Experiencing three retinal detachments over a period of 10 years has given me an intentional and deep appreciation for my vision. The good news, in the midst of a detached retina, is that you’re very aware of your blindness. There is no confusion about it.  You can see it exactly for what it is.

That is not true in most other circumstances in life. Often the problem becomes our blindness to the blindness. Some would call this our blind spots, yet perhaps it’s bigger than that – and more systemic. Especially when it comes to experiencing blindness caused by what we might consider a good thing.

For instance, a strive for unbridled efficiency.

It’s hard to argue the merits of increased efficiency, but perhaps we should! You may have experienced some aspect of this so-called enhanced efficiency in working your way through sterile and complicated phone trees or waiting on hold as the repetitive recording says: thank you for patiently holding – your call is very important to us.

At some point, it becomes clear who this increased efficiency is serving.  And it’s rarely the one patiently holding. These experiences often include long waits eventually connecting you with the struggling attendants of call centers striving to do their best amongst the loud background noises of other attendants. This desired efficiency creates quite an inefficiency – and much more.

Recently, I scheduled for a simple annual physical with my doctor of 30 years. I had not received a notice to come the week before for my blood draw so I could discuss the results with my doctor in the physical. This was especially important given the need to watch a couple of elements of my blood results. Trying to be proactive, I called to schedule an appointment with the lab only to be connected to a noisy call center. They were actually very helpful and scheduled the appointment – only to be rejected by someone “in the system” who sent an email indicating that my doctor’s protocol did not require any lab work for this physical.  Certain that this was wrong, I replied requesting they talk to my doctor about this.  Actually, I sent 4 emails over the course of the week leading up to my physical appointment. The only response that I received was complete silence. At 4:18am the morning of my physical, I received an email that generically said my doctor would discuss this with me at my appointment.

I knew in the whole scheme of things this was no big deal.  I would miss the face-to-face discussion with my doctor about the results of the tests, but I knew he would subsequently order the lab work and I would still get the results (which is exactly what he did). It didn’t help that all this experience came on the heels of taking two months simply trying to schedule an appointment with another specialist in their system taking me through an unavailable on-line scheduling system, calls with long holds and dropped calls.

Let’s just say that their attempts to make things more efficient, for themselves, became quite inefficient. Yet, the real problem they were creating was much bigger:

The feeling of being UNSEEN.

Organizations used to thrive on SEEING who they served.  It was the very essence of any hospital or healthcare organization to SEE. It’s hard to serve those you aren’t given the opportunity to see – much less cure them. Unfortunately, our front-line healthcare providers are the ones paying the price and taking the brunt of these drives for efficiency. As I walked into my physical, I understood that the nurse who greeted me and my long-term doctor were the victims of the “efficiency” and not the problem.

I trust you’ve had your own experiences of the systems striving for their ever-increasing efficiencies.  Yet, I don’t share this with you to vent (well, maybe a little!). I share it with you because the experience stirred within me a surprising reflection: Who am I not seeing?

A wonderful Central African cultural tradition that I discovered in my years of speaking for the Best Buddies organization was their common way of greeting others.  Unlike our typical greeting of “how are you,” the Central African tradition begins from a completely different place saying:

I see you.

Once seen, anything is possible. It’s quite efficient if you stop to think about it. While I don’t want to diminish the need for organizational efficiency, I do want to sound the alarm on efficiency’s shadow side of diminishing humanity by its blindness.

Recently, I was talking with my great friend Barbara Glanz, CSP, CPAE about this idea of being seen.  She reminded me of her own experience of walking into a restroom at O’Hare airport noticing a woman cleaning the restroom, moving slowly, and hunched over a bit — no doubt feeling unseen. Barbara walked over and put her hand on the woman’s arm and simply said: Thank you for all you do to keep these restrooms clean for us.  When Barbara came out of the stall to wash her hands, she noticed this woman had perked-up, was smiling, and even handing towels to those washing their hands!  It’s amazing what being seen will do for the soul – both for the one seen and, yes, for the one doing the seeing. Barbara has since shared this story with tens of thousands in audiences hoping it would open their eyes to the gift of seeing and being seen.

How many problems could be dissolved simply by each of us adopting a practice of seeing just a bit better?  And how many organizations could enhance their value proposition, teamwork, collaboration, retention and service, by consistently asking the question: In an effort to be more efficient, are we becoming ineffective — or even worse going blind?

As always, I’d love for you to share, below, your thoughts and possibly an experience where you have SEEN or BEEN SEEN!