Three Ways You Can Improve Your Cultural Competence And Effectively Lead Your Diverse Team

In a previous post, we emphasized the importance of assembling a diverse team in your Optometry practice. You may think that people in homogeneous groups understand each other eliminating any chance of friction and misunderstanding in the workplace which increases the workflow. However, Stanford University and Cornell University studies revealed that diverse teams typically outperform homogeneous groups. In another study at the University of Michigan, Professor Scott Page emphasized that even a group of the most capable members cannot exceed a diverse group. It is the conclusion that researchers were able to draw from decades of research from organizational scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, and demographers. The positive influence of a diverse team is mainly manifested by the diversity of information brought by every member of the team increasing the level of innovation in solving problems. Sharing information in small teams found in Optometry practices hinders creativity and innovation when all team members are similar and think the same way and hold the same perspective.

Optometrists and practice managers should have the ability to understand, appreciate, value, and seek to increase diversity as well as develop enough cultural competence to interact and nurture people with different cultures, perspectives, and points of view. Jeff Meade, founder and CEO of MEADE management and consulting firm, employs three strategies to help develop cultural competence when it comes to managing and leading small diverse teams.

• Build self-awareness around your biases. Once you start realizing and identifying your biases in regard to certain situations and your decision-making is influenced and negatively impacted as a result of your biases, you are stepping into the first stage of creating an inclusive work environment. you must first be comfortable recognizing situations in which your biases are most likely to negatively impact your decision-making or judgment.
• Practice active listening. When you practice active listening you encourage people with different perspectives and different communication styles to put forth their different approaches and methods to solve the problem creating a collaborative and culturally diverse workplace where asking for help is easy and not rejected.
• Ensure equity in retention and promotion. and have in place explicit ways and methods to address any inequities.

Optometrists and Practice managers are not the only ones who should develop the cultural competence to increase the practice’s effectiveness in providing eye care. Employing a diverse team is only the first step toward achieving satisfying results in improving the interaction with the patient. One important factor is the location of your practice and how well you know your environment. A strategy could be based on providing multilingual assistance for example. Another strategy could be related to the days of the week you operate as well as time during the day. Some people prefer weekdays and late appointments whereas other patients prefer to schedule appointments on the weekends and early in the morning.

Training your staff to improve cultural competence can include but is not limited to a series of steps:

Conduct a cultural assessment to understand the cultural knowledge of your team and what it needs to meet your practice environment culture;

Try multiple training methods including individual cases debriefing, conducting case study reviews, online education and orientation, and interacting with patients;

Initiate ongoing education with scheduled training sessions, orientation, and assessments;

Always come up with measurement and tracking data from patient satisfaction scores, health care disparities data, and market share.