4 Insights on aligning development with strategy

No matter if you are in a C-suite office or on the ground floor of a hospital, every employee works in teams, and that collaboration often brings opportunities for strategic realignment of an organization's goals.

Becker's Hospital Review 7th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable, Dan Nielsen, publisher and CEO of Chicago-based America's Healthcare Leaders, moderated a panel on how healthcare leaders can align their teams to successfully execute their organization's strategy.

Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and style.

Here are four insights on the question: What are your top two specific ways for helping healthcare leaders align their teams to successfully implement strategy?

1. "When Dan talks about those top two strategies for alignment, it's really about engagement. How do you engage people? How do you make those relationships to make sure their voices are being heard? When you are sitting in a C-Suite, it cannot be about you, it has to be about the individuals you are serving. That means your employes and your patients. Making sure I am listening to patients and to the consumers," said Jean Scallon, vice president of networking and development at Springstone Inc.

2. "I believe as a leader you have to create a vision. When you talk about creating a vision, it's not just for your staff. It's for the physicians, the board and the community. Continue to reiterate that, because often we think, initially, here is my vision, here is what we are going to do, and people will start to forgot your mission. I have been in my organization for five years. And every once in a while I'll ask people what is our vision? What are our goals? It's amazing how many years it took for them to get to the point they can articulate the vision. So I think you have to get that vision to everyone around you, and if possible in some of  your marketing materials, so people know where you want to go as an organization," said Margaret Peterson, PhD, CEO of Los Angeles-based California Hospital Medical Center.

3. "One of the things I identify when I see a really good leader is they have an organizing philosophy about how they lead and how they inspire. I work with health systems, and it's usually about their strategy. What is their community-based strategy? What are they trying to achieve, and [the leader] can articulate it and articulate it very well. Successful leaders know how to pick their best strategy, pick the right people for the right jobs, and they also know when to let go people who aren't working out," said Jeffrey Hoffman,  principal at Chicago-based ECG Management Consultants.

4. "One of the things that is important to me and my organization is trying to get leaderships to not operate in silos. They really need to try to come with mechanisms that push people to have to work together, whether it's shared metrics or co-led committees. Sometimes people get so focused on their area they forget the organization. We have to get them out of their comfort zone in terms of their clinical training or their business training. Your organization has to be molded in a way that we are only successful if we accomplish these things together," said Brenda Wolf, president and CEO at Chicago-based La Rabida Children's Hospital.

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