Are you maximizing your mental potential? We've all heard how we only use about 10% of the gray matter sitting between our ears, but is it true that we're only using 10% of our brain's potential? Perhaps the other 90% is useful for other survival needs~fight or flight, instincts, etc. If you want to look at a vast area of "potential neglect," look at how we use, or don't use, technology at our disposal.
We can be more productive in the front office, yet we get by at a snail's pace. A managing director of Equity Arbitrage at a top brokerage firm cringes every time he sees subordinates using brainpower at the exclusion of technology. His firm handles hundreds of millions in internal hedge funds to help others invest corporate monies and every minute could spell lost millions. His staff relies on raw data from the strength of global currency to the comparison of financial statements to make mathematical predictions that can be exploited. The director cringes when he sees his people plodding manually when they could soar technologically. Why mull over the numbers line by line rather than address tasks as technological? His thoughts are that anything that is digital can be and should be strategically analyzed as the computer is far more efficient than the human brain for such activities.
The answers: build a theory to extrapolate, build a software model to process the information, and utilize computer power to enhance the human potential.
The healthcare industry faces similar potential-squelching woes with the looming threat of HIPAA. HIPAA is a mandate requiring all medical personnel to record any and all contact with patients. Imagine the mountains of paperwork and endless hours of record keeping! Hospitals and healthcare facilities are already inundated with laws, regulations, and paperwork. Think of the added burden for the many facilities that are in financial trouble. Now healthcare providers, working longer hours with more responsibility, have even more work being piled on their shoulders.
The manual way to address HIPAA is inefficient and archaic. It ignores the ability to maximize potential, expedite processes, and reduce errors. It doesn't make use of technology, meaning the data won't be as complete, as accurate, or as easy to collect and utilize as developers think. What happens when you order a cheeseburger at a fast-food drive-thru? The attendant pushes one of several pre-programmed buttons labeled "cheeseburger." A request is sent to the kitchen and the item is logged onto your final bill. What happens if you drive through an automated toll booth? No attendant is needed as the cartridge on your windshield is electronically registered, and your bank/credit-card account is automatically charged...all in real time. Why can't someone summarize the most popular provider/patient activities, program them onto a keypad, and record activity. A touch of a button next to each bed captures customer contact as it happens, collecting 98% of the activities without service interruption. The technology could allow for some handwritten notes to be converted to computer text, just like Microsoft's new tablet PC notebook computers do.
Nurses, doctors, and other attendants could have digital identification badges that record where they are and when they meet with patients with no human record keeping. The new biometrics on facial recognition, vein and artery scanning or fingerprint technology would restrict abuses of the system. These two systems could save millions in collection-of-data costs.
Think it's too expensive to integrate technology and build in security systems? Have you ever seen the bumper sticker that says, "Think education is expensive? Try ignorance." Business 2.0's February 2003 issue explains hardware from Synaptics and software by Oftex that will enable computer manufacturers to start shipping laptops with secure fingerprint touchpads for about $100 each. As for the other costs, the touchpads that the fast-food franchises use are inexpensive and the only battle is the software tracking and integration system. Notice that this is where another tool comes into play: Alliances. Also consider that the tool of the manager or executive may often be mental.
Some may complain that start-up funding is an issue. Investing in technology is an up-front cost that can be managed, especially when balanced against the long-term savings. In the case of HIPAA, 10 non-competing hospitals and a handful of medical groups surrounding each hospital form a joint venture and invest $10,000-$20,000 each to build a starting pot of $400,000. They hire a software firm with the expertise to develop the software, then sell the final product, splitting the payoff between all parties.
Strategy, linked to technology, tied to alliances and new product/service development maximizes brain power and makes money. Testing is a must. Risk is there, but think of regions of the world that skipped land phones and went directly to cellular. Here, we make a skip to office automation.
In your office, you may want to try these ideas:
1. Challenge yourself to eliminate an office function through the use of linking data beyond the software you've bought off the shelves.
2. Take a tactical person's job and eliminate it by redefining what is necessary to be accomplished.
3. Take a course on Access, C++ or any programming: not so you can use it, so you know what can be done and then hire people to write the code.
4. Ask yourself, what one function would a customer want to do that they could do themselves if given the tools.
5. Join a computer users' group and throw down a challenge.
6. Try to utilize the above model of a strategic directive, solved by technology, built by an alliance and developed into a new product or service for your firm.
Our mental faculties provide us with vast and limitless opportunities. Wisdom and humility are necessary traits that enable us to let go and forge ahead with what the future brings. That future is the embracing and utilization of technology to maximize the brain's potential. Who cares about the 10% or the size of the brain? The payoff~results, achievement, money, freedom, time~can be huge when you're willing to marry gray matter with digital power.
