FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ARE FRONT-LINE MANAGERS IN HEALTHCARE SET UP TO FAIL?
BOZEMAN, MT July 14, 2009 How does it feel to be set-up to fail? The answer is miserable. That is how front-line managers in healthcare may feel when they go home after a typical day at the hospital. How often does the average healthcare organization create leadership alignment (the right people in the right roles)? The answer is approximately 55% of the time. There are several reasons why managers fail to successfully lead their organizations according to a recent white paper from Healthcare Performance Solutions What Does Being in Over Your Head Look Like.
According to the white paper, the most common causes that create the environment where seemingly good people (but sub-optimized leaders) tend to get-in over their heads include:
• Managers are appointed before they are truly ready they are not quite experienced or mature enough
• Managers are appointed when their demonstrated leadership talent is deficient
• Managers are appointed to a department where the degree of difficulty exceed their ability to get good results
• Managers are appointed out of necessity or convenience
The total number of front-line managers that are somewhat overleveraged is approximately 13%, according to Tom Olivo, President/CEO of Healthcare Performance Solutions, This should at the very least be considered a disservice to the front-line managers themselves. The total number of front-line managers that are seriously overleveraged is approximately 12%; this could be considered gross negligence or even an act of malpractice.
In an environment where quality, safety, service and patient satisfaction are paramount, it is imperative that healthcare organizations have the right people in the right roles, especially at the management and leadership levels. The average healthcare organization should have a realistic expectation for leadership alignment and appointment practices of 85% if they utilize a structured approach to determining their future leaders. The difference of having the right leaders in place can show as much as a 75% increase in operational performance over time.
About Healthcare Performance Solutions (HPS)
Healthcare Performance Solutions is an advisory services firm that helps hospitals and health systemsimprove organizational performance. Established in 2002, HPS has been retained by over 200 hospital systems to improve workforce optimization, employee engagement, patient outcomes, productivity, and the net operating margin. The core purpose of HPS is to improve the health of healthcare, one organization at a time.
For more information or to receive a copy of the referenced white paper, please contact:
Mark Felts
Healthcare Performance Solutions
972.429.3885
mfelts@healthcareps.com
www.healthcareps.com
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In The Press ::
press releases ::
in the press ::
To download a PDF copy of the above press release, click here.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
LOW PERFORMERS DESTROY A HEALTHY CULTURE
BOZEMAN, MT July 21, 2009 Healthcare is the most challenged industry in America. With increasing pressure brought about by current economic conditions, it is no surprise that hospital executives are examining all possible options to secure short-term and long-term success. Why is it then, that leaders and managers tolerate low performers or disruptive employees?
According to the white paper, Why We Tolerate Low-Performing People written by Tom Olivo, President/CEO of Healthcare Performance Solutions, there are usually one or more possible reasons for this unhealthy business practice. In interviewing hundreds of leaders I healthcare, here is the top ten list that represents the most common reasons:
1. Believing that the person will improve or turn-around their performance or behavior
2. The fear of loss (with some specific technical skill, experience, competency or knowledge)
3. The mind set of the devil you dont know may be worse than the devil you do know
4. Discounting the bad behavior, issue or collateral damage that may be occurring
5. A lack of hiring capability to replace the person with someone who is at least as capable
6. The security blanket insurance that the person provides
7. The fear of confrontation or reluctance with having the coaching conversation about poor performance
8. The mindset that good enough is
9. Not being able to measure the degree of negative optimization
10. A belief that the person is only negative with select individuals
In Corporate America, there is this distorted belief or assumption that we can somehow change or will people to become something that they are not according to Olivo. We invest significant amounts of time, energy and financial resources to develop or even fix people that are not a good fit for the role they are assigned.
According to Olivo, The reality is that healthcare organizations need to recognize that there are specific predictors, critical success factors, behaviors and evidence based business practices that contribute to high performance. If leaders can incorporate a structured approach to their management appointment practices, they will get the right people in the right roles more often. In fact, the single greatest driver of performance in any department is the talent and capability of the front-line manager.
About Healthcare Performance Solutions (HPS)
Healthcare Performance Solutions is an advisory services firm that helps hospitals and health systems improve organizational performance. Established in 2002, HPS has been retained by over 200 hospital systems to improve workforce optimization, employee engagement, patient outcomes, productivity, and the net operating margin. The core purpose of HPS is to improve the health of healthcare, one organization at a time.
For more information or to receive a copy of the referenced white paper, please contact:
Mark Felts
Healthcare Performance Solutions
972.429.3885
mfelts@healthcareps.com
www.healthcareps.com
To download a PDF copy of the above press release, click here.
- Does the department experience high volume or a very fast pace?
