By Steve Moran
I have horrible sinuses, and I live in Northern California, which means a lot of pollen and agricultural pollution. Not a great combination.
It got so bad that about 15 years ago I had surgery to go in and scrape away all the tissue, giving them a kind of fresh start.
It was better, but I still suffer through several miserable sinus infections each year. Over the last few months, it became one every few weeks, which won me a golden ticket to a new ENT.
The first time I saw him, he took a look with a scope up my nostrils, told me what he saw, showed me what he saw, and offered a treatment plan, and it has been a lot better.
I was back last week for a follow-up.
He could have run the whole appointment in four minutes. Look at my records, look up the nose, ask the perfunctory “How are you doing?” question. Tell me what to do, move on to the next patient.
Instead we talked through what was actually going on, what my options were, what he’d recommend and why. Then we ended up talking about something else entirely, how he’s been using AI in his own work. He is, right now, my favorite doctor. Not because he agreed with me about anything. Because he treated the ten minutes he had with me as an opportunity instead of a transaction.
That is the whole idea of people-first, and almost nobody actually means it when they say it.
Continue reading on Practical Passionate Leadership (Substack) for free …
