Yet another article about healthcare came across our computer screen the other day entitled "The Perfect Storm."
You might recall the real Perfect Storm—an actual meteorological phenomenon in 1991 during which the collision of separate weather patterns off the coast of New England spawned a particularly vicious storm, a best-selling book and a mediocre movie.
Too bad the phrase didn't blow out like the actual event. Today, "the perfect storm" lives on as one of the greatest—and worst—clichés of all time. A quick Google search finds over 4,500 uses of the term in the news media in the last month alone, describing everything from the worldwide economic mess, to tourism in the United Arab Emirates, to the public transit system in Indianapolis, and violence in Guatemala. Generally, you find the phrase applied to any situation in which an industry or company or country faces a number of serious challenges simultaneously. The healthcare industry has been wrapping itself up in this ragged cloth for at least ten years.
As marketers and communicators, we have a couple of problems with "the perfect storm." First, using any cliché is a form of laziness. While it may be accurate to describe an industry as suffering from multiple serious challenges, using stale language to describe that reality suggests that you have stopped thinking rigorously and creatively about it. The victims of the real Perfect Storm—fishermen and sailors at sea—were utterly helpless, and at the complete mercy of nature and the luck of rescuers. Is that the message you want to send about your company's response to the environment?
Second, reliance on an overused term eventually erodes your credibility. According to many "experts," healthcare's perfect storm conditions have been threatening to destroy the industry for the last decade. Really? Because when you compare 1999 to 2009, you see more money spent on healthcare today, more technology, more employment. Yes, some parts of the industry have shrunk—there are fewer freestanding hospitals in the US today than a decade ago—but the overall industry is bigger than ever. So much for the perfect storm.
Finally, has there ever been a time when an industry or company didn't face multiple challenges simultaneously? Economies ebb and flow. Disruptive technologies change the rules. Governments swing from less regulation to more regulation and back again. Populations age or grow younger. Industries and companies spawn, grow, and die. Some times are harder than others. That's not a Perfect Storm. That's life.
