Case: A Matter of Motivation
Background
With considerable advance notice, the director of health
information management resigned to take a similar position in a hospital in
another state. Within the dept it was commonly assumed that you, the assistant
director, would be appointed director; however, a month after the former
director’s departure, the dept was still running without a director. Day to day
operations had apparently been left in your hands (“apparently,” because
nothing had been said to you), but the hospital’s chief operating officer had
begun to make some of the administrative decisions affecting the dept.
After another month had passed, you learned “through the
grapevine” that the hospital had interviewed several candidates for the position
of director of health information management. Nobody had been hired.
During the next few weeks you tried several times to discuss
your uncertain status with the chief operating officer. Each time you tried,
you were told simply to “keep doing what you’re now doing .”
4mths after the previous director’s departure, you were
promoted to director of HIM. The first instruction you received from the chief
operating officer was to abolish the position of assistant director.
Podcast: http://www.soundpractice.net/article.cfm?id=317
Review the details of the case above from your course text, and respond to the following questions:
- Thoroughly analyze the likely state of your ability to motivate yourself in your new position. In the process, comment to whatever extent you feel necessary on your level of confidence in the relative stability of your position and how this might affect your performance.
- Describe the most likely motivational state of your HIM staff at the time you assumed the director’s position, and explain in detail why this state probably exists.
- Based on the podcast, what are some proactive strategies that management could have used to reduce the potential for conflict in this situation?
