In pursuit of the Triple Aim, healthcare leaders work hard to improve care, reduce costs, and improve the patient experience. But accomplishing these goals requires an engaged staff that makes progress, day in and day out. Adaptive Leadership (AL) principles help leaders understand human behavior to mobilize change and overcome work avoidance, which happens when staff operate above or below the productive zone of tension.
By understanding what adaptive work actually is (and that adaptive problems can’t be solved with technical fixes), and why work avoidance happens (because people are overwhelmed; the heat is too high), leaders can keep their teams engaged by using influence and leadership—not authority—to “lower the heat” on their people:
Validate the difficulty of the situation.
Simplify/clarify the work.
Provide additional resources (time, training, etc.)
Dr. Ulstad has worked with healthcare leaders and teams for the last 20 years to help them understand behaviors triggered by rapid, high-volume change, and apply AL principles to guide the changes critical to their organizations’ success.