Getting Naked by Patrick M. Lencioni

Author:Patrick M. Lencioni [Lencioni, Patrick M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780470597606
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2010-05-10T23:00:00+00:00

SWALLOWING MEDICINE

Holding myself together, I thanked Carl for his comment. When he returned to his seat, I stood up and did something I had never done before.

“Okay, I have an announcement to make.” I paused and everyone quieted down. “I'm afraid that everything I've shown you so far may have been wrong.”

I certainly had their attention now.

“The model I used for the analysis was based on a for-profit hospital. I completely forgot that Good Shepherd changed their profit status the year before we did the expansion study. These numbers are certainly wrong, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if my conclusions are way off.” I paused. “I can't tell you how embarrassed I am.”

In a matter of seconds the looks on the faces of the people in front of me seemed to morph from disbelief to disappointment to frustration, and then, to my astonishment, to consolation. And it was my new friend the doctor who went first.

In the kindest voice imaginable he said, “Well, I'd say you should be embarrassed, son.”

Now, I hadn't been called “son” in years, but it certainly applied, because I felt like a nine-year-old boy.

He went on. “So what is your hourly rate, Jack? Because I think you owe us double that because we've just wasted two hours.”

The people in the room burst out in laughter.

“Let's make him buy lunch!” Michelle chimed in.

I took my wallet from my hip pocket and threw it into the center of the table, and everyone laughed. At me. With me. I'm not sure. But it wasn't half as bad as I had imagined.

After the humor started to fade and the reality of the situation returned, I decided to push forward down this same road. “Okay, I can't believe I made such a ridiculous mistake. But I think we can salvage the day and still arrive at the right decision before midnight.”

They laughed, and one of the analysts piled on. “Then you're going to be buying us dinner, too.”

I smiled and accepted the punishment. “I'm going to need about twenty or thirty minutes to redo my analysis, and by lunchtime I'll have some preliminary numbers.”

“What does your gut tell you the answer will be?”

It was the doctor who asked.

I gave it some thought. “My gut tells me that if you really think your occupancy numbers are going to continue growing and that the economic development in this area is not a fluke, expansion probably makes sense. But I'm guessing it would be here at the main facility, not in the satellite communities.”

“Why is that?” Michelle wanted to know.

“Because most of my hospital clients—” I paused to qualify myself. “Though I'm not saying it would be exactly the same here, most of them find that there are so many redundancies and inefficiencies in satellite sites that it would be more cost effective to pay for free patient shuttles than it would be to build remote facilities.”

“What about competition? Wouldn't we be exposed?”

“I don't think so. If you grow enough here, I think you'll be fine.

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