Improving healthcare is a costly business, right? It doesn’t have to be, says Jeremy Laurance. In fact, we could save a lot of lives and money with just a single sheet of A4 paper. A checklist. That is the lesson from Uttar Pradesh in India, where rates of maternal and newborn deaths have been slashed simply as a result of issuing maternity staff with a checklist of 29 vital tasks to be performed at every birth – handwashing, taking the mother’s blood pressure, and so on.
Compulsory use of checklists was a practice initiated in the aviation industry: it helped ensure pilots made the essential cockpit tests.
Could we use more checklists? Here’ some ideas
- In sales coaching, have a checklist of skills to be looking out for.
- Have a checklist with GROW and suggested questions to open up the coachee.
- Checklist your sales process so your salespeople can ensure they cover everything they need to.
- Your regular social media – have a checklist to speed things up. I have a 15 point checklist for my social media updates which brings the timing down to 45 minutes per week.
- In making prospecting calls, have a checklist of actions – an aid memoir not a script, I don’t like scripts but a checklist gives more freedom of expression.
- When following up prospects who’re not ready to buy, have a checklist of the actions to ensure you touch them 14 times.
I’m sure you have more ideas.
Such a simple concept.
