Wednesday, December 16, 2009

7 Tips for Turnaround Management in Healthcare

The business elements of healthcare have faced significant turmoil this past year. Hospitals, medical practices, groups, insurers and even their service companies have been forced to produce greater results with fewer resources. This has led to strained budgets and strained executives as well as strained staffing. Why have some healthcare businesses survived and done well and others struggled during this past year? Why have some built revenues and profits without sacrificing patient care while others have faced major internal and external issues?

We have worked with a number of healthcare companies and there is a consistent pattern between the best and the rest. This holds true no matter in what segment of the healthcare business the company operates. We aren’t using specifics in this article since they will vary by segment but the basic elements are unchanged. Look at your organization and see how you measure up on these.

Planning
The best create and work from a well thought out written plan. The plan is strategic in nature and includes an annual plan that all departments are responsible for executing. The rest have a semi-thought out or poorly conceived plan somewhere in the CEO’s or Executive Director’s head. This plan is impacted constantly by emotion, ability to communicate, level of trust, delegation skills, follow-up skills, a packed calendar and reliance on the top executive’s memory. You will note that for every article here that deals with the business, we start with a comment about the necessity of having a sound strategic plan. You can’t win without one.

Business Model
The best have strong business models that flow from their longer term strategic plans. They have clearly defined target markets, clients and customers. Their ongoing revenue streams are built on strong relationships with their clients. The relationship could be with the organization, the products and services or the people who work in the business. The rest have the “lets see what comes in” business model and they will continue to do what they have always done to win customers. There is no recognition that the world has changed and that in order to survive, they must change too.

Building The Organization
The best hire the best people. They pay more and reward more for higher performance. The best weed out poor and underperforming people at every level. The best organizations know that allowing people who aren’t working to a high standard lowers the standards for every employee. The best have clear priorities. Every day at the best companies, people focus on the vital few things that matter. These organizations understand the key performance indicators and keep a sharp eye on those measurements. The rest hire those that aren’t hired by the best and tolerate underperformers. At the rest, most of each day is filled with working on the trivial elements and nothing much gets measured.

Building The People
The best take their people responsibilities seriously, recognizing that only through their people can they succeed. Performance reviews in the best organizations are scheduled and held not for judging but for developing. Plans are set out to help employees obtain the skills and hone the talents they need for success. The better organizations see themselves as learning organizations. Continuing education is considered a sustainable competitive advantage. The people in these organizations know what is expected of them and they are motivated and incentivized to perform. When goals are achieved, rewards are given to reinforce performance. The rest don’t believe in performance evaluations because they take too much time, aren’t done well and don’t work. If a person is deemed to not have the skills, they are terminated and a new person is sought. Wasted resources from many standpoints are the result.

Involvement
The best delegate appropriate responsibility down into the organization and with that delegation they share the business plans, objectives and goals so all know what needs to be done. The people then can decide on the best way of doing it. All levels of management are trusted and empowered to get things done within established guidelines. In the rest of the companies, they suffer from underperformance because people lack the authority, responsibility and direction to guide their activities and must wait to be told. Without the written plan communication is spotty and the results are disastrous.

Accomplishments vs. Activity
The best don’t make or accept excuses. The best focus on results. At the end of the day, the best understand that intention, action and activity do not equal results. Trying doesn’t count, either. Nor does working hard, if hard work just means long hours without focus. When something goes wrong, the best take responsibility, learn from what happened and move forward. The rest spend their time focused on everything that keeps people from achieving results. They spend much of the time being caught up in the “blame game,” pointing fingers, resulting in punishment but not always of those responsible.

Operations
The best always try to find a better way. The best companies are never satisfied with how things are because they understand that to improve means they can continue to distinguish themselves for their clients and from their competition. The rest are satisfied with what they have; good enough is good enough. The rest don’t understand that fair, “Okay” and “good” are the enemies of great.

How is your business? How did you measure up? If you are not executing all of these elements very well, contact us. We can help and we have clients that are following these tips and they can help you too.

Thanks

John


John Maver
President
Maver Management Group
(925) 648-7561
Maver Management

View John Maver's profile on LinkedIn

Friday, December 11, 2009

Turnaround Management – Focus

CEOs and companies are charged and in fact forced to do more with less. That means greater results using fewer resources. The advent of our technological advances was meant to streamline our work processes and make us more productive. In fact, when the first desktop computers came out, there were predictions that most people would be working less than a one day work week. It hasn’t worked out quite that way. Life and business have become more complex and there are more and more demand on us, our resources and our time.

Focus has become more and more important. How do we target our activities and how do we use our scared resources?

As a simple case in point, the most common complaint in companies at all levels is about e-mail and the inbox. How to handle it is a good example of what successful executives must do to be able to survive in turnaround times. E-mail and the inbox seem to be controlling our lives.

Each day we have entries, sometimes many entries, into our inbox. They come from a wide variety of sources. Some are quite important. Others may be jokes or inspiration notes that are passed from person to person. Some are promotional messages trying to sell us something. Some are spam and get moved without our help to the discard file.

Which ones do you open first? Do you open the “special” ones from friends and family? Do you go for the ones which you know you can get rid of immediately? Do you start with the most important ones and use your best time on them? How do you choose?

Do you read the emails and handle them as you read them or do you read them all and then have to re-read them to decide how to handle them? Do you delete the emails once handled or do you leave them in your inbox to further clutter your life and cause you to make some decisions over and over?

Life is like an inbox. It constantly presents demands of one sort or another. If you have a predetermined way of sorting the demands and activities you can speed the review process. You can make yourself more productive.

The way in which we choose to handle e-mail demands is indicative of our focus. If you take all the fun ones first, you are left at the end of the day with the problem ones and that causes stress, since we generally are not at our best at that time of day. We may even be mentally and physically exhausted. If you take all the easy ones, you can increase the number completed, but that may not mean anything if you didn’t work through the important ones that will really impact the business.

Or alternatively, do you focus on the most important ones and make the tough decisions? Do you send them off to get the advice and council you need along with the facts that will help your decision making process? Do you do this while you and your support staff are fresh and therefore can be at your best for these decisions?

Of course, this is a simplistic example of a very complex job that you have. Running a company is not an easy task. Many executives will answer these questions with their egos in mind and choose “the right answer”. But they will miss the point of the lesson.

Think about it. How are you choosing? What is the impact on your business and your life from the process you use? Whatever your process make sure that it brings you satisfaction and success.

If you need help to identify the really key issues and focus the right resources on them for maximum effect, contact us. We can help.

Thanks

John



John Maver
President
Maver Management Group
(925) 648-7561
Maver Management

View John Maver's profile on LinkedIn