“I just returned from the Prada show in Milan”—that was the opening line from a piece on NPR. Apparently this year’s runaway hit on the runways has to do with high heels, with the emphasis on the notion of high.

The following comes from the UK Telegraph: The girls looked like rabbits trapped in the headlights; their faces taut and unsmiling, their eyes wide with fear and apprehension. Were they about to undertake a parachute jump? Abseil down a 1,000 ft mountain? None of the above. All they were doing was trying to negotiate the catwalk at Prada during this week’s Milan fashion shows in shoes that were virtually impossible to walk in. At least two models tripped and fell on to the concrete floor; others wobbled and stumbled, teetering and tottering, clearly in agony, and all the while their minds were fixated on just one thing: reaching the sanctuary and safety of the backstage area without suffering a similar fate.

According to the NPR reporter, the heels are so high that regular people—women people that is—can’t seem to walk in them without falling. This problem has led to the creation of an entirely new micro-industry. In L.A. and New York, there are classes to teach ladies how to walk in very high heels without hurting themselves. These classes are being offered through dance schools that couldn’t fill their dance classes—they are now booked solid.

Tell me this isn’t the same as trying to walk and chew gum at the same time. Multitasking.

Now before I make fun of some thirty year-old who has to relearn how to walk, let us turn our attention back to those dancing—cum—walking schools. What makes this story interesting is that those dancing schools saw a need and re-engineered a part of their business to meet that need, sort of like we’ve been discussing regarding the need to improve patient satisfaction in your hospital.  With everything going on in healthcare, many things will change.  If they don’t require change, you probably have not been paying close enough attention. 

What’s important are having a plan to define what needs to change and managing the change.  Assess business processes, remove outdated duplicated processes.

Now I’m going to go saw the heels off my wife’s shoes before she hurts herself.