I met with another leadership coach, we were discussing the responses when talking with healthcare senior leaders and human resource leaders in healthcare sectors. When we discuss changes that could improve their entire organization, leadership effectiveness, manage process better, what we hear is there is; “no time and no money”. There is agreement these projects are desperately needed, but the answer is still no.
Spending most of my career in healthcare leadership leading improvements, educating, coaching, and mentoring leaders I am sad to see since COVID, most has vanished.
Nurses, doctors, leaders are so busy these days, overwhelmed with the current workloads, covering multiple clinics, even taking out a couple hours a week is being vetoed as “no one has time”. Meanwhile healthcare organizations are regularly laying off employees and leaders, making the workloads even more cumbersome.
The challenge with this mindset is by decreasing your labor force, doubling up on work loads, increasing demands for more revenue, there is only time for mistakes and burnout. At the same time organizations are still functioning at a COVID frantic pace of change.
I also find it interesting that healthcare organizations that are focused on quality improvement, increased education and coaching for leaders, and thoughtful change are showing a larger profit margin. Maybe there really is a correlation between culture, education, growth, quality and profits?
Many times we do this massive downsizing, stop improving, and within 1-2 years that backfires. We then swing the pendulum back with mass hiring and crisis improvement projects.
Let’s do that differently.
1. Take time to reflect on the challenges and progress you have made. Be honest with yourself if there is backsliding or no progress. It’s OK and helps you see how to lead differently next year.
2. Be realistic about capacity. When the workload is chronically greater than the capacity, it will diminish the effectiveness and quality in all that you do.
3. Revisit your priorities and set attainable goals. Everyone feels it when you don’t accomplish goals, or when you see quality of care diminish.
4. Eliminate frantic from your vocabulary, you can still move at a thoughtful rapid pace and consider all the components of effective change management. In healthcare all processes are interdependent, frantic doesn’t account for this, the result is massive re-work. At a time when there is chaos and uncertainty in the world around us, we react strong to change and chaos in our work world.
5. Support your staff and leaders and allow them opportunities for learning, coaching and growth. Develop relationships with your staff so they will trust you. Be transparent.
Let’s talk about how best to design and implement timely thoughtful change, allow growth and improvement, and avoid regret and negative consequences.