Culture is a Top Concern for Leaders
Many Department Chairs and Administrative leaders identify “culture” as their most pressing leadership concern. They understand, intuitively, that culture impacts everything they do. Often, though, when someone says they want to improve their culture, they can’t put their finger on exactly what they’d like to change.
"When someone says they want to improve culture, they. can't put their finger on exactly what they'd like to change."
(See: Mindful Leadership Skills)
The Link Between Culture, Strategy, and Structure
Culture does not stand alone as a performance variable. It is inextricably linked to both strategy and operations. This is why you can’t change culture with “culture” program training. Many people do NOT respond well to an initiative focused on something so ambiguous and ill-defined as culture. And . . . while there may be issues with how people interact, and communicate, these interactions and behaviors often, arise from a lack of a clear vision, effective strategy, or the structure to deploy it.
For our purposes, let’s define:
Strategy as your overall plan to realize your vision and achieve the defined goals;
Operations, as the structures and processes by which you get things done. Things like: What needs to be done? Who does what? When does it get done? How will it get done; and
Culture as the sum of the beliefs and behaviors your people bring to work every day.
The Link between the Three - Examples
Example: The vision and goals, and the plan to get there, are not clearly defined, or effectively communicated –
This will cause frustration, and lack of confidence in the future. Teams often struggle to discuss this disconnect in a productive, meaningful manner. It may never be aired among the leadership group, or when they do come to the surface, it’s late in a strategic initiative, or done in a manner that causes tension.
This group needs to work on how to have difficult conversations, but he core issue is really the lack of a clear vision or strategy to get there.
Often leadership ASSUMES that the vision and strategic plan are clear. I've actually had ten Division Chiefs tell me they are unclear on the vision, but then the Department Chair tell me "That's impossible, because we HAVE a strategic plan and it was distributed to everyone!"
Having a plan on the shelf is NOT the same as everyone understanding the vision, how we are going to get there, and their role.
Example: The structure doesn't support your goals. . .
Even if everyone understands the vision and goals, the structure may not exist to execute the plan. This makes it impossible to make progress on key initiatives, causing frustration. I've seen a group or department present a highly complex plan, but then an organizational chart that is more in line with a 5 person family business!
The frustration may manifest itself in what feels like cultural issues – A failure of people to take accountability or step up and lead, or constant team dysfunction on topics that just seem to keep coming up and never get resolved.
These issues are, really, a manifestation of a lack of clarity of roles and responsibilities. In fact, often, the actual roles don't even exist so NO ONE is actually responsible for progress in key areas!
Example: Persistent Operational and Process Challenges
If operational processes don’t work, they cause inefficiency, reduce productivity, and become barriers to individual and organizational success.
This causes frustration, and sometimes even a sense that people aren’t valued. Their perspective is, “If the organization can’t do the work to help me succeed, they must not value me or my contribution!”
In reality, even this can be a structural/strategic problem, at its core. Do you have the right structure, the right people, in clearly defined roles, with the authority to solve these persistent process issues?
Collaboration, Communication, Accountability, etc.
Effective leadership, communication and team skills, including creating a culture of psychological safety are critical – but without a clear vision, effective strategy, and the structure to deploy it, they are wasted.
All of the metrics that matter – Quality, Patient Experience, Growth, Academic Performance, Engagement, Wellness, Retention, Productivity, and Physician Career Success – are interrelated.
Similarly, culture, collaboration, accountability, teamwork. communication, strategy, operations, structure, and culture....are interrelated and you won't accomplish your goals without understanding, and addressing each of them.
A Better Approach
Make no assumptions about why you aren't achieving your goals.
Define your goals and the vision, as if you've NEVER done it before.
Identify the barriers to accomplishing your goals.
Explore the cause of the barriers: Lack of a clear vision? Lack of a clearly communicated strategic plan? Lack of the structure to execute the plan? Lack of role clarity and accountability? Lack of effective leadership, team, and communication skills?
Chances are you'll see a combination of all of the above. NOW you can consider how to address each in an effective, practical manner - A clear vision, a practical strategic plan, the structure to execute it, AND the cultural skills to support it.
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