{"id":140,"date":"2018-10-24T21:31:24","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T04:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/chiefanalyzerofthings\/?p=140"},"modified":"2018-10-24T21:31:24","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T04:31:24","slug":"strategic-renewal-in-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/create.twu.ca\/chiefanalyzerofthings\/2018\/10\/24\/strategic-renewal-in-health\/","title":{"rendered":"My Strategic Renewal, Executive, and Organizational Design Principles for Health Care"},"content":{"rendered":"

A better future for Health<\/h4>\n

\"\"Working under a Health Authority, such as Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH), presents specific challenges in terms of staff engagement and retention.\u00a0 In its rigid corporate environment, there are many restrictions and limitations in terms of what the organization can do to engage and motivate health care workers.\u00a0 One way to motivate staff is a reward system.\u00a0 The rewards system is designed to align the goals of individuals with the goals of the organization (Galbraith, J. R., 2014).\u00a0 With\u00a0any government-funded organization, the spending by any department can be heavily scrutinized and held accountable to tax-payers.\u00a0 This means spending on\u00a0items outside of regularly mandated activities is highly discouraged.\u00a0 In contrast, my wife is a supervisor at a private medical imaging clinic.\u00a0 They often provide gift cards in small increments as a token of recognition for staff who did a good job.\u00a0 Throughout the year, the\u00a0company also host and paid for various events such as Christmas celebration and family activity day to increase team morale and create a tighter community.\u00a0 These incentives appear small but can create a big impact in terms of engaging staff members and create a sense of ownership within the organization.\u00a0 When our such spending is out of the question, the health authority will need to utilize strategic thinking to find creative ways to achieve the same outcome.\u00a0 In one of my previous blog post<\/a>, I mentioned one of the strategic ways to engage staff by making common sense with transparent communications,\u00a0visioning collectively, and\u00a0<\/span>creating a culture of learning.\u00a0 I would like to provide more concrete examples on how it can be applied specifically in my workplace.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"There is a lot of distrust in union workers.\u00a0 <\/strong>Like many government agencies, health care workers are unionized.\u00a0 \u00a0While there are many benefits for staff such as job security and fair employment process, the union can also create a lot of unnecessary tension and distrust when there is a conflict between the leadership team and staff members.\u00a0 Union organizations tend to be skeptical of many directives from the leadership group and advise union members to always consider “what’s in it for me”.\u00a0 This type of perspective foster a culture of selfishness and apathy when comes to organizational interests.\u00a0 In terms of dealing with human resources in the health care setting, we must first establish\u00a0trust by making common sense with transparent communications.\u00a0 Our leadership team is faced with many challenges such as new directives from higher level agencies.\u00a0 Often, these directives will translate to some less desirable changes to the frontline staff.\u00a0 As strategic leaders, we must help others in the organization make common sense of the world around them, the challenges they collectively face, and how they will face them together (Hughes, Beatty, & Dinwoodie, 2014, p. 84).\u00a0 Even when details of the directive is not relevant to the frontline staff, providing the information will help staff members understand why certain decisions are made.\u00a0 As suggested by Hughes et al. (2014), “unarticulated knowledge can cause people to feel unclear or confused about the apparent disconnectedness between the priorities, policies, and processes of different teams, departments, or divisions in their organization” (pg. 85).<\/p>\n

Corporate vision is just as mentioned, belongs to corporate.\u00a0<\/strong> There is no buy-in from staff members to the corporately developed vision.\u00a0 As a strategic leader, we must be visioning collectively to allow staff members from all levels to participate in the vision-setting process.\u00a0 This provides the opportunity for people to share personal versions of aspirations for the organization to create ownership of the organization\u2019s vision (Hughes et al., 2014, p. 76).\u00a0 The vision must also be meaningful to the entire organization and not just for the leadership team in order to reinforce the greater purpose of the organization.<\/p>\n

\"\"The culture of learning is key to engage staff<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0Achieving the enduring performance potential of the organization requires the hearts, minds, and hands of all to be engaged (Hughes et al., 2014, p. 41).\u00a0 To do this, the strategic leaders must be willing to learn from others in all levels of the organization, including frontline staff.\u00a0\u00a0The result of engaging staff members in different levels and departments is the creation of new connections and relationships that would foster higher levels of motivation and morality (Imbenzi, Williaume, & Page, 2013, para. 14).<\/p>\n

