Contributor: Christopher Hugill, MBA
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Trying times. Times of unease. Challenging times. Difficult climate. Ambiguity. Stress. Chaos.
Between the pandemic and our extended collective experience of division, we have come to embrace these accepted euphemisms for an environment that carries great risk. Healthcare leaders are in a challenging position. They must engage with diverse stakeholder groups who frequently do not agree on the right course of action. They must attempt to set a course in unpredictable environments, thus shortening the horizon within which one can realistically plan. They must find ways to hold true to the values and the mission of the organizations they lead while being nimble in the face of emergent threats and opportunities.
Our clients have shared with us that certain modes of thinking help them cope with and even thrive in this environment. These include creating space to make sense of complex situations, determining what they can control, and prioritizing actions. We have observed that certain tools and methods have helped, forging clarity and conviction when those things are at a premium. This article describes two of these tools, their value, and guidance about how to use them.
Force field analysis. Imagine a large-scale game of tug-of-war, but instead of having one team on either side, many ropes and teams pull at a central point. This is how many of today's leaders feel about their strategic objectives, with various internal and external forces pushing in the direction these leaders wish to go while other forces pull away from it. As the powerful forces multiply, leaders can struggle to keep them all managed, increasing risk and slowing decision-making.
This intuitive framework1 asks leaders to map out the driving forces working in favor of a set of goals and list them on one side and then enumerate the constraining forces working against them on the other side. An underlying idea is that removing constraining forces is more impactful than enhancing forces already working in your favor. The rigor of force field analysis is identifying each constraining force, identifying which you can control (as many will most certainly be out of your control), and then focusing on what you can do to remove or mitigate each constraining force over which you have some influence. In the meantime, force field analysis can help leaders prevent important issues from evading their attention, an increasingly likely outcome in times of upheaval.
Converting a constraining force into a driving force can be especially powerful. For instance, a recent client identified a constraining force of increasing skepticism among key personnel within the organization about the possibility of making a needed change to care delivery. Working to directly address that skepticism, by engaging the key personnel and securing permission to pilot the change, turned a constraining force into a driving one, accelerating this unit toward its strategic aims.
Decision charting. When organizations come upon uncharted territory, as they regularly do in the current environment, they frequently surface new demands on decision-making. For instance, a recent client struggled with deciding how to allocate scarce resources in a funding environment that has broken drastically from the historical experience. How do leadership teams approach decisions they have never had to make before? Once a decision has been made, how does the team transparently communicate to ensure the organization understands and accepts those choices?
Decision-making roles can become cloudy very quickly, particularly when decisions are new and roles are shifting to address emergent needs. They can also become oversimplified, where much of the focus is on the final decision-maker, with little attention paid to the work behind the scenes or the implementation path forward. Decision charting is a concrete framework for helping teams and organizations develop a shared view of how decisions are made in turbulent environments.
Here's how it works: Decision charting invites teams to co-create agreements about which role has the “A”, authority, “R”, responsibility, “C” consult, or “I”, a group of stakeholders who need to be informed before broad communication. By working with teams to chart key decisions that cut across different roles, those teams can develop a shared language for managing future decisions. The tool also enables teams to own their impact on an organization through pattern analysis across multiple decisions. When a team finds that all mapped processes have many C roles, it may reveal something important about the organization’s consensus-based culture. That knowledge can unlock potential paths to speed decisions and results. We have found that Decision Charting helps teams cut through noise, reduce decision fatigue, improve the quality and speed of decision making, and even reorient their organization's culture.
In the example we shared above, the senior leader, who had the “A”, delegated the “R” to a senior team member, who consulted the appropriate people about the areas of greatest need. The “R” then developed a series of approaches that the “A” teed up and worked through the senior team. There was an understandable concern that any decision would be deeply unpopular to some part of the organization. Still, the “A” could explain how the decision was reached and what they would do about the budgetary issues in the future, a communication that was met with more acceptance than the team had hoped for.
While there is no shortage of colorful descriptors for the challenges facing leaders in today's environment, it can be hard to land on helpful tools and methods for how to lead in such times. These tools, when used to foster productive conversations specific to each leader’s work, can offer a measure of support to quiet the noise in the environment. They can help leaders connect with and improve efficiency within their teams. In the long term, we hope they will help people more deeply express organizational goals and values. We believe that those who can do so will be well-positioned to lead their organizations into the future.
Contact Chris at: [email protected]
For more information on this topic or related materials, contact CFAR at [email protected] or 215.320.3200 or visit our website at www.cfar.com.
Reference
- Lewin, K. (1951). Field theory in social science. New York: Harper & Row.