Are healthcare leaders now playing in comfort zone? Crisis set off
Reading an interesting article ‘Leaders’ become ‘Followers’, and thinking- how much this statement is true in respect to healthcare! The contributor author Glenn Llopis discussed clearly about difficulties to distinguish the leaders from the followers now-a-days. Critics of the write up highlighted how so many leaders are now playing in safe, comfort zone. Will they hold themselves, their teams and their organizations back because they choose to follow instead of lead? This is a value added question, predominantly if it's applied to healthcare leaders in recent time. Leadership is about taking risks, seeing opportunities where others don’t see, unleashing passion, being entrepreneurial, working with a generous purpose and strengthening the promise of a better workplace. How much these points are practice in healthcare? What are the major challenges? The main focal point for healthcare is now on how leaders are taking risks! The most challenging part is how to calculate those risks. As healthcare leaders, you should always need to take risks. Are our current healthcare leaders capable to taking risks? Currently healthcare is not only transforming but creating huge turmoil to tackles. The healthcare pendulum box contains lot of unleashing opportunities but do our leaders know which one they need to grab and which one they need to aside. Is it true that leaders are now more focusing on their titles and positions of authority, rather than acting upon the responsibilities and duties they get paid for and doing what their employees expect and need from them?
Traditionally long back since nineteen century, healthcare facilities were setup for philanthropic model, where investor earlier never asked for return of investment (RoI). This was a service for mankind, doing research for evidence based medicine, helping people to recover. It was never thought for business, and or comfort and service; rather consider a place for curation. At that time, healthcare leaders never worried about scarcity of fund, rather they were concerned about how to best use of those fund in mankind and research. Nevertheless situation changes, healthcare is now transforming into better service and comfort, competing with hospitality industries. Healthcare is now creating a business model where treatment and comfort align together. Private healthcare facilities are coming up with a business concept to discussing more openly about their financial perspective and RoI. Patient satisfaction and cost to the services are now a major turnaround for hospital business. Ever changing technology is another hit back for healthcare. Every day, some startup innovations are appearing in healthcare. If you adopt this innovation, then the operation, clinical and business model need to be changed. These changes are so fast and furious that as a healthcare leader, you can’t avoid them or regret them! Besides, the current healthcare leaders are needed more knowledge on financial business and technology model, on the top of clinical know-how. Even, the Board of Directors (BOD) is making revolutions decision by recruiting leaders from other industries to test and trial in this sector. Some BOD even appointed hospitality or FMCG or MNC leaders to improve the healthcare services. It’s seemed like every day is a test day for healthcare leaders and how they cope up with those challenges and stress. As a healthcare leader if you know your business very well, still there is a change of up and down. So, the crisis started when few leaders resigned from healthcare industries and some are playing in comfort zone. Managing a hospital is like spicy hot-dog. You need to grow your revenue, increase patient satisfaction, better workplace, adopt newer technology and staff fulfillment. Else, there is huge competition among the hospitals as well, where always an open choice for the patient and the staff to switch. Staff retention and recruitment is another great effort and it cost huge expenditure. Therefore, healthcare leaders need to keep their eyes on ‘Staff turnover rate’ and this is very important point for healthcare to success. Since, hospital operation (OPEX) budget is mostly occupied with staff remuneration package. Besides, recruiting and retaining top-notch physician is another challenge. On beyond, we need millennium physician who knows how to use web, technology friendly, clinically knowledgeable, hands-on skill on evidence based medicine and, most importantly patient friendly. If you consider top notch knowledgeable and skillful physician, then it is very difficult to find millennium physician. Seeing the “glass half empty, rather than glass half full,” the easy way out rather than putting the leadership to the test and earning what they are paid to do. Fundamentally, we don’t always get what we want in our work or life. That is why we need good leadership – to help solve problems and provide guidance, navigate unexpected circumstances, cultivate growth and overcome hardships. Leaders are not hired to monitor situations, play it safe and keep quiet when things get complicated.
