Most large health systems can build a strategy. Executing one is a different problem and Liz Popwell, system vice president of strategy and international at Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health, says it is the challenge her peers most consistently underestimate.
“Organizations struggle with strategy as well as implementation,” Ms. Popwell said in a recent “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast” interview. “Building a good strategy and then implementing a strategy are two sides of a coin.”
The observation carries weight at a system the size of CommonSpirit, a 137-hospital enterprise that is among the largest nonprofit networks in the U.S.
Ms. Popwell, who has held strategy executive roles at Atrium Health and Ascension before joining CommonSpirit two years ago, says the execution gap is a proximity failure instead of a planning failure. Strategy leaders who remain distant from day-to-day operations lose the ability to sense where plans break down and why.
“Care is very local and very important to understand how the decisions we make as leaders and as emerging health care leaders affect not just the local communities, but the actual patients themselves, the individuals that we’re serving,” she said. “How does it impact the clinicians, the frontline teams, and how do we have an impact on the communities we serve?”
That grounding is what separates strategy that drives results from strategy that stays on paper. Health system leaders across the country have been revisiting and rebuilding their strategic plans as they navigate Medicaid cuts, HR-1 and a volatile policy environment, making the discipline to translate plans into action more consequential than ever.
“Strategy becomes much stronger when we’re grounding ourselves in our organizational priorities and really understanding how it operates and where we can make those efficiencies better,” Ms. Popwell said.
The advice she gives emerging strategy leaders is to get close to the work before trying to redesign it. For those not in clinical roles, time spent with frontline caregivers is not optional.
“If you’re not a clinical caregiver, you need to spend time with the clinical caregivers and really understand how care is delivered,” she said. “You need to lean in and learn when to say no. Sometimes as leaders, especially emerging leaders, we try to say yes to everything. But sometimes we need to say no and stay focused both strategically and operationally so that we can make sure we have the impact that we really are trying to drive.”
Relationship-building across functions is the other variable she flags as undervalued. In her framing, the ability to pull people together across finance, operations and clinical leadership is not a soft skill — it is the mechanism through which strategy becomes implementation.
“Build credibility by pairing your insights, your knowledge, your thought leadership, with the outcomes we’re trying to resolve and to really impact as an organization,” she said. “Build relationships that last — building trust and relationships is what will help leaders emerge and will help people see the talents for what you bring to the table.”
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