The clinical value roadmap

Value has replaced disruption as the buzzword of the year. If it had a face, it would be on the cover of Time magazine. Science magazine would make it the molecule of the year. We celebrate it, encourage it and, now CMS won't pay you unless you deliver it.

But, how do you get from here to there? Some think non-financial motivators, like peer-comparisons- are more powerful than financial ones when it comes to delivering value. Everyone is searching for the recipe for the secret sauce.

Leadership development expert, Alan Patterson, describes the four stages of leadership at it applies to technical experts like physicians. The value road map for doctors means moving from Stage 1 to Stage 4 and it takes co-factors and enzymes to drive the chemical reaction.

Stage 1: Clinical expertise is the most common metric. However, moving along the value road map takes more than that. Knowledge technicians are dead. Evolving takes acquiring the knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies in people skills and emotional intelligence to move you to Stage 2.

90% of top performers are also high in emotional intelligence. On the flip side, just 20% of bottom performers are high in emotional intelligence. You can be a top performer without emotional intelligence, but the chances are slim.

Stage 2: Credibility, measured by how much people trust you and their willingness to be influenced by you. Getting from expertise to credibility depends on your people skills and filling in the gaps in your emotional intelligence and blind spots. Often it means taking emotional risks. and overcoming your fear of the consequences. Moving to Stage 3 requires leadership knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies

The leadership challenges have evolved over the past decade and new tools are available. Here are some.

Unfortunately, the likelihood that your leadership development program will work is about 10%

Stage 3: Execution, alignment and engagement, derived from teaching, coaching and inspiring other people , focusing on the now. Leadership training and development drives the process. The goal is to make yourself as obsolete as quickly as possible, empowering others to achieve goals. Here's how to disappear.

Leadership skills, like everything else, has changed. Here are the contemporary competencies.

Now you can move from the now, to the next and new by adopting an entrepreneurial mindset.

Stage 4: A strategic, entrepreneurial mindset focusing on the next (making existing products and services better) and the new (making existing products and services obsolete) with the goal of creating continuous, user defined value. Here are 10 things you should know about value and it's definition. It requires leading innovators, not managing innovation. Making the right decisions also means understanding and using how your brain is built to make decisions.

Here are reasons why leaders don' think strategically.

Here are some reasons why social skills have become more important than cognitive skills.

Being in the right upper quadrant is not about strategic planning. It is about strategic thinking. Traditional strategic planning, as Julia Sloan explains in her exceptional book “Learning to Think Strategically”, is based on “linear and rational concepts on problem solving, decision making, and planning.” You wind up with “a master plan supported by incremental action plans.”

Strategic thinking, in Sloan’s research, is a totally different animal. It’s based on “imagination, broad perspective, juggle, no control over, and desire to win.

Here are 10 principles of strategic leadership

Fundamentally, organizational or business success depends on product, people, strategy and money. Putting all the pieces together is an onerous task and usually requires an evolutionary career development pathway to master it. It also requires increasing levels of engagement that are very difficult to sustain.

Here's how Jeff Bezos avoids Day 2.

Hospitals and health systems face the following five leadership challenges as they begin to transition to population-based healthcare.

1. Develop teams to manage risks, costs and data for health gain, not just healthcare.
2. Build systems to manage consumer relationships over a greater period of time.
3. Use protocols that change consumer lifestyle behavior.
4. Nurture complex community health partnerships to influence social determinants of health.
5. Establish payer contracting incentives and monitoring.

Consequently, some have suggested these as core competencies to cope:

I. Inspirational and persuasive leadership. Because people are generally creatures of habit, many require a significant level of motivation to accept new behaviors. Hospitals need leaders with a strong vision for the future and who can inspire others to change.

II. People-skills extraordinaire. "Culture in healthcare settings tends to be risk-averse," Dr. Bjork said. In an outcomes-based industry, "there's an enormous requirement for change from how healthcare professionals were expected to perform in the past." Leaders with incredibly adept social skills have the best chance to reshape cultural values in the work environment to better align with changing requirements. 

III. Focus on execution and results. The next-generation healthcare leader is tasked with building entirely new operating structures to facilitate healthcare processes. An entrepreneurial-minded leader who can take advantage of opportunities as they arise can help keep the healthcare organization moving forward during times of uncertainty.

IV. Personal character. Many of the traditional characteristics of a quality leader will remain the same, like integrity, accountability and confidence. But Dr. Bjork emphasized the traits of curiosity and courage in coming healthcare leadership. As delivery models transform, hospitals will benefit from leaders who have the courage to take risks and seek out innovation.

Here are the four work types. Most doctors are producers, the most vulnerable to the threat of substitution by people or machines or both.

The road map is tortuous, difficult and hazardous to navigate. It helps to have guides who know the way. Unfortunately, doctors are unlikely to encounter them in medical school ,residency training or clinical practice, so you will either have to discover the map inside of a bottle on the beach, or take the journey on your own.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs