In Grad School I had a professor who told the greatest stories. His stories generally came from his experience and always had a great business lessons. He particularly liked to tell stories about when he was a young man and was a cook in a hospital kitchen. If I had a dime for every time he said “Did I ever tell you about the time when I was a cook in a hospital kitchen?” I’d be able to pay off my student loans.
He taught us about how hospitals save money by re-purposing the food they prepare for patients. Today’s vegetable medley will become tomorrow’s vegetable stew, which will become the next day’s vegetable pot pie. I guess this isn’t shocking to most people, but as someone who never eats leftovers I was not pleased.
The hospital executives believed that too much food was going to waste, and decided to give bonuses to the kitchen staff for reducing waste based on innovative food re-purposing. The staff was required to dump all food waste into trash bins which were weighed as a measure of total food waste per day. Reducing the number of pounds of food waste would result in a bonus for the kitchen staff.
The kitchen staff quickly realized there are only so many ways to re-use a hamburger, so they found a new solution to the wasted food dilemma (and a quick way to receive their bonus). Before dumping the wasted food in the trash cans, they drained as much water from the food as possible. This reduced the weight significantly and the hospital execs believed they were saving the hospital tons of money. However, when food costs didn’t change, the execs were confused. How could the waste rate be down (via innovative food re-purposing) but overall food costs remain the same?
They investigated for fraud in accounting. They examined the historical data of their food costs to be sure there wasn’t a price increase from their vendors recently. They double-checked their numbers. Nothing made sense.
They never asked themselves if the measure itself was accurate. They never asked the kitchen cooking staff if they changed their waste measurement techniques. They never asked the right question.
Have you asked the right questions today?
Editor’s Note: Breanne Harris is the Solutions Architect for Pearson TalentLens. She works with customers to design selection and development plans that incorporate critical thinking assessments and training. She has a Master’s degree in Organizational Psychology and has experience in recruiting, training, and HR consulting. She is the chief blogger for Critical Thinkers and occasionally posts at ThinkWatson. Connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter for more of her thoughts.
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