Joining me in this discussion were Garrett Miller, vice president of strategic marketing and creative director for healthcare, education and government at Herman Miller; Peter Ruppe, senior vice president of footwear at Under Armour; and Matthew Von Ertfelda, senior vice president of food and beverage for the global operations of Marriott Corporation.
These experts shared what they think it takes to lead innovative change within an organization so that the organization can meet the evolving needs of the modern consumer or patient.
Three key strategies rose above the rest:
Don’t resist, lean into progress
Thinking about progress and change is often looked at from an organizational level. That’s a mistaken. How can a healthcare organization actually spark the innovative thinking needed to establish meaningful changes? Start with your people.
“Organizations don’t change, people change,” Miller said. The fact is, “change happens person by person and there are many strategies to activate within the organization.”
Find key influencers to empower and help them change their behavior. “Focusing on that human layer” is important, Miller said. “The human evolution to change begins with painting a picture for somebody that they can connect to and they can visualize … it has to be individual by individual, not something designed solely for the organization.”
“One of the hardest things is to envision a future state,” Ruppe added. “But once you get a clear picture of it, and those around you have a clear picture of it, you can’t help but be driven to get there.”
He offered a simple trick: “Ask yourself, ‘Where’s my attitude? Where’s my colleague’s attitude? Am I seeing it and feeling it?’ ” he said. “Think about it like a plane—are you going in the direction you want to go? If you’re leaning into it, bring that energy and help others lean into it. That’s how change happens. It starts with us, and it’s easy to get complacent.”
“I describe it as a mixture of being a missionary and a mercenary,” Von Ertfelda said. “When you’re a missionary, you evangelize and get people to buy in emotionally … but you should also cultivate some mercenary tactics too, where you can be a little subversive, break rules through proof of concept tests … quite honestly, unsettle senior leaders and unsettle the organization. That’s how you drive change—driving people sometimes to their discomfort zone.”
Remain nimble to evolve
Healthcare faces both a rapidly changing industry and rapidly changing patients. Not to mention new health IT tools and electronic health records, surgical tools, telemedicine and other technologies that are introduced or upgraded all the time. How can an organization stay nimble in terms of how they respond to those changes?
Building a team to establish an innovation vision and mission is one answer. Von Ertfelda co-founded Marriott Corporation’s first innovation discipline inside its strategy and innovation group. The goal was to create an internal catalyst for change.
The goal was to “unlocking a culture of innovation, creativity and originality, and internally define an innovation blueprint for the company that allowed us to grow and expand our thinking,” he said. “Dedicate a team and look at how you can interface that team over many disciplines to deliver not only short-term, but also long-term focus.”
Because we live in a distracted society, when focus is required to create change it can be difficult to keep everyone on board. “One of the skills we all want to master is to be present,” Ruppe said. “Start there. Pay attention to everything around you. Ask deeper questions about why we’re seeing certain behaviors and think about what it could be. Stay open and curious.”
Find your underground
Innovation and competition in the healthcare industry is rampant. There are both big spenders and small spenders, but, according to Ruppe, the size of the spend doesn’t matter if you understand the competition.
“We thrive in competition in our industry, but we also know that everybody gets caught in what they stand for,” Ruppe said. “We certainly aren’t going to outspend somebody like Nike, who is six or more times our size, but if we can outthink them and become the player for Gen-Z—that’s where we’re going to win—but we’re going to have to think like Gen-Z to make that happen.”
A dedicated space for innovation can buttress that effort. In the basement of Marriott International’s headquarters is a 9,000-square-foot space called “The Underground.” This is where Von Ertfelda says Marriott really started to accelerate their innovation efforts.
“This space—call it a Narnia for anyone creative or innovative—is where you can build ideas, early concepts, low-fidelity prototypes made of adult-sized Legos or Styrofoam, and then graduate to finished guest rooms, public spaces and bars,” Von Ertfelda said. “This allows us to enrich and accelerate our innovation process and prove to the rest of the organization that we’re really serious about innovation and we’re going to up our game.”
Designating teams to solve major issues is nothing new to healthcare organizations, but setting aside a specific space for an innovation team to work in could be an opening to rapid change for an organization. For example, last year, HDR worked with the American Medical Association to design the AMA Interaction Studio located at MATTER, Chicago’s technology incubator. The space is designed to facilitate collaboration between physicians and entrepreneurs to accelerate innovation in healthcare technology. The designation of this space supports faster discoveries and the ability to test their practical application to clinical care. Any healthcare organization can build a team and set aside a space for them to work, effectively creating an initiative to stimulate innovation and progress.
The first part of this series explored the consumer experience, brand and what it takes to personalize and individualize that experience for each consumer or patient.
Read the full panel discussion.
The views, opinions and positions expressed within these guest posts are those of the author alone and do not represent those of Becker’s Hospital Review/Becker’s Healthcare. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The copyright of this content belongs to the author and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with them.
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