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SPANNING THREE DECADES OF VALUE MANAGEMENT LEADERSHIP

February 7, 2002 

VALUE TEAM TROUBLESHOOTING

Robert T. Yokl-President 

The HCP Group, Ltd.

  

“Value Team Performance Just Doesn’t Happen; You Must Proactively Find and Fix Problems Before They Destroy Your Value Team’s Cohesiveness and Effectiveness.” 

 

Value Teams left alone to there own devices will encounter barriers to their optimal performance that will slowly, but surely reduce your Value Team’s cohesiveness and effectiveness. These barriers include, but are not limited to: resistance to change, loss of commitment and withdrawal from the Value Team process by team members.  To counteract these negative influences Value Team Leaders need to develop counter measures to remove these barriers that are holding back their optimal Value Team performance.  Three aids to assist Team Leaders in removing these barriers are:

 

1.                Contact

How often do you talk, meet, email, and/or discuss projects face to face with your Value Team members to understand their frustrations, concerns and challenges?  How often do you coach them on how to manage their projects?

Or do you just show up at your team meetings and expect everyone to be enthusiastic, motivated, committed and prepared for your meetings?  If you believe that optimal performance just happens without ongoing and meaningful contacts with your team members (inside and outside of your meetings), then don’t be surprised when your Value Team is heading in wrong direction.

2.                Awareness

Are you and your Value Team members aware of what is going right and going wrong with your Value Team process?  Do you poll your members before you adjourn each of your Value Team meetings on this topic?  Do you have periodic 360-degree feedback instruments to identify barriers to your team’s performance?  If you are not regularly measuring how your Value Team is doing, then how do you formulate mid-course corrections? It is now considered an axiom that “no positive change is every brought about without awareness”, therefore, it is necessary that Team Leaders develop feedback mechanism to know with certainty how your team members feel, act and are performing their projects to effective positive change.

3.                Communications

“If no attention is paid to how team members are feeling, many will eventually lose interest and either slow down or leave”, says John Syer and Christoper Connolly citing their observations on team communications. 80% of the oral communications you have with your Value Team members should be focused on active listening and questioning effectively to understand how your Value Team members feel.  This is the necessary maintenance (or care and feeding) require to insure a healthy Value Team.  You need to ask their opinions? How do they feel right now? What is it that they noticed at the meeting? And what if anything, would they like to change?  These questions and answers will enable you to give your Value Team a “Tune-Up”, prior to any major breakdowns in your Value Team process

 

The “Value Team System” requires continuous feedback (self-adjusting mechanism) on the process, content, and projects that you are performing. In addition to the regular care and feeding (maintenance) of your Value Team that will enable you as a Team Leader to  plan and implement the suitable mid-course corrections to sustain your Value Team’s optimal performance.

Robert T. Yokl, President, The HCP Group, Ltd., has over 35 years of experience as a consultant and manager in the field of Supply/Value Chain Management and is one of the country's leading healthcare experts in value analysis, value engineering and materials management. He is the developer and program leader of the award winning Certified Value Analysis Practitioner Training Program™. Mr. Yokl is also the developer of the healthcare industry's leading ValueNetCentral™ Value Analysis Software. Over the past two decades he has trained thousands of healthcare managers in his patented Strategic Value Analysis™ and Team-Based Project Management™ processes and has assisted scores of organizations in developing their own value management programs. He has published six books, videos and audios on supply/value chain management. His latest book being, “ Strategic Value Analysis™: The #1 Smart Strategy for Taking Cost Out of a Healthcare Organizations’ Supply/Value Chain”.