Response to Servant and Strategic Leadership Tools –HC 2-post 2.1

 

Response to Servant and Strategic Leadership Tools –HC 2-post 2.1

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Thank you for sharing the valuable information, and I would like to add a new thought to strategic leadership.

Lean Thinking Strategy

The implication of “learning process” (Hughes, 2014, p.21) on a strategic leadership approach is

“Making a change that progressively builds on each other,” Enhancement of well-being, Visioning, Service, and Cultural change. The implementation of these transformational strategies, in my opinion, requires a lean strategy. An organization that understands customer value and focuses on its purpose and the process works towards achieving those values. Lean in healthcare defined by Toussaint and Berry (2013) as “an organization’s cultural commitment to applying the scientific method to designing, performing, and continuously improving the work delivered by teams of people, leading to a measurably better value for patients and other stakeholders.” Lean thinking is the key to having a lean organization. It starts where you are; it is a top down and bottoms up strategy. The Lean strategy is a quality improvement philosophy and set of principles. Using the idea of the inverted pyramid organization as a metaphor (Hughes, et al., 2014, p.81-82): “instead of thinking of the senior leaders at the top of the pyramid and being “served by” everyone else in the organization, think about senior leaders at the bottom of the pyramid and serving everyone else”. It is a “people-centric” strategy which recognizes that the people are doing the work, they understand their problems best and have good ideas of how to solve those problems. Now everyone in a position to find problems that are standing in the way of providing patients with the best quality faster at an acceptable cost.  Now, they face the reality of the situation and create meaningful operation to capture the current state and improvement as they happen. Framing the issues regarding improvement directions needs executives to stretch goals that everyone understands and able to vision.

Principles of lean as noted in Toussaint, et al., (2013) studies are:

Principle 1: Lean is an attitude of continuous improvement

Principle 2: Lean is value-creating

Principle 3: Lean is unity of purpose

Principle 4: Lean is respect for the people who do the work

Principle 5: Lean is visual

Principle 6: Lean is fixable regimentation

In a study of Lean implementation in four emergency departments as noted in Dickson, Anguelov, Vetterick, Eller, and Singh (2009) studies, they found that “successful Lean implementation depended on both leaders’ and followers’ degree of adherence to Lean principles and willingness to change the culture. They described the following three key factors for successful Lean implementation: 1) engaged frontline workers who come to “own” Lean, 2) long-term leadership commitment, and 3) a flexible workforce that is open to change”( as cited in Aij & Rapsaniotis, 2017)

The positive indicators in Mann (2009) study referred to the ability of servant leadership and lean leadership strategy when considering reported results; both tangible and intangible outcome. “The most frequently noted tangible outputs were reduced error rates, shorter waiting times, and increased productivity. Decreases in waiting time and errors led to reduced costs; fewer errors resulted in reduced morbidity and mortality and thus improved patient safety. Intangible outputs included increased employee motivation and satisfaction and increased patient satisfaction”(as cited in Aij et al., 2017). Abuhejleh and Dulaim (2016) found that “Lean markedly and sustainably increased patient access, improved safety, and patient satisfaction, and increased employee empowerment” (as cited in Aij et al., 2017).

The underlying goal of Lean is to improve the quality and efficiency of patient care while controlling the cost in the provision of the best ideal patient care. Successful lean transition requires a systematic and systemic change, leaders at all levels and Servant leaders to engage their staff in identifying and solving problems based on continuous improvement attitude; therefore, change the culture.  The composition of lean strategy and Transformational servant leadership have a positive outcome to achieve patient-centered, high-quality, employee empowerment and contribute to the attainable sustainability of healthcare organization.

 

References:

Aij Kh, Rapsaniotis S. (2017). Leadership requirements for Lean versus servant leadership in health care: a systematic review of the literature. Journal of Healthcare Leadership. 9,.1-14. doi.org/10.2147/JHL.S120166

John S. Toussaint, Leonard L. Berry (2013). The Promise of Lean in Health Care. Mayo Clinic Proceeding, 88 (1), 74 – 82. doi.org/10.1016/j.mayocp.2012.07.025