- Does the department generate significant revenue for the organization?
- Does the work require an advanced education or a unique skill set?
- Does the department require people who are considered to be scarce in your marketplace?
- Does the work in the department create a high amount of emotional stress?
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THE IMPACT OF HIGH PERFORMING DEPARTMENTS
BOZEMAN, MT – Although all departments and functions within healthcare organizations can be considered difficult, some departments and functions are clearly more difficult that others. Simply put, not all departments are created equal. This is why it is imperative to align the talent of a leader with the Degree of Difficulty of the department.
According to the white paper, “Defining Department Complexity ‘Degree of Difficulty’: Creating Superior Performance with Leadership Alignment” written by Tom Olivo, President/CEO of Healthcare Performance Solutions, research has concluded that talent alignment is the ultimate lever in driving results and desired outcomes in healthcare organizations.
“When organizations have a structured approach in place to align the complexity of departments or functions with the talent level of the leaders, the odds of success and creating high performance are increased significantly.” according to Olivo.
“There are five categories of complexity”, Olivo continues:
Different positions have different Degrees of Difficulty according to assessments evaluated by hundreds of healthcare executives. Examples of Degrees of Difficulty include:
- High Degree of Difficulty – Emergency Departments
- Medium Degree of Difficulty – Physical Therapy Departments
- Low Degree of Difficulty – Housekeeping Departments
When leadership talent is appointed to the appropriate level of complexity or Degree of Difficulty, the odds of success in creating high performance are 2 to 1 in your favor. When out of alignment, the odds of success are stacked 3 to 1 against you.
About Healthcare Performance Solutions (HPS)
Healthcare Performance Solutions is an advisory services firm that helps hospitals and health systems improve organizational performance. Established in 2002, HPS has been retained by over 200 hospital systems to improve workforce optimization, employee engagement, patient outcomes, productivity, and the net operating margin. The core purpose of HPS is to improve the health of healthcare, one organization at a time.
For more information or to receive a copy of the referenced white paper, please contact:
Mark Felts
Healthcare Performance Solutions
972.429.3885
To download a PDF copy of the above press release, click here.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
UTILIZING GPS-LIKE MEASUREMENT PRECISION TO MORE ACCURATLEY DETERMINE
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
BOZEMAN, MT August 11, 2009 A GPS navigation device allows you to most accurately determine the longitude,
latitude and altitude of a point on or above the Earths surface - instantly. This multi-perspective triangulation clearly leads to precise objective measurements. In a similar fashion, the Success Profiles performance measurement system incorporates a number of key vital signs from all stakeholders to assist you in managing leadership performance by department. In essence, you create a multi-multi rating GPS measurement system.
According to Tom Olivo, President/CEO of Healthcare Performance Solutions and Success Profiles, By triangulating key performance indicators, you create more accurate and meaningful business intelligence that can deliver tangible short-term and long-term benefits.
The Success Profiles GPS performance metrics typically consist of the following:
1. Employee Survey Results: Quantified (multi rater)feedback from all employees about the leadership ability of their immediate manager
2. Soft performance measures: Quantified cultural measures such as job satisfaction, organizational loyalty, professional engagement and patient satisfaction
3. Performance Management Eye Chart: A bottom up performance management evaluation tool that illustrates leadership performance as perceived by the staff, in an easy-to-understand graphical format
4. Talent Management Eye Chart: A top down talent management evaluation that ranks talent of managers as perceived by their superiors
5. The Objective Hard Performance Metrics: Outcome measures that include financial performance, productivity, labor costs, throughput cycle times, turnover and productivity
6. The Integrated Performance Measurement Scorecard: A sophisticated tool that allows leaders to view every performance measure at one-glance for coaching purposes or performance monitoring
7. Talent Alignment and Appointment Practices: An organizational index of leadership IQ alignment that illustrates how often the Right People are appointed to the Right Roles
According to Olivo, the data analyzing over 7,000 leaders is very clear and compellingas goes the talent and performance of the front line managers, so goes the performance within their span of control by any measure. Healthcare organizations need to better align demonstrated leadership capability with the complexity of the assignment if they want more consistent results. The average hospital only aligns the Right leaders with the appropriate level of complexity 55% of the time. The best organizations do it 85% of the time. Its no mystery why those organizations get better overall outcomes.
The high impact of employee engagement on patient satisfaction and financial outcomes is tied into front-line manager capability. Measuring and tracking metrics around front-line managers in critical to help you meet the extraordinary challenges you are facing in healthcare today.
About Healthcare Performance Solutions (HPS)
Healthcare Performance Solutions is an advisory services firm that helps hospitals and health systems improve organizational performance. Established in 2002, HPS has been retained by over 200 hospital systems to improve workforce optimization, employee engagement, patient outcomes, productivity, and the net operating margin. The core purpose of HPS is to improve the health of healthcare, one organization at a time.
