Introduction
Peter Ferdinand Drucker was an American social scientist and thinker who dedicated his studies to the investigation of the nature of effective leadership and management. He made a significant contribution to the development of the theory of management. In his books, Drucker studied the factors which make management effective and outlined several ideas and principles of business and leadership. Despite the fact that he worked in the twentieth century and analyzed the processes in business at that time, his findings remain relevant now and are widely discussed in both the business community and academia. The goal of this paper is to discuss the application of Ducker’s practice to team-building activities in medical institutes.
The principles Duckers outlined in his writing can be applied to improve the quality of management in medicine. In his work, Ducker emphasized the importance of taking responsibility and promoting appropriate risk-taking at lower levels in the organization. Research has shown that new nurses who are engaged in a team-building activity involving responsibility, and that requires them to take decisions show much higher results in their work (Currey, Eustace, Oldland, Glanville, & Story, 2015). This form of team-based activity has a positive impact on their communicational skills, critical thinking, knowledge, confidence, and satisfaction with their working experience (Currey et al., 2015). Thus, the practice of team-building activities that promote decision-making contributes to the professionalism of nurses and safe patient care.
Main body
Another major factor discussed by Peter Drucker in his books is the importance of cultural and ethical principles behind the working process. The critical role of respect for workers is one of them. The scholar points out that employees who feel that their efforts are valued and respected are much more likely to stay motivated and take their role seriously and responsibly. Educating new medical personnel about the importance of their job is essential to develop a sense of responsibility among them. It is vital for all nurses to understand that the life and well-being of the patients depend not only on doctors but on them as well and that their role in treatment is valued. Another point made by Ducker is that profit is not the primary goal of an organization and that company, first of all, should serve the customer. This idea is especially relevant in medicine, where personal work with people whose health depends on them. Excessive commercialization of the medical system poses a big danger to the community, creating an environment for injustice and discrimination. Thus, it is especially important to promote a high level of awareness and ethical standards among all employees working at a hospital.
The role of self-control ineffective management is a major theme in Ducker’s writing. There are certain features inherent to the application of different forms of self-control in medicine. Research has shown that due to a high level of responsibility associated with work in a hospital; self-control contributes to the prediction of job stress among nurses (Cusack et al., 2016). At the same time, another study suggests that using self-regulation in learning methods leads to improved clinical reasoning skills, overall performance, and awareness of new nurses (Grover, Porter, & Morphet, 2017). The researchers pointed out the importance of proper attention and guidance in the learning process (Grover et al., 2017). To summarize, self-observation and other forms of self-control during team-building and learning processes are proved to have a positive impact on the professional skills and awareness of medical personnel. However, such measures can lead to higher stress if they are not supported by proper guidance.
In his book “The Practice of Management,” Ducker popularized the concept of management by objective and stated its main principles. The author argued that managers should break work on a big project into a sequence of steps. These steps could be taken by workers one at a time. It leads to a better understanding of complex processes, reduced stress, and improved productivity. The goal of the leadership is to review long-term goals, set objectives, monitor the work of the subordinates, evaluate the result, and reward the employees. Management by objective can be used in the setting of nursing service. This method is proved to be effective in inpatient care planning and other long-term activities in a hospital (Moore, Everly, & Bauer, 2016). This approach helps to improve the nurses’ understanding of their goal in the process and contributes to the development of a well-structured approach to patient’s treatment.
To increase efficiency, Ducker suggested using a process that is known by the acronym SMART. This approach emphasizes that the goals need to be specific and well-defined in order to be reached. Success in meeting the objective should be measurable. The goals need to be achievable, to ensure that the employees are not overwhelmed by tasks that they are not able to complete. Objectives are required to be relevant in the context of the main goal and possible to be accomplished in a reasonable amount of time (Turriago-Hoyos, Thoene, & Arjoon, 2016). This approach has been for a long time used to train new nurses in both nursing schools and hospitals (Grover et al., 2017). It helps develop universal methods that can be applied to a wide range of clinical situations and encourages goal-oriented thinking among nurses.
Decentralization in the workplace is another important factor of effective management, suggested by Peter Drucker in his work. It is supposed to create a work environment in which every worker can feel empowered to make a decision. Such an approach puts subordinates and their supervisors together in work to achieve the goals of the organization. Researchers have studied the effect of decentralizing management in nursing units, and suggest that both positive and negative effects take place (Pati, Harvey, Redden, Summers, & Pati, 2016). The study has shown improvements in work with supplies, medication, and documentation. However, there might be some problems with the effectiveness of cooperation among medical personnel and teamwork, which is a major disadvantage (Pati et al., 2016). Based on this data, the advantages of decentralized management in hospitals do not overweight the negative effects, so it is not justified to use this approach in hospitals until more advanced techniques and methods are developed.
Conclusion
Team-work plays a key role in nursing, contributing to the overall quality of medical care. Ducker’s principles of effective management can be used in medicine and be effective, but require proper adjustment to the environment and the specific features of clinical settings. At the same time, the values and general attitude of the author towards business and leadership are in line with the ethical standards of the medical community. Effective leadership and team-playing are especially important in medicine, where cooperation between nurses and doctors is crucial for making the work processes as efficient as possible to maximize chances to save people’s lives.
References
Currey, J., Eustace, P., Oldland, E., Glanville, D., & Story, I. (2015). Developing professional attributes in critical care nurses using team-based learning. Nurse Education in Practice, 15(3), 232-238.
Cusack, L., Smith, M., Hegney, D., Rees, C. S., Breen, L. J., Witt, R. R.,… & Cheung, K. (2016). Exploring environmental factors in nursing workplaces that promote psychological resilience: Constructing a unified theoretical model. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 600.
Grover, E., Porter, J. E., & Morphet, J. (2017). An exploration of emergency nurses’ perceptions, attitudes and experience of teamwork in the emergency department. Australasian Emergency Nursing Journal, 20(2), 92-97.
Moore, J. M., Everly, M., & Bauer, R. (2016). Multigenerational challenges: Team-building for positive clinical workforce outcomes. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 21(2).
Pati, D., Harvey, Jr, T. E., Redden, P., Summers, B., & Pati, S. (2015). An empirical examination of the impacts of decentralized nursing unit design. HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal, 8(2), 56-70.
Turriago-Hoyos, A., Thoene, U., & Arjoon, S. (2016). Knowledge workers and virtues in Peter Drucker’s management theory. SAGE Open, 6(1).