Leaders make bad decisions for many reasons, because they rely too much on their past experiences, are addicted to corporate politics, mismanage resources, don’t see opportunity; but especially when they don’t trust themselves enough to lead and decide to follow. Think about the mobile giant company, Nokia, their leaders fail to foresee the market of android smart phone, which is now the company is paying to disappear from the market. Healthcare is in the same pace now, if you can’t foresee what technology is coming up to destroy your practice, and then you will not persist anymore. Let’s see what five important points of sign that Glenn Llopis mentioned to evaluate the strength of our healthcare’s leadership team. Let’s see if any of the following five characteristics are evident for our leaders or within ourselves as a leader.
1. Risk Hostile: Playing it too safe is a sign that leaders are becoming risk adverse. They would rather just sit back and follow the status quo. They don’t speak up for what they stand for and only address their true points of view when they believe there will be no consequences.
Leaders must view risk as their best associate. It’s a natural part of leadership and real leaders are confronted with it each day. Great leaders make difficult decisions every time. They know how to make 30 decisions in 30 minutes. They know time is our most precious gift, yet many don’t know how to manage or value it. The workplace demands that we do multi-task; employees lose focus and become disorganized, making it difficult to make good decisions and build momentum. The best leaders can make at least 30 solid decisions in 30 minutes throughout the course of a meeting. Yes, that’s a decision every minute, but they are not only making decisions about the agenda items – but about the participants, their leadership styles, behaviour and attitude, preparedness or lack thereof, the group’s confidence level, their ability to perform and generate desired outcomes, and so on. As a follow-up to the meeting, they list down those 30 decisions, prioritize them and note which participants taking the charge for implementing decision and why, and when. From this they can finalize action plan by 5W1H -what is the decision, why need to implement, where to implement, how to implement the decision, who is taking the responsibility, when to finish.
How many times has your gut told you to take action during times of adversity but you didn’t? Instead, you waited for those around you to take the calculated risks that you were hesitant to take yourself? If this sounds familiar, trouble awaits.
2. Signs of Complacency: Real leaders have strong backbones and are not afraid to confront and solve problems. They speak up and are courageous enough to tackle any tension points head-on. They are respected as leaders because they are able to make the most of a bad situation and turn a negative unexpected outcome into a learning experience to help their teams grow and better compete.
However, thoseLeaders who play it too safe have grown complacent. They may not be aware of it yet – but their complacency is losing them respect, trust and loyalty from their employees as well as other leaders in the company.
3. Bounce Accountability: Leaders become followers when they swing over accountability. This is probably one of the most obvious signs that it’s time for a leader to step down. You know that your leader is becoming a follower when they spend more time keeping track of their excuses and blaming others for poor performance, rather than holding themselves accountable to help others perform better. This is especially true when leaders are the ones at fault but don’t want to expose themselves to their corporate hierarchy – it’s easier to blame their subordinates.
Leadership is about mentoring your employees and helping them to be successful. Employees deserve to be led by leaders who understand that success comes most to those who are surrounded by people who want their success to continue. Great management boils down to accountability and this is something that must always be clearly evident as you serve in a leadership role. Are you leading or following? Have your leaders become followers? Today’s workforce will strengthen if more leaders stop being followers and start contributing to their organization’s ability to create or sustain a competitive edge.
4. Not Creative: Great leaders have their own distinct style and approach. They are known for how well they manage their personal brand as a leader. They create original content and stand out from the crowd for being authentic. They don’t focus on self-promotion but rather on the promotion of others. They know the advantages of being original and not mimicking the often outdated leadership styles of their colleagues.
Leaders know how to instinctual lead and lift others to be better and they are original in how they go about it. Followers are afraid to be original and thus become leaches and loafers throughout their careers.
Are you more of a dealer or a provider of great leadership? Do you deal great leadership that is original, trustworthy and authentic? Or are you a provider of someone else’s leadership content, ideas, style and approach? Have you created your own distinction as a leader? Being original is critically important for the sustainable success of a leader. How do you measure your originality? Though you can be both a dealer and provider of great leadership, however, set a goal to be a dealer and spend at least 70% of the time on it.
