When Healthcare Shows Us What's Broken in Our Teams
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I spent last week in a Tampa hospital with my dad.
Earlier this year, he had surgery. Complications emerged. What should've been recovery turned into an emergency admission, countless specialists, and days of uncertainty.
I'm grateful to report he's home now, doing well. But I can't stop thinking about what I witnessed.
Not the medical part. The team part.
Because here's the thing about hospitals: they're high-stakes environments where collaboration isn't optional. When communication breaks down or egos get in the way, people suffer. Sometimes fatally.
And as I sat in that uncomfortable chair, watching doctors and nurses cycle through, I kept seeing the same dysfunctions I see in corporate teams. Different uniforms. Same problems.
So if you lead a team, manage projects, or depend on others to get work done, the next few minutes matter. Because what I observed in that hospital is probably happening on your team right now:
1. Technology Can't Fix What Culture Broke
The problem: The hospital had sophisticated systems. Digital charts, alerts, coordination tools. Everything a care team needs to stay aligned.
Except half the doctors didn't use them.
My dad was asked the same questions multiple times in one day. Specialists contradicted each other about his discharge plan. One nurse told us he'd go home Tuesday. Another said Friday. The attending physician had no idea either conversation happened.
The system was there. The discipline wasn't.
Try this: Before you buy another collaboration tool, ask yourself: Are we using the ones we have? If your team isn't communicating effectively in Slack, switching to Teams won't help. If people skip updating the project tracker, a fancier dashboard won't change behavior.
Fix the behaviors first. Then upgrade the tools.
2. Hierarchy Kills Trust Faster Than Anything Else
The problem: Some doctors walked in like they owned the place and everyone else in the room. They didn't make eye contact with nurses. Interrupted mid-sentence. Asked questions that had already been answered if they'd bothered to check the chart.
And you know what happened? The nurses stopped trying.
I'd overhear them in the hallway: "Dr. So-and-So never listens anyway." They'd roll their eyes when certain names appeared on the schedule. The best caregivers in the building had learned to work around the people who thought they were too important to collaborate.
Try this: If you're the senior person in the room, your job isn't to have all the answers. It's to make everyone else feel safe enough to contribute theirs. Ask more questions than you answer. Credit people publicly. And for the love of all that's holy, read the updates before the meeting.
Great leaders see themselves as employees. Great employees see themselves as leaders. Titles don't build trust. Behavior does.
3. Misaligned Motivations Create Chaos
The problem: Some nurses clearly chose healthcare because they love people. You could see it in how they checked in, remembered details, offered reassurance.
Others loved the science, and it showed. Efficient. Clinical. Accurate. But cold.
Neither approach is wrong. But when they're on the same team with no shared understanding of why they're there, it creates friction. And my dad got wildly inconsistent care depending on who walked through the door.
Try this: Don't just hire for skills. Hire for shared values. If your team can't agree on why the work matters, they'll never agree on how to do it. And your customers, or patients, will feel that disconnect every single time.
4. Friction Is a Design Choice
The problem: When my dad was discharged, we drove to the hospital's patient pickup area. Except you couldn't turn left out of the parking garage to get there. Left turns were prohibited.
So we had to drive off the island, make a U-turn, come back, and circle around. For a man who'd just had surgery. In 90-degree Florida heat.
And this wasn't a one-off. Everything felt harder than it needed to be. Paperwork that could've been digital. Questions that could've been answered once. Processes designed for the system's convenience, not the patient's.
Try this: Walk through your customer's experience. Actually walk through it. Where are you making them work harder than necessary? Where did you optimize for your convenience instead of theirs?
Being easy to work with isn't about just being nice. It's about removing friction before people complain about it.
5. Money Can't Buy What Culture Destroys
The problem: I overheard two employees talking near the elevator.
"But don't you get paid really well?"
"Yes. And it doesn't even matter anymore."
She was planning to quit. Not because of the salary. But because she didn't feel valued. Didn't have the tools to do her job well. Wasn't growing. The paycheck couldn't paper over the culture.
And I thought about the closing chapter of my first book: If team members love where they work, they create customers who love the brand. If they only like it, customers only like it. If they hate it, they'll make damn sure customers hate it, too.
Try this: Stop assuming compensation solves everything. People need three things more than money: to feel appreciated, to have the capacity to succeed, and to believe they're growing. If you can't offer all three, your best people will leave, even if you pay them well.
Your Unignorable Move
Watching my dad in that hospital bed, I was terrified. Not just of losing him, but of watching a system that should work fail him because people couldn't get out of their own way.
Thankfully, we had a happy ending. He's home. He's recovering.
But I can't shake what I saw. Because those dysfunctions? They're not unique to healthcare.
They could be in your team too. Maybe not as visible. Maybe not as urgent. But they might be there, quietly eroding trust, slowing progress, and frustrating the people who depend on you.
You don't need a crisis to fix them. You just need to start noticing.
Because if you wait until things break to pay attention, you might not get the happy ending we did.
Your coach,
Chris
P.S. If your team is struggling with any of these dysfunctions, let's talk. I work with leaders to fix exactly these problems before they become crises.
