Lead Article:
Change Leadership You Just
Can’t Resist for Long
 
By Katharine White MS, CS, CPHQ

In our experience, when managers are asked to to describe their strategy to implement a new program or service, to create a more aligned budget, to become more competitive, they are often only able to report tactics and activities. They are often under-prepared to craft a change management plan that minimizes resistance and increases the likelihood of change adoption. As leaders face the daunting task of leading change, they wonder where to begin. Leaders may be expected to implement either a change they envision or a change imperative that is handed down. In either case, to become a change leader, not just a reactive implementer of change edicts, a leader needs to begin by adopting ‘a mindset’ to be a powerful leader of change. Without this initial step the words, actions and behaviors that follow, will not happen.

To adopt this mindset leaders must first:

• Know that they have a choice to adopt a mindset to be “a powerful leader of change”
• Define the mindset to be a powerful leader of change.
• Act on it.

This is an important process to follow, so a change leader can then effectively:

• Lead change
• Adapt to change
• Get results through their teams
• Continuously promote creativity
  

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What Skills Comprise Effective Change Leadership?

The behaviors that comprise Change Managing, derived from the Checkpoint 360 from Profiles International are: Seeks Improvement, Displays Commitment, Adjusts to Circumstances, Thinks Creatively and Facilitates Team Success. These behaviors competently exercised will create change leadership that just cannot be resisted for long.

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A common current change that is being instituted is the mandate to reduce expenses. Each individual reduction and the domino adjustments required of multiple reductions create a most complex change management dilemma resulting in both frank and veiled resistance. Many companies delegate the task, and wait for the reaction. This change will yield better results, if change leading behaviors are implemented in a proactive way as follows:

Seeks Improvement: Executives or owners who inspire others to identify the resources necessary to improve performance, i.e., only those that add value to the customer, and eliminate all others, will have clearly emulated this behavior. (www.leanleadershipnow.com)

Displays Commitment: Executives or owners who are visible, consistent and display a balanced outlook will build confidence within a company, engender employee engagement in the change required to achieve financial goals, and decrease resistance.

Adjusts to Circumstances: Executives or owners who look at setbacks as temporary and diversity as a strength will catalyze change adoption. Not all change happens within the time frame the leader wishes it to occur. Staying the course will prove to employees that the current change is in the best interest of the company, and is one that they just cannot resist for long.

Thinks Creatively: Executives or owners who pass down the edict to cut expenses, without creating an atmosphere of innovation around cutting those items that add the least value to the customer will promote change resistance. (www.leaninstitute.org) Employee involvement will unleash far more ideas than a few executives pouring over spreadsheets. Even though the “cuts” are perceived in a threatening way, employees are far more change agile if they know all avenues have been exhausted prior to making sweeping program or personnel cuts. In this environment, employees may in their work.

Facilitates team success: Executives or owners who want strategic change around expense reduction might assemble cross functional teams that have a goal, a method of resolving conflict and of making decisions that serves them well in recommending cost savings to the organization.

This is one example of changes that leaders are asked to make every day. Bereft of a change management strategy, leaders often are confused about where to start and how to proceed. Becoming a change leader that just cannot be resisted for long starts with adopting a powerful mindset for change followed by those change leading behaviors that, when emulated consistently, achieve successful change initiatives with breakthrough results.

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If you would like to learn more about the initiatives, (including the 5 C’s Leadership curriculum), that will transform your organizations culture to one of higher quality, satisfaction and safety, visit www.healthcarerenaissance.net for Health Care organizations and www.lighthousePSI.com for business.

Stay tuned for upcoming publications that will look at other competencies in more detail and apply them to case scenarios for deepening understanding of the importance of these as keys to Navigating Leadership.

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Beta Test Site Search

Health Care Values: Patient Safety First© Program recently released by Lighthouse Performance Strategies, Inc is looking for a beta test site:

Introduction: Health Care’s credibility is being challenged by the backlash of avoidable patient care errors, hospital acquired conditions, inconsistent care and service quality and patient dissatisfaction. Growing a solid Culture of Safety and Quality will firmly root an organization to establish credibility by achieving success measures of optimal patient safety, consistent care quality, improved employee engagement and ultimately financial viability.

Health Care Values: Patient Safety First© is an organizational development and training initiative that creates a solid communication and accountability infrastructure for sustaining excellence. The 5 C’s© Leadership Curriculum, coupled with Performance Outcomes Sustainability Coaching (POS Coaching©), are core interventions that help leaders hold accountability on key Culture of Safety and Quality values based behaviors, resulting in the achievement of any Health Care organization’s defined success measures.

Beta Test Invitation: Lighthouse Performance Strategies, Inc. is seeking a Health Care organization, who is committed to care/service and leader excellence. The setting may be acute, ambulatory, physician office practice, home care, long term care, or behavioral health or companies that are suppliers to Health Care such as medical equipment or IT.

The leadership team must be open to innovation, have a "burning platform" for change, be willing to allocate resources (time, attention and beta test funding ) to invest in leadership development, and be willing to coordinate the beta initiative with already existing improvement activities to achieve program synergy toward the achievement of success measures. Must be willing to participate in a combination of in person and virtual delivery.

The beta test organization will have a pre and post-assessment to determine efficacy (outcomes) and the publication of an associated white paper.

For more information, please contact us.

If you would like more information on the Healthcare Values: Patient Safety First© consultative process for Helth Care, or Business Values: Customers First © please contact:
Lighthouse Performance Strategies, Inc. www.lighthousePSI.com
1-401-632-4237

Learn more about Healthcare Renaissance Consulting at our website: http://www.healthcarerenaissance.net/