Health Care: Dynamic Times Require Dynamic Leadership

With the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010, the health insurance industry entered a new and different era—one defined by unanswered questions, ambiguities, and a murky view of the future.

What will this new law mean to the industry? Attorneys and insurance company executives are poring over the 1,024-page legislation to determine exactly what they need to do to comply. The law, while long and detailed, does not necessarily spell out exactly how the execution of each new rule will take place, or how the interaction between health insurance companies, medical providers, and members will shake out.

One thing is certain: Things are going to change.

The law calls for health care exchanges and new kinds of insurance options, which by definition will result in increased competition between insurers. Theoretically, more competition will reduce health care plan pricing. Therefore, insurance company leaders understand that they will have to drive cost out of their operations and become more nimble and efficient. In an industry as heavily regulated as health care, however, “nimble” is a concept most companies struggle to imagine.

Regulations Stifle Creativity…

By definition, regulations stifle creativity, keeping employees from thinking about better and more efficient ways to do their jobs. Health insurance company employees traditionally have not been encouraged to think like entrepreneurs and look for solutions. Instead, they stick to the defined processes they know well and follow the rules to the letter.

This mindset creates a dichotomy in today’s health insurance environment. Company leaders need people who can see the big picture, identify better and more efficient ways to operate, and implement these solutions quickly. Furthermore, they need employees who can readily embrace change and rapidly adapt to new systems and processes. However, many of today’s employees are deeply rooted in past behaviors, making them highly resistant to change. They’re simply not ready, nor equipped for the sweeping changes on the horizon, whatever these changes may be.

Process and Systems Steeped in Tradition…

Due to the complexities of the job, health insurance companies are compartmentalized into highly specialized departments. These departments know their own functional role well, but in general, they have limited knowledge of what other departments in their organization actually do. In essence, each operates within its own silo, largely focused on its own issues and striving to meet departmental goals/objectives.

The result: Inability to see and understand the big picture, thereby making it exceptionally difficult to make the sweeping changes necessary to compete in the new world of health care.

Let’s take an example. When someone in Sales needs to consult with someone in Member Services, he may find that his colleague in Member Service does not share his urgency for the task that he must complete. The person in Member Services may put aside the request, or even ignore it, because she’s has her own tasks to complete. The task languishes, even though Sales has an urgent need. What’s the problem? Sales has no idea what tasks the person in Member Services may have on her plate already, because he has no understanding of her job. Meanwhile, the employee in Member Services doesn’t even know why Sales needs this task done, so she has no reason to care or help. With a history of limited communication or collaboration between the two departments, there’s no way one department can effectively partner with the other.

The result: A culture of mistrust, and a sense that each department’s individual goals take precedence over the needs of all other departments.

Other Critical Factors Contributing to the Complexities…

Many health insurance companies have traditionally had low employee turnover rates—a phenomenon with both positive and negative sides. What do long-term, comfortable employees dislike most in their jobs? Change, of course. These people are well rooted in their accustomed ways of doing things, so they resist change with all their might. Letting go of the familiar is uncomfortable, even frightening, and the more they see change ahead, the more fearful they become.

The result: Employees approach change with great fear; therefore they resist it. All the while they come up with excuses and rationalizations as to why they cannot adopt the more efficient and effective ways of doing things.

All of these issues are complicated by another factor: We don’t know for certain what the changes in the industry will look like. The new law lacks the specifics required to begin training employees to execute the new processes. As the senior vice president at one of our health insurance provider clients recently commented to me, “If we wait until we have clarity about the industry before we begin to develop the employees we will need, it will be too late … we will already have lost.”

Developing Tomorrow’s Employees – Today…

Traditionally, training employees for a system-wide change involves a time-honored “results-based” method. Management determines the goal and what actions the organization’s employees need to take to achieve the goal. The managers then define the skill gaps that exist and arrange for training to close the gaps and thereby perpetuate the critical activities required to drive results.

However, in a dynamic, rapidly changing environment, we cannot develop skills reactively and expect to win, if for no other reason than it is just too slow. To compound the problem, how do we do a skill gap analysis when we don’t know what skills will be required.

What can health insurance companies do to be successful in this Catch-22 situation? The only option is to look at employee development from an entirely different perspective.

Moving From Results-Based to Results-Capable…

Think about the best employees you have. What makes them so good – is it simply their current skills, or is it something far more important? With reflection, we come to realize that our most successful people possess much more than mere skills, they have a different mindset – a unique way of seeing themselves. They see themselves as “capable” of tackling and mastering anything necessary to deliver the desired result. It is this underlying “results-capable” mindset that causes people to take ownership of new skills (whatever they may be), have the confidence level required to quickly learn and adapt, maintain a positive attitude in the midst of chaos, and possess the courage to let go of past comfort zones and embrace the ever-changing environment. Results-capable people look forward to challenges instead of fighting them. When you have to implement a new process at light speed, they are ready to learn new skills and drive the organization forward to reach their goals.

These are the characteristics of your most valuable employees, the kind of employees who are most capable of navigating the tumultuous waters ahead.

Developing Result Capable Employees…

Many managers believe that results-capable employees are born this way, as if their genetic make-up somehow allows them to be more successful. This simply is not true. Not only can results-capable employees be developed, they must be. As leaders, we cannot afford to ignore this competitive necessity.

If health insurance companies are to compete in the marketplace of 2015 and beyond, they must teach all of their employees to be results-capable. While this requires a new approach to training and development and a new way of leading employees, the change required is not as sweeping as you may think. In fact, many forward-thinking health care insurers have already begun to make the shift.

There is little doubt that turbulent times lie ahead. Government driven changes, competition and financial pressures will reshape the industry. But it takes people, results capable people, to reshape a company. Will your team be ready?

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David Naylor is Executive Vice President of Global Learning and Development at 2logical, an industry leader in the Training and Development field. At 2logical, we help organizations fix their people problems by shifting employee mindsets. Two decades ago, we pioneered a transformative approach to developing peak performing employees. Far transcending the traditional means of closing skill gaps, 2logical perfected a method of closing the underlying belief gaps that are the root cause of virtually every employee performance issue. Forward thinking, industry leaders at many of the world's most recognized companies have embraced this strategy to develop their Leadership and Sales talent.

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