here’s one more thing, and it does concern the technology and how we use it: reporting is not one size fits all. We like the fact that now, patients can get a CD with their scans and they can get the radiology report, and it’s very quick and convenient. And if someone has no problems that are revealed by a test, they find out much quicker instead of waiting for a week when there’s nothing wrong.

But, what if they do have a significant problem? For example, one of my best friends found out she had cancer by reading it on a radiology report as she walked back to her car from the radiology practice. And here’s the kicker: twenty-four hours had elapsed between the time the radiologist knew there was a problem and her getting that report.

That’s 24 hours of opportunity to talk to that woman personally before they handed her something that told her she was probably going to die in six months. That would have been nice.

How can leaders reward their employees? What are some of your favorite types of rewards in the workplace, and how do these rewards benefit workers?

SG: Some of the best rewards that people can get are a little bit of flexibility in their time. If something happens, can I make a flexible shift change? Or can I get some time off? One of the biggest things that people can do in any industry is give their people some flexibility around that, and maybe even a surprise day off with pay. Some places call it the “day off pass.” What a nice thing that is to do! Wouldn’t you just love to know that, every once and awhile, you can get a little surprise like that?

But there are some other things that don’t cost a cent. Very often, in any business, we wait for the annual performance review, but if that person is doing great things every single day, why do you want to wait a year to tell them about it and thank them for it? There are a lot of variations about this, but I have what I call “wow cards.” I have, “Thanks for your wow!” on the front of the card, and on the back, there’s a place for who it’s from, who it’s to, the date, and a little description of what they saw that made them say, “wow.”

We’re not doing things just so people say thank you or give us money, but just knowing that, “Hey, that was a really tough situation, I handled it really well, and somebody noticed it” is great.

Is there a common mistake you consistently see when looking at how today’s leaders are operating

SG: Leaders will tell their employees that they expect them to wow their patients, but then they don’t actually empower them to do it. For example, one of my WOWplace rules is that the WOWplace is safe for people to share their knowledge, to share their ideas, to share experiences, and to brainstorm ways to create “wows.” But what I notice with a lot of leaders is, someone will make a suggestion and instantly, that leader slams it down. “No, we’re not going to do that!” Just because the leader hasn’t taken three seconds to think about it, or they haven’t done that before, or they’re so set in their ways that they think their way is the only way to do it.

Or they’ll shine them on. “Oh yeah, we’ll do that.” But then they take that suggestion and they don’t do anything with it. And they think employees don’t know.

Is there anything else you would like to discuss about this topic?

SG: Everything comes from the top, from the leader. If you’re negative, they’re going to be negative. If you’re enthusiastic, they’re going to be enthusiastic. If you show them you’re going to respect them, they’re going to respect you. So basically, the philosophy is: go first. Show them that you’re there with them, for them. 

This text was edited for space and clarity.