Having strategic flexibility can either make or break a CEO.
The essence of strategy is in the balancing of focused, concerted commitment on one hand with the effective utilization of resources on the other. It is a difficult measurement to achieve and one where management flexibility plays a vital role.
In part, staying flexible is really difficult to the limitations of operational assets, as well as in the level of rigidity of managerial thinking. When managers are faced with a major operational crisis they frequently fail to fully utilize the assets available to them. Most often top managers in the Behavioral Health Field, even when forced into the strategic planning process, are simply unable to see the financial and market options available to them.
When designing new delivery systems CEO’s must be capable of considering how they might build in strategic flexibility as part of their standard planning process. Strategic Flexibility suggests that treatment programs must have the technical capability of correcting their organizations strengths and weaknesses. The organization thinking should include include repositioning themselves in the marketplace.
Many health care firms are stuck in the past with outmoded therapies, rigid rules and a sense of invulnerability despite the fact that revenues may be dropping like a rock. Oftentimes start-up treatment centers do not have obsolete management structures and can quickly move beyond old-line companies that have been in the “Field” for years.
While at times the lack of flexibility can be directly related to a lack of assets, in most cases they are due to rigid, negative management attitudes that stem from an unwillingness to change. Too many health care managers are unable to recognize that delivery systems are changing and they’ll have to change as well.
