Recently in Change Management Category

The July-August issue of Harvard Business Review is far from light holiday reading. Through a wide range of lenses, it aims squarely at business strategy and leadership challenges to be faced in the post-2009 recession world. Leadership in a (Permanent) Crisis by Ronald Heifetz and his colleagues at Cambridge Leadership Associates, reflecting the volume as a whole, is all about national and global post recession trends in the broader business environment that will shape industries over the next several years. As physician and health care leaders we owe it to ourselves, our patients, and our organizations to examine how these will impact us...

Alaina Love may be stating obvious in her June 2 Business Week commentary Leading at the Speed of Thought when she says: "Never before have leaders experienced the scale and complexity of change that they face now" but she thankfully gives us something worth pausing over as she considers some of the leadership adjustments that need to be made simply for survival as a result...

Here's a read that's worth a few minutes in your busy day. Decoding Resistance to Change, by Jeffrey D. Ford and Laurie W. Ford ( April 2009 issue of Harvard Business Review) takes a quick look at strategies for defeating resistance to change. Resistance being something health care leaders who operate at the cutting edge of science and technology never see, right? Not...

The March 16 issue of Business Week features a profile of Ford's CEO. Alan Mulally: The Outsider at Ford,. At a time when there is plenty to say about the auto industry and its executives, the author, David Kiley, instead focuses this piece on the risks and benefits of bringing an outsider into a position of substantial responsibility. In December of 2006, when Mulally was brought from Boeing to lead Ford, the company was already on the ropes. A risky time for a controversial choice. It's also a familiar dilemma for health care leaders when considering a critical recruitment...

Job Losses Hint at Vast Remaking of Economy was published by The New York Times on March 6. This article by Peter S. Goodman and Jack Healy sparked my thinking about the unique position health care leaders "enjoy" in a grim economy which has not (yet) landed a direct hit on our industry. Can health care actually be part of the solution for the US economy? Please read on....

On February 17, 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009--the largest one time domestic spending bill in U.S. History. This package, which includes a massive dose of tax relief, is intended to do two fundamental things: (1) stimulate the economy; and (2) more specifically to create or save 3.5 million jobs during the President's first two years in office. Both sound like good prescriptions for health care leaders, right? Well....

A Scion Drives Toyota Back to Basics, in the Management section of yesterday's Wall Street Journal chronicles the factors that earlier this year led to the appointment of Akio Toyoda, grandson of the company's founder, as Toyota's next President. What's provocative about this, other than the potential intrigue of nepotism which always draws reader interest, is the "back to basics" subtheme which may bear examination for health care leaders as well...

On February 12, 2009 Klaus Kneale , the "layoff tracker" for Forbes.com authored You're Probably Doing Your Layoffs All Wrong,- a short but important opinion piece given the current economy - which will impact health care leaders sooner or later....

The Wall Street Journal of Friday, February 13 described President Obama's balancing act when engaging the Congress and the American public about the current economic crisis. In After Curbing Enthusiasm, Obama Must Ease Anxiety writer and commentator Gerald F. Seib describes the delicate leadership dance between the Scylla of raising expectations and the Charybdis of lowering them. Not unlike what health care leaders must do when launching new initiatives in tough or cynical environments...

Thomas Kuczmarski (perhaps tongue in cheek) suggests that President Obama create a new cabinet level position to introduce clearer thinking and creative solutions to heal the stagnant economy. In his February 11, 2009 Business Week article Obama Needs a Secretary of Innovation, Kuczmarski notes that real innovation takes work across traditional boundaries - something even less likely to happen when substantial attention is being paid to surviving within one's own boundaries. So to think about innovation, one needs to be able to think outside of one's own backyard box. We have a candidate for this position-from among our own health care leaders.....!