“Trust but Verify”

“Trust but verify” was echoed by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, referring to the Russian proverb “Doveryai, no proveryai.”

This construct has many applications in organizations, including in healthcare.

Here are some that come top of mind:

In a critical conversation, playing back what you heard. Trusting that you heard the other person correctly, but verifying and not assuming. From a point of shared understanding, the conversation can advance.
When checking the barcodes of both a patient and of the medication before administering a drug treatment. The implications of an error can be life-altering so verification is a vital step.
To ensure action has begun on an important project that you have assigned to one of your direct reports. One may not have fully understood the assignment and be veering in a different direction so checking in serves both of you well. Alternatively, your colleague may need assistance and hasn’t yet asked. Therefore, opening the door to verify how things are going creates the opportunity for them to ask for support, guidance, or to share with excitement their early prototypes.
In a training session to ensure that the competency level has been attained by the participants.
When creating a new approach/workflow/process, confirm clarity of understanding by all involved prior to go-live.
In building a new site, verifying that all of the mechanical, technical, and operational systems are performing as intended prior to opening.
In a “timeout” before surgery to assure right procedure, correct side, on the specific patient. Again, a critical verification step that has become the norm in operating rooms due to the dire consequences of a mistake.
When running a Proof of Concept on a new offering. Verifying that the assumptions you are making have been validated before widening the implementation of the service to more people or more locations.
In ensuring substantial progress according to the needed timeline for accomplishing a strategic goal or workplan.

Systematize Trust but Verify

When I was a senior leader of a regional healthcare system, here are some of the ways that we systematically built the trust but verify philosophy into our leadership approach:

Within our cyclical planning system, we had a regular rhythm for verifying “progress to plan.” An open, honest discussion among the senior leadership team of progress and where we needed help or additional resources to achieve the objectives. This was quarterly against our Strategic Action Plan and annually against our Strategic Plan.
We established and followed a routine for reviewing performance on key metrics of organizational performance to verify if we were achieving objectives. This was on the calendar not ad hoc. We built it into our regular leadership cadence.
— And department leaders carried out the same for the key metrics within their areas of accountability.
We each did Rounding using key questions. This occurred both in 1:1 fashion with our direct reports and monthly/quarterly with each of our departments. During rounding with our departments, we verified that communications were flowing well and that performance boards had the very latest data, as just two examples of trust but verify.
For Improvement projects, we defined various levels of responsibility. The Lead and Sponsor would verify effective use of the improvement approach by the team so that there was a high likelihood of delivering intended improvement results. The organization-wide Improvement Projects also had a periodic review schedule whereby senior leadership as a whole would confirm that roll-out of the improvement was deployed to all relevant areas.

How might you trust, but verify as a leader…

Ask great questions.

Demonstrate interest and curiosity.

Seek to understand.

Review evidence.

Look at metrics for confirmation.

Ask for an example.

And consider these additional ways to systematize the notion of “trust but verify”:

Ensure you have a routine way of monitoring “Progress to Plan”.

Establish a regular method and calendar for reviewing key performance metrics.

As an improvement team sponsor, schedule regular checkpoints.

Utilize a rounding approach to conduct regular check-ins.

Set milestones and expectations of deliverables at key milestone points. Monitor achievement.

In my experience, most people are enthusiastic to share the great progress they have made when asked! And for those few who may view this inquiry as micro-managing, I would ask you to consider what has been their track-record on follow-through and delivery.

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Kathy Letendre, President and Founder of Letendre & Associates, advises organizations and leaders to create their excellence advantage.
Contact Kathy by phone or text at 802-779-4315 or via email.