“Leadership Means
Overcoming Adversity Through Creativity
Even When The
Naysayers Say It Can’t be Done”.
Helen Keller, the deaf and blind trailblazer of the 20th
century, once said that “no pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the
stars or sailed to an uncharted land or opened a new heaven to the human
spirit” by accepting the conventional wisdom that something can’t be done.
This isn’t the same state of mind that we are hearing today from many of
our healthcare colleagues who have seen their departments downsized,
budgets cut to the bone and their already limited resources diminished
beyond repair. What we are hearing from the masses is that it is
impossible for them to continue their savings initiatives under the TIME,
MONEY AND RESOURCES constraints that their healthcare organization has
placed on them.
Creativity: The Great Equalizer
What needs to be clearly understood in healthcare today is that time,
money and resources will continue to be in limited supply now and in the
future because of the tangled, bureaucratic and politically charged
atmosphere of how healthcare organizations are paid for their services.
No one wants to face the real problems of how our healthcare system should
be adequately financed, so our resources could get worse over the next
decade or so before they get any better. This conundrum is no excuse for
any healthcare executive not to continue to improve their savings
performance in order to advance their hospital or system’s profitability
even with his or her limited resources.
The good news is that there is a GREAT EQUALIZER to this financing dilemma
if we employ the power of creativity to meet this challenge of living and
thriving with scarce resources head on. To illustrate my point, Bill
Bratton, the former New York Police Department’s Commissioner (now the
Police Commissioner of Los Angeles), reinvented how police departments
work in the U.S. and around the world, although he didn’t have the time,
money or resources when he was hired by Mayor Rudy Guiliani to turn-around
the largest police department in the country, and he did it in record
time. During Bratton’s tenure as NY’s Police Commissioner from 1994 to
1996, overall crime fell by 17%. Felony crime fell by 39%. Theft fell by
35% and the NYPD had a 73% positive public rating, up from 37% four years
earlier also on Bratton’s watch. And he did all this while the NYPD’s
budget was being cut by 35%. Now how did he accomplish this feat?
On a MICRO level he first put his managers face-to-face with problems and
customers they couldn’t ignore. He did this through community meetings
and by focusing on the hot spots in the city. He held his management
accountable for crime in their districts and for meeting some basic goals
that he established. Lastly he partnered with Mayor Guiliani (his
champion) to identify and silence internal opponents and isolate external
ones.
On a MACRO level Bratton personally gave tours of crime ridden areas to NY
public officials to show them how bad life on the streets of NY was in
order to obtain their support. He traded excess police vehicles for
needed office space with the NY’s Division of Parole. He used video
messages in lieu of memos, staff bulletins and other documents, which no
one every read anyway, to communicate with his front line police officers.
Also Bratton developed the famous “Compstat” crime database that captured
weekly crime and arrest activities, which was used to identify hot spots
for intense police intervention.
These and other milestones were accomplished in two years by Bratton
without the need for extra time, money or resources to make them happen.
Leaders Don’t Need Extra Resources!
Leaders like Bill Bratton don’t need extra resources to get the hard work
done, because they concentrate their limited time, money and the resources
they have now where the need and payoffs are the greatest. This too
should be your creative strategy.
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If your aging MMIS system won’t generate the data you need to manage your
supply/value chain, then use your vendor’s databases to capture and report
on the data you require. If your hospital’s pay scale is too low to hire
qualified buyers, then hire the best trainable candidates possible and
formally train them on the job. If you don’t have time yourself to
conduct value studies, then tap your major manufacturers to conduct them
for you.
_________________
The message herein is that true leaders go over, under or through
obstacles of any kind (time, money and resources being the major
obstacles) that stand in the way of their goals by creatively meeting
those challenges with unconventional wisdom and an optimistic viewpoint.
Robert T. Yokl - President - The
HCP Group, Ltd.