5. Don’t Share Their Momentum: You know a leader is a follower when they don’t share their momentum with others. It’s obvious when someone is looking for recognition rather than respect. They focus more on getting the credit for an idea, strategy or approach – instead of sharing credit with their colleagues. They have hidden agendas that are all about protecting their domain and perceived stature.
Great leaders share the harvest of their momentum with others. Sharing begins with trust and trusting yourself is a critical success factor in anyone’s career. The wise man knows he will forfeit his fortune if he does not trust himself. Followers lose their momentum because they don’t share it and thus stay stuck in a self-serving process. Real leaders understand the importance of having everyone’s best interests at heart.
Obliviously, those five (5) signs have greater impact on our leadership style and management. Unlike other organizations, healthcare is one of them to be a considered as a complex organization. Even leaders in the other industries are also in a challenging situation and struggling with their success but healthcare is distinctive. Kodak failed to anticipate digital photography and their leaders were complacence about their business empire. Kodak’s demise is that it missed the digital revolution or simply that the ubiquity of digital cameras made photographic film redundant while Kodak leaders buried their heads in the sand. Kodak’s failure to adapt to the new technology stands in stark because Kodak had greater resources in terms of its brand reputation, its finances and its technological prowess in digital imaging. Kodak’s failure lay in its strongly inward focus. Kodak went through a number of CEOs. The short tenure of each CEO made working towards a distant goal for Kodak of which industry leadership in the fast evolving technology of digital imaging somewhat create difficulties. Very often, when CEOs change, they bring new priorities and the pursuit of a distant goal can be easily ‘misplaced’ in these reshuffles, or, worse yet, the goals themselves may be changed. Kodak also went through numerous restructurings which were traumatic for their employees. Ultimately, Kodak needs to exit from the market place. Therefore, these 5 signs can warn any leader including healthcare to understand their development and success. Crucial part of today’s healthcare is mixed with clinical, financial and technological surfaces where leaders need to know every piece of these stuffs.
Does any healthcare leader can foresee how wearable will shape the hospital in the future? It's fair to say that technologies such as medical imaging and x-ray scanning have revolutionized the healthcare world, but there's still more to come. Wearable, in particular, are garnering massive interest from health professionals, researchers and institutions. For example, From VR (virtual reality) headsets being used to train the next generation of doctors to in-body sensors that can track patient vitals, the hospital of the future will be connected, real time and powerful. Another example is Vital Patch, a lightweight, disposable patch that's attached to a patient's chest and provides information about their heart rate, breathing, skin temperature, body posture and ECG stats via a special app. It sends them real-time data so they can track the health of patients and enable rapid response care if any symptoms change. Inside the device, there are ECG electrodes to detect heart rate, a 3-axis accelerometer to detect motion and a 96-hour battery. FDA already approved this patch. Wow! With the ability to stream the data from the biosensor continuously and in real-time, care-givers can monitor an entire floor of patients more efficiently and attend to patients that need the most attention at the most critical time. The VitalPatch biosensor enables better healthcare for patients, at a lower cost for hospitals than has not been possible until now. This is one single example of one Start-up Company, there are thousands of similar company are working to redefine healthcare. The initial selling point for wireless company, Oxehealth is another exciting start-up hitting the market. Oxehealth, is creating pioneering technology for hospitals. It has designed a system that allows doctors and other healthcare professionals to track patient vitals - including heart rate and breathing rate - through low-cost digital camera sensors.
A recent warning from Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma about the technology disruption. He warned that society could see decades of pain thanks to disruption caused by the internet and new technologies to different areas of the economy. The billionaire warned that any business not linked to the internet could suffer in the future. Ma also spoke about the rise of robots and artificial intelligence (AI) and said that this technology will be needed to process the large amount of data being generated today, something that a human brain can't do. But machines shouldn't replace what humans can do, Ma said, but instead the technology community needs to look at making machines do what humans cannot. This would make the machine a "human partner" rather than an opponent. But he did admit that AI was likely to lead to people living longer and fewer jobs around. And robots could also replace chief executives of companies.
