One aspect of Obamacare is that the public’s ratings of healthcare providers will be published. A lot of providers are nervous about this, just as anyone is nervous about dumb things being said about them online.
But as I’ve often said in speeches, one thing healthcare lacks is the usual incentives we see in other industries: rewards when a job’s well done, consequences for when it’s not. And I sometimes tell providers, fear not: the public knows there are idiots online as well as good info; ultimately the truth will out. And yes, it’ll be messy along the way.
So I figure it’s time to practice what I preach. On my Testimonials page I’ve often published the evaluations I get from my speeches. But I’ve decided to start publishing all speech feedback, good bad and ugly.
I won’t blog them all (they’ll just go on that page), but to introduce it here’s the first one, posted with permission. (See discussion below.)
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Organization: The Leader’s Board
Event: Semi-annual roundtable
Host: Bill Bodnar, founder
Date: 7/12/2012
Audience: Small-group roundtable of hospital Chief Medical Officers
Length: 45 minutes plus 45 minute discussion
Location: Sutton Place Hotel, Chicago
Quantified: “Your rating was a 4.6 out of five, with the average of other presentations earning a collective average of 4.4.” Second highest rating of the event.
Subjective (comments):
- Very engaging speaker, loved hearing the ‘patient” perspective. Would have liked a deeper dive into the patient/physician portal.
- Very engaging and interesting.
- Not as much fact-based as anecdotal information.
- Very animated and interesting!
- Wonderful to have a patient’s perspective!
- Good non-doc perspective.
- Outstanding, passionate, and I plan to have him come and present at our organization.
Host’s summary:
“Dave was a pleasure to have as a speaker. He worked to mold his presentation to meet the needs of the audience, and delivered on his pledge to deliver an engaging and well-rated presentation to our group of physicians.”
–William L Bodnar, The Leader’s Board
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Update August 8: I’ve begun posting other evaluations in a Google Doc. I’m working my way back through evaluations received, as time permits.
Is this horn-tooting?
Only when I’ve done a good job! And only two parties get to judge that: the audience and the host.
When I fail, I’m sure I’ll say “ouch.” Because I will post every word.
Note to current and future speakers:
The most important mental transformation most speakers need to make is that it’s not about you and your fabulous information – it’s about what the audience cares about.
Perhaps in school you got evaluated on the quality of your information. Fine, but that audience (the professor) was paid to listen to you. This is different: now you’re being invited to take up people’s time with your blabbing. Better make it worth it.
To be a good speaker-for-hire, you have to know why the host is inviting you (of all people: “Why me?”), and what they think will be of value to their audience. (Thanks to Kent Bottles MD, who way back in 2009 taught me the speaking business: “Ask your client, ‘What would be a real home run?'”) Then it’s your job to bend your frickin’ information to show up in a way that’s relevant to them.
And then it’s your job to present it in a way that doesn’t make them fall asleep. My friend Ted Eytan MD starts some talks by saying “It’s okay if you guys do email while I talk, because it’s my job to be more interesting than your email.”
So, here we go. Even as I type this, my gut is a bit nervous. That’ll keep me on my toes. :-) And that’s how evaluations – especially published ones – are supposed to work.
Dive in! I love it. See if you can beat this panel evaluation comment I once received:
“I was nauseated at this presentation.”
Here’s the post I wrote about that panel, which was ahead of its time in many ways:
Doing Our Best to Blow Your Minds
http://e-patients.net/archives/2009/01/doing-our-best-to-blow-your-minds-emerging-trends-in-chronic-disease-care.html
LOL! I urge everyone interested in this to go read Susannah’s post on this (3.5 years ago!) – Doing our best to blow your minds. Excerpt, lower down: “Since a good presentation really is all about the audience,…”
And, three years ahead of me as usual, she pasted in a bunch of her feedback!
Ah, but that’s not fair, because you’ve had the “present it in a way that makes them not fall asleep” part down from the very beginning! ((:
Seriously, though; this is a great idea. One thing I can add is that being rated may make docs aware of things they are doing, or not doing, that they are not even aware of. Everyone will dismiss the crazies.
I’m speaking in September at a big Ortho conference in S. Florida and will certainly be taking your comments into consideration. Note to self: It’s not about me; it’s about what the audience wants to hear. Good advice!
Hi, Jennifer! Are you speaking there as a patient?
Do ask your client why they invited you, and what would be a great outcome from the talk – how they’d like to have the audience changed by the experience of your talk. (That’s the “home run” question.)
I hope to be publishing a bunch of speaker effectiveness info here as time goes by. This is (implicitly) part 1.
One detail btw – you said “It’s about what the audience wants to hear” – not necessarily. What I said was, it’s about what the audience *cares about*. Subtle but important difference.
Sometimes what they need to hear is not at all what they’d have asked for. The important question is whether you can present your ideas *in a context* that makes sense to them … that moves them to a new way of seeing things.
To do that you’ve got to arouse their interest, and *that* requires knowing what they care about.
Excellent! I love the transparency. That’s very brave of you indeed. Of course, you’re a great speaker so you have little to worry about. I wonder if you’ll do the same with panels since you’re not quite sure who they’re talking about in some of the evals.
John, a very small number of events are wise enough to do panel evals by person.
I’m not usually on panels, but it’s something to think about. I guess anytime there’s something specific to be learned – or anytime I *moderate* a panel, so I’m responsible for content – I’ll post it.
At Connected Health 2010 I was on a reaction panel after behavior-change guru BJ Fogg’s keynote. I was stunned to discover that I was the only one on the panel who’d studied up on his work, to prepare! Not even our panel moderator had. What are these people thinking??
Fortunately, that led to BJ being my friend…:-)
You only studied up because you went to MIT, Dave. :) No seriously, I was always amazed at Medical Executive committee meetings; no one but me had read the packet we all got a week before……made for some long and ineffective meetings.