For more information or to receive a copy of the referenced white paper, please contact:
For more information or to receive a copy of the referenced white paper, please contact:
Mark Felts
Healthcare Performance Solutions
972.429.3885
To download a PDF copy of the above press release, click here.
press releases ::
For more information or to receive a copy of the referenced white paper, please contact:
Mark Felts
Healthcare Performance Solutions
972.429.3885
To download a PDF copy of the above press release, click here.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CREATING TRUE BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE: THE VITAL SIGNS OF YOUR BUSINESS
BOZEMAN, MT – To survive in today’s business environment, healthcare organizations must become more sophisticated and more mature in the way they measure, compile and use data. By harnessing the discipline of business intelligence, healthcare systems and hospitals can make giant leaps forward to better predict the impact of their decisions.
According to Tom Olivo, President/CEO of Healthcare Performance Solutions and Success Profiles, “When you have mature and sophisticated analytics, your executives are no longer swimming in data and it allows them to instantly differentiate performance.”
As little as a year ago, acquiring meaningful business intelligence was a potential strategic choice intended to transform a healthcare organization from average to excellent. Waiting did not carry a penalty. Today, healthcare is so challenged and the headwind factors are so strong that acquiring business intelligence in no longer a luxury – it is a necessity. Those who wait will most certainly pay a price.
A hospital’s measurement practices are considered mature when they?
- Identify the right and most important measures to monitor
- Collect the information consistently at intervals that are timely
- Share the information with transparency to all stakeholders
- Act in a structured way to drive changes and improve with the information compiled
A hospital’s measurement practices are considered sophisticated when they:
- Accurately differentiate performance by leader and by business unit
- Understand the cause and effect relationship that exist between leading and lagging indicators
- Align and connect the activities and performance metrics to the organizations’ strategies
- Use the information to best predict what will most likely happen in the future
If your organization has true business intelligence, it will allow your leaders access to the most relevant information at the time of decision making. They will be able to differentiate performance one leader at a time, understand what activities leverage the best outcomes, predict what might happen, and better predict the odds of success on what can best occur with the decisions they make every day – every week – every month.
About Healthcare Performance Solutions (HPS)
Healthcare Performance Solutions is an advisory services firm that helps hospitals and health systems improve organizational performance. Established in 2002, HPS has been retained by over 200 hospital systems to improve workforce optimization, employee engagement, patient outcomes, productivity, and the net operating margin. The core purpose of HPS is to improve the health of healthcare, one organization at a time.
BOZEMAN, MT October 12, 2009 – To meet the extraordinary challenges that healthcare organizations are facing today, it is important to understand the correlation between the choices of employees personal habits (lifestyle, disciplines and behavior) and the impact they have on a consistent performance – in both life and business outcomes.
According to Tom Olivo, President/CEO of Healthcare Performance Solutions and Success Profiles, Our Right People, Right Roles research shows the connective link between “healthy and fit” lifestyle practices (the ultimate contribution to longevity) and “healthy and fit” business practices and the contribution to organizational performance.”
A healthy diet and consistent activity are the lifestyle habits that add to a person’s projected life expectancy. Changing one’s lifestyle has proven to be extremely difficult. Only approximately 10% of adults actually stay on diets and lose weight. Also, according to a BLS study in 2008, 16% of people (aged 15 years and older) who live in the US participated in sports and exercise activities on an average day in recent years. And, in the US 66% of all adults are overweight and 35% are obese as of 2007 findings.
Changing a company’s life style or habits may be equally as difficult. “Based on our research, approximately 25% of Healthcare organizations (Hospitals) in the US are considered to have a “healthy” culture and only 10% are considered to live a “fit” culture, according to Olivo. For a company or organization, a healthy culture consists of people who are passionately engaged in their cause, mission or service. A fit culture reflects people who are achievement oriented and driven to achieve high standards of performance. The business model challenges that healthcare organizations face combined with the “not for profit” mindset that exists create significant challenges for leaders of healthcare organizations to overcome in creating both healthy and fit cultures of performance.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
IS HEALTHCARE JUST AS UNFIT AS SOCIETY?
