Week 2 - Organizing for Innvoation

"To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science." — Albert Einstein 

It is hard to believe that it is the end of week 2 of our new semester! 

We seem to have a very engaged team, and I am truly looking forward to all this new class has to offer. So far we have hit the ground running…in typical MSLD fashion…and are already uncovering a great many topics, such as this week, surrounding around innovation and organizational impacts. 

This week we learned that building a bigger brain, as it relates to our innovative mind, requires us to recognize that there is no “one-size-fits-all” magical potion that can be sprinkled on every organization in order to identify solutions to improvement that universally work best for all businesses (McKeown, 2014, p. 35). As our reading this week also demonstrated, there are multiple ways in which we can attempt to approach what actions can be taken to show how complexity science can be used within an organization. Moreover, leaders can learn to identify what actions can be taken individually and collectively within the organization, what areas should be taken under for important consideration, as well as how this knowledge can create opportunity and the positive impacts that can take place within the organization as a whole. This can be done by understanding critical concepts, such as “open innovation”. Open innovation we learned one of many ways leaders can harness ideas that are solution oriented towards business goals based upon “…building networks of innovation outside the formal organization” (McKeown, 2014, p. 36). 

As mentioned in my research assignment this week, I have personally found that my “grapevine” connections often lend me support and necessary knowledge within my current leadership role that has given me an advantage over my predecessors. But one resonating factor I have come across consistently in the six years I have been with Tenet is that we do a lousy job of fostering an environment of thinkers…instead we lay heavy with deadweight “do-ers” that tend to lack in critical thinking, let alone innovation driven culture. This is partly because we are a highly litigious society encumbered by a great deal of red tape, policy, procedure, and riddled with service bulletins on best practices in healthcare. Most efforts fall by the side of the road due to what small liberties we do have become inundated to an overwhelming amount of work and a hawk’s eye management style gauged towards managing our business by our P&L and productivity reports. 

Yes, although all businesses must keep close tabs on their productivity and bottom line, the fact of the matter is healthcare is a highly specialized beast of a corporation that costs upwards of several million dollars a month to be operational and breakeven in labor costs, let alone in the black for overall plant operations. This comes from a great deal of schooling, certifications and state examinations that drive up costs of labor, licensing, even simple items such as light bulbs or television sets must be re-certified as healthcare grade to meet standards. Everyone interested in making a buck drives up the cost of healthcare…not just those that cannot afford insurance…even with their new Affordable Care Insurance provided by President Obama. 

Innovation would be incredibly useful and effective, even in healthcare, as we found in our readings and discussions this week, cultural foundations such as supporting “open innovation” allows leaders to create a culture surrounded by the ideas that can come from anyone and from anywhere in our organization. This type of open and active engagement can positively impact grater employee loyalty and commitment, as well as focused engagement and growth. My organization claims that, “By fostering an environment that embraces innovation, we’re able to accomplish amazing things.” (Tenet Healthcare, 2014). Tenet attempts to do this by, “Leveraging new technologies. Introducing new treatments. Developing new facilities. And creating new healthcare solutions for our patients, physicians and employees.” (Tenet Healthcare, 2014). 

However, the reality is that much of this never has the opportunity to trickle down to the individual healthcare facilities under the Tenet umbrella. As leaders, and our commitment to life-long learning, we know that intuitively “…new ideas start coming from new people” (McKeown, 2014, p. 39) and that our approach to becoming a more innovative culture and developing creative partnerships requires us to “…encourage problem-solving at all levels inside and outside the organization” (McKeown, 2014, p. 40). What we tend to find is that many people in healthcare have been in the business for many years. This also means that typically they learned one way to do something, are quite often resistant to any changes in the process, and when asked why we do something, the response usually centers around “…I don’t know, that is the way we have always done it…”. 

Therefore, when it comes to innovation, my current opinion, rests somewhere between talking the talk, and seldom are we walking the walk. As classmate Amanda Zeitz pointed out in her posting, sometimes businesses, managers, or companies, can “…claim to be forward and innovative…” (Zeitz, 2015). This can be the most tragic of downfalls when companies are trying to become innovative. More importantly, Zeitz points out the beautiful simplicity surrounding success in business is about people; not just people in the organization that are actually doing the work, but that, “…positive effects are most often experienced when you can help each person see and understand their purpose in the organization” (Zeitz, 2015). You might say that our success as leaders regarding innovation and incremental improvements is relative to the attitude of our senior management team supporting us and a culture that welcomes new takes on old ideas…or just welcoming and encouraging new ideas from all levels within our organization. “The speed of disruption is also the trigger that is causing entire industries to think about how to re-purpose what they have…” and not only redefine themselves, but also the expectations of their current talent level found within the organization (MacFarland, 2013). 

I think that overall, because healthcare is culture clinging deeply to policy and procedure, it may forever be a losing battle to attempt to innovate radical change. But what I can continue to do and promote is a business office culture that is not only welcoming to, but encouraging of innovation through our employees. And I can do this by demanding and creating a culture that welcomes innovation thinkers and participants (Spender & Strong, 2010). As I found out this week within our assignments, one of the most relevant ways of blossoming ideas and generating enthusiasm that I can contribute is to a continual environment of “open innovation”. Open innovation will promote my goals of creating a culture surrounded by the ideas that can come from anyone and from anywhere in our organization. My hope in doing this is that my team will experience focused engagement, commitment and growth. Because there is not really a formal or informal process for me to evaluate as it relates to innovation, I can entirely see why instilling a culture that envelopes the importance of innovation is helpful, meaningful, and required to stay current within the marketplace. What I learned this week was that everyone can be innovative and contribute something, regardless of their level within the organization and those ideas can literally come from anyone and anywhere which can in and of itself, be seen as encouraging and motivational (McKeown, 2014, p. 55). I also learned that the more key front-line people involved, the more chances of you uncovering unique ideas and approaches to problem solving. 

This philosophy, which breaks away from the traditional hierarchal idea that the upper echelon knows everything there is to know about the business, shows us that “…front line employees…are well placed to find problem-insights…” (McKeown, 2014, p. 36) and can be highly motivated and incentivized to identify work and team fostering solutions because they are the persons tasked with the daily responsibilities within the business unit and have a sense of expertise within their roles. This building of team unification and outward communication can bring a sense of closeness and purposefulness to all involved. I have been looking forward to this class for almost a year, and I truly am excited about the challenge of the next seven weeks! Until we blog again… 

"To be creative you have to contribute something different from what you've done before. Your results need not be original to the world; few results truly meet that criterion. In fact, most results are built on the work of others." — Lynne C. Levesque Breakthrough Creativity