Being strategic requires leaders to maintain operational commitments while assembling resources.
The Leaderships’ goal must be to maximize resource flexibility.
While it is often challenging to balance resources and flexibility – this can be the difference between success and failure. Frequently, the organizations’ flexibility under adverse conditions is underestimated. Rigidity in both physical resources and human resources, combined with the lack of entrepreneurial thinking is usually the root cause of business failure.
Experience has frequently shown managers are unwilling to break out of their caretaking roles and risk all the assets available to them. Too often managers see themselves as hampered by outside forces and failing to best utilize staff creative thinking as one of their most important assets. Even when Boards, Managers and staff are forced by events into strategic planning they fail to visualize the options open to them. When the ship appears to be sinking everyone automatically wants to abandon ship and run to the life boats.
Relatively few non-profit Behavioral health systems consider strategic flexibility as part of the team building process. To be effective health delivery programs must have the capability to utilize their past performance data in order to achieve accurate forecasting results in the upcoming year. Without real time information, programs can quickly become tangled in conflicting government, insurance and consumer demands.
With the changing landscape, healthcare providers must have the courage to accurately examine their performance. To successfully reposition services in a rapidly shifting marketplace maximum creative thinking and flexibility will be required. Yesterday’s services utilizing old marketing strategies will not be as attractive as they once were. Look around and see how many operations are often stuck in the past with outmoded therapies, rigid organization rules and structure. Todays CEO’s must be willing to rapidly move forward and risk adopting new strategic leadership models.