The top ten examples of “Healthy” and “Fit” cultural business practices include:
Healthy Business Practices
1. Open and transparent communication
2. No “secrets” rumor environment
3. Constructive dialog
4. High trust, collaboration
5. Effective delegation
6. Innovation
7. Coaching focus for development
8. Structured approach to talent appointment
9. Compelling sense of purpose/mission
10. A passion for exceptional service and caring
Fit Business Practices
1. Marketplace awareness
2. Redefined productivity as a philosophy
3. Mature and sophisticated measurement practices
4. Lean, Six Sigma/BPI/SPI competency
5. Ownership and responsibility vs. accountability
6. Personal and organizational discipline
7. Exceptional time management
8. Formal benchmarking of “best practices”
9. Focus on outcomes/results/goals and milestones
10. A passion for exceptional service and caring 10. A passion for achievement, quality and safety
Incorporating a healthy culture adds to a company’s performance and life expectancy much like living a healthy lifestyle. Logically, a “Healthy or Fit Culture” that incorporates caring, engaged and motivated people that demonstrate ownership thinking and behavior can provide better and more consistent care within healthcare organizations. The culture can create the value equivalent of 4% to 12% positive net operating margin in most cases.
About Healthcare Performance Solutions (HPS)
Healthcare Performance Solutions is an advisory services firm that helps hospitals and health systems improve organizational performance. Established in 2002, HPS has been retained by over 200 hospital systems to improve workforce optimization, employee engagement, patient outcomes, productivity, and the net operating margin. The core purpose of HPS is to improve the health of healthcare, one organization at a time.
For more information or to receive a copy of the referenced white paper, please contact:
For more information or to receive a copy of the referenced white paper, please contact:
Mark Felts
Healthcare Performance Solutions
972.429.3885
To download a PDF copy of the above press release, click here.
ASSESSING LEADERSHIP CAPABILITY IN HEALTHCARE IS VITAL TO CREATE CONSISTENT HIGH PERFORMANCE WITH GOOD PATIENT OUTCOMES
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BOZEMAN, MT – Countless books and articles have been published about the definition of leadership ability and whether it is a talent people are more born with or develop over time. At Healthcare Performance Solutions, the belief is that it is most likely a combination of both nature and nurture. Quite simply, leaders are first born and then they are made better over time. The more important question that needs to be asked about your front-line managers is, do they actually demonstrate leadership ability consistently with their demonstrated behaviors and results?
According to Tom Olivo, President/CEO of Healthcare Performance Solutions and Success Profiles, “When evaluating leadership ability, there is no magic number or list of performance attributes. Our research in assessing the leadership capability of over 7,500 front line Healthcare managers has proven that any valid and proven attributes when applied to the same population of leaders within an organization, will ultimately produce the same rank order distribution.”
For the past seven years, Healthcare Performance Solutions has assessed the demonstrated leadership capability of 7,682 front-line mangers with the following statistically validated attributes:
The Leader/Manager ….
1) Demonstrates a positive, optimistic, forward-looking orientation
2) Demonstrates a high EQ (emotional intelligence) with good communication and people skills
3) Demonstrates an open-minded perspective (is willing to change or is seen as a “change agent”)
4) Is respected by other leaders (manager peers, physicians)
5) Is focused on results and outcomes (is achievement oriented and likes to set stretch goals)
6) Demonstrates a high capacity (ability to perform in a fast-paced work environment)
7) Is humble, has a sense of humor, (has the ability to handle high levels of stress well.
The definitions on to ultimately rank your leadership talent levels are shown below:
“A” Level - Excelling – the leader/manager/ is a high achieving and talented performer that consistently exceeds expectations, brings out the best in others, is respected as a true champion with a contagious positive attitude and a change agent that drives results.
“B” Level – Succeeding – the leader/manager is a good and reliable performer that consistently meets expectations, brings out a good performance in others, is viewed as a true supporter with an optimistic positive attitude.
“C” Level - Struggling – the leader/manager is an inconsistent performer that sometimes meets expectations, struggles to bring out a good performance in others, is often negative or pessimistic and usually requires high maintenance coaching or assisting to achieve desired results
“D” Level – Failing – the leader/manager rarely meets expectations, fails to bring out a good performance in others, is consistently negative or pessimistic and usually requires high maintenance coaching.
The overall results for each level of leader listed above (in a complex department with a large span of control) are as follows:
“D” level leaders fail in creating a healthy culture within their departments 61% of the time.
“C” level leaders fail in creating a healthy culture within their departments 45% of the time.
“B” level leaders only fail in creating a healthy culture within their departments 26% of the time.
“A” level leaders only fail in creating a healthy culture within their departments 17% of the time.
The most important message here for executives in healthcare is that if you want to have higher odds of success in getting good performance results, you must appoint front – line managers that demonstrate leadership ability at either the “B” or “A” levels. With “A” and “B” level talent, the odds of success can be stacked 3:1 in your favor.
For more information or to receive a copy of the referenced white paper, please contact:
Mark Felts
Healthcare Performance Solutions
972.429.3885
To download a PDF copy of the above press release, click here.