"30 years later, the Time Magazine cover for the best CEO of the year very likely will be a robot. It remembers better than you, it counts faster than you, and it won't be angry with competitors," Ma said. If this will be true then our current leaders are creating opportunity for those CEO robots by not doing what RIGHT steps that need to be done.
Now, as healthcare leaders, you need to make a choice, choice for patient,- for physician, -for prayer and calculate RoI and decide what to adopt and how much you need to change, after adaptation. Change and adopt the new system in your facility is a continuous process but how far your employee as well as can adjust. It’s not so easy of what other people think. With such havoc situation, few leaders are taking comfort zone, following others and by doing so, they are creating crisis in the leadership. Besides, if you want upgrade your facility time to time, you need funds; Lot of option and choice are available, what you do as leaders? On the other part of the coin, you need to calculate risk associated with this technology, what if the whole system is shut down? Side by side, you need to make a close observation which company is buying or adopting this system.
You can be lag behind, if you so, you and your organization will be disappeared like Nokia. It is still mind-boggling how fast Nokia fell from the top rank of the dominant phone company to being sold within five years. How did this happen? And more importantly, can this happen to other companies as well? Certainly can, particularly if it is considered in healthcare. Several key debatable factors were identified for Nokia failure, including fear, suppression of information, over-confidence of leaders, and low technological competence among management, and competing product lines. As a market leader for over a decade, Nokia didn’t really plan for the future as it seemed a bit complacent with its products. When Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, the first touch phone, Nokia was still priding in its E-series by when the definition of smartphone had undergone a tremendous change. Nokia leaders failed to anticipate, understand or organize itself to deal with the changing times. Similarly, healthcare leaders should keep their eyes and ears open both inwards and outwards to monitor what’s coming next! Managing healthcare is no so easy, as you think; it’s truly very hard to achieve high quality affordable care with center of excellence. However, it’s a continuous journey and you will be a part of the team. To overcome the crisis, healthcare leaders need to be start and alert to take decision within one minute. If You can’t do that, you and your hospital is in trouble.
Still, leaders coming from clinical knowledge and practice are performing better than non-clinical leaders. This is because; clinical background leaders know their business much better than anyone. Few healthcare leaders are coming from finance, or marketing or hotel industry can do well in their perspective unit but as a CEO, most of them are in challenging situation as they couldn’t foresee the risk associated with healthcare business or inappropriate to develop clinical program. They also incline with their previous experienced and drive the organization towards their own industry experience. Few hospitals lost their credential to perform due to this inappropriate leadership experiment.
However, there is no hard and fast rule that non-clinical couldn’t run the hospital facilities. If you have exceptional leadership quality, good listening power and understanding; most importantly give respect to others, you have every chance to success. Most importantly, you don’t need to let your leadership skills diminish, or find yourself growing more irrelevant each day. Stand up and be courageous. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Problem drives you to find explanations, explanations find you errors, and errors find you unhappiness, unhappiness lead to stress! You want a happy life or stressful life? If you want a happy life, you need to be Mr. Fixer. Make everyone Renovator within your organization. Is it a difficult job to create a ‘corrector culture’ within your organization and drive them towards solution? Healthcare is now a thrilling playground among 4P(s): Patient, Physician, Prayers and Public. Don’t feel that providers aren’t just physicians. The term ‘Physician’ includes virtually everyone working within the hospital. It takes everyone to provide great ‘Patient Service’. At the same time, a hospital cannot meet its Mission if it has no Margin. Everyone working in the hospital must understand and demonstrate a commitment to solid financial performance with respect to revenue and expense!
Leadership is about taking risks, seeing opportunities where others don’t see, unleashing passion, being entrepreneurial, working with a generous purpose and strengthening the promise of a healthier work place.