Heroes Not Zombies

The slowleadership blog has an interesting post today. It’s about management and sales methods, but in particular it’s about an obsession with what can be measured –

For over a century, many academic disciplines — including business, more recently — have had a case of “physics-envy.” They believe that only “real” data is meaningful, only particles and precision make for real “science.”

The writers make the point that relationships are more important –

Selling is not at root, despite what web-searches will tell you, about process. It is about people and relationships and trust.

Well, it’s interesting isn’t it? You could say the same about health. Health care is ultimately about people and relationships and trust – not either only, or even primarily, about what can be measured. We’ve really forgotten that though in modern health care management. There’s been an obsession with targets and not only targets but targets of what can be measured. And in the midst of all that we’ve lost sight of the fact that medicine is a caring profession. It’s about people, it’s about relationships and it’s about trust.