Well, that didn’t work…but this might<\/h4>\n

\"\"Two years ago VCH conducted an employee engagement survey to assess the health of the workforce. The results of the survey were\u00a0abysmal, with over 47% of health care workers stating dissatisfaction and disengagement with the organization.\u00a0 The CEO of the organization has made it her priority in VCH to address these concerns.\u00a0 Since then, many different initiatives have rolled out such as abolishing the employee absence program and promoting a learning series on change.\u00a0 Yet, even though the idea of this initiative is good, not many changes have happened within the organization.\u00a0 In fact, many staff members that I know are confused and not sure what is happening within the organization.\u00a0 I believe this is because the initiative is missing a few key items:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Set clear strategic priorities<\/strong>.\u00a0 Even though the CEO has started the initiative in the attempt to engage staff, there are really no priority changes to the existing work demands to allow this to happen.\u00a0 VCH is currently rolling out a series of workshops to help staff develop new skills in managing change and establishing a culture of curiosity.\u00a0 However, without prioritization of existing workload and other projects, after staff have taken the workshop, there is no opportunity to implement or practice such learning.\u00a0 Once staff returns back to their care site, the urgent matters quickly come rushing back to their attention and the newly acquired skills are soon to be forgotten.\u00a0 If staff engagement is the main focus and priority for VCH, then every project and tasks must be properly aligned by setting clear strategic priorities, which is one of the key strategic acting competencies (Hughes et al., 2014, pg. 120).<\/li>\n
  2. Keeping leaders accountable<\/strong>.\u00a0 Our top executive leader, the CEO, has been very visual with this new initiative and priority for VCH and it has been very refreshing for the frontline staff to see her level of commitment.\u00a0 However, this cannot be said the same for the local department leadership.\u00a0 It appears there is a disconnect the CEO and other leadership groups.\u00a0 When our direct leadership group is nonchalant about a project initiative or decides that is it not important for the department, it is very difficult for staff members to engage.\u00a0 For example, in my own department, this initiative to engage staff was never brought up in our staff meetings or senior strategic meetings.\u00a0 Because of my current position, it is difficult for me to determine why the disconnect exist.\u00a0 \u00a0I do believe one way to increase the effectiveness of this initiative is to hold people accountable.\u00a0 As suggested by Lepsinger, R. (2010), “high level of accountability will take initiative to ensure the success of a project, provide early warning of potential problems, and take action to resolve a problem”.\u00a0 Our immediate leaders and supervisors must be seen to have buy-in and continue to promote this initiative in order for it to succeed.\u00a0 Otherwise, it is destined to fail and things will go back to the way it was.<\/li>\n
  3. Implement initiatives at the right time<\/strong>.\u00a0 When this initiative first rolled out, the project team was very enthusiastic and together with a third-party strategic management company has begun to introduce a two-day workshop on change management and to encourage staff to embrace change.\u00a0 My leadership team has identified me as one of the emerging leaders of the department and I was invited to participate in the pilot workshops.\u00a0 Together with approximately 30 people, we represented the emerging middle and frontline leaders that are motivated and passionate about what we do.\u00a0 However, the outcome of the pilot was confusion and disengagement.\u00a0 \u00a0The overall sense of the workshop was it lacked the purpose and vision of the initiative.\u00a0 \u00a0After attending the two-day pilot, many people in the group felt the workshop was delivered in an inappropriate time and many people did not understand how this workshop relate back to the original purpose of the initiative.\u00a0 These workshops well thought-out and useful for staff members, but it must be implemented at the right time before it can be effective.\u00a0 When most of the organization were still uncertain as to the direction of this new initiative, rolling out additional projects and training only adds to stress and create even more confusion.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The three things I can do…<\/h4>\n

    …to promote the positive renewal, execution, and organization design principles:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Engage my staff to create shared direction, alignment, and commitment<\/strong> (Hughes et al., 2014, pg. 41).\u00a0 The organization is currently attempting to establish a collective vision for VCH.\u00a0 It is important for me as a leader to work with my staff members and determine\u00a0how we can align ourselves to achieve the organizational purpose in a way that is meaningful to my team.<\/li>\n
    2. Foster agility by making strategy a learning process<\/strong> (Hughes et al., 2014, pg. 129).\u00a0 In the next three years, we anticipate major organizational changes to our leadership team.\u00a0 It is important for me, as a strategic leader, to continue to be agile in being ready for the uncertainty of what is to come.\u00a0 These challenges can only be overcome by collective problem-solving processes which require strategic learning (Hughes et al., 2014, pg. 129).<\/li>\n
    3. Creating systems of accountability<\/strong> (Lepsinger, 2010).\u00a0 People who have a high level of accountability will take initiative to ensure the success of a project, provide early warning of potential problems, and take action to resolve a problem even when it is not their fault (Lepsinger, 2010).\u00a0 I will use the three techniques as suggested in Lepsinger (2010)\n