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PART I: How to Build Blockbuster Value Teams

“ Creating Value Teams Isn’t Enough.  It Takes The Direct Involvement of Your Senior Management to Make Them Successful.”

Of the scores of value teams that we have observed or developed for healthcare organizations over the last two decades, one critical success factor that we have identified for the success of value teams is the direct involvement of senior management in the value management process. Heretofore it had been the conventional wisdom that senior management should empower teams then leave them alone for fear that they would stifle their innovation.  HCP’s research and mounting empirical evidence has proven this theorem to be wrong.   

Value teams don’t become blockbusters, we discovered, without intense involvement of senior management – CEO, COO, CFO or division VPs.  In every instance, when value teams have been blockbusters, top management has been intimately involved in the planning, training and the day-to-day activities of their healthcare organization’s value teams.   When senior management decide to be hands-off their value teams either withered on the vine or generated meager savings and very little quality gains for their organization. 

The reason for this is that senior managers are respected and have the authority to break rules and cut through the red tape. They also can be cheerleaders and visionaries and transmit a positive message to their organization that engenders cultural commitment and invites buy in at all levels of the organization.

Intimate Involvement Makes The Difference

By intimate involvement I mean that senior managers chair and are members of their organizations’ value management steering committee, are participants in the training of their value teams, attend all value team meetings, lead by example and are actively involved in the management of their value team’s daily, weekly and monthly activities.

On the other hand, when senior management takes a hands-off approach with their value teams or worse yet, mismanages their value teams by being absent, inconsistent, arbitrary, passive, meddling or demonstrates a lack of follow through, their value team leaders and team members quickly realize that this management activity isn’t important. They then start to show signs of the same negative attributes as their bosses display, which is a death knell for this mission critical function.

Other Ingredients For Successful Value Teams

Senior management’s intimate involvement with their value teams isn’t the only ingredient for blockbuster success, we have also discovered that value teams must also excel in four other best practices: functional analysis, data analytics, creativity and project management.  However, senior management’s involvement is the #1 ingredient to success!  Next week’s VMS&T will focus on the #2 ingredient: Functional Analysis.