“I love it when our team works together strategically; I just feel like there is never enough time.”
“I know we need to understand more about our competitors are up to, but I’m so tired in the evenings. It’s a hard time to make myself focus.”
“Our strategic planning process is solid, but sometimes it keeps us from innovating. We don’t really have a vision of how we are going to evolve over the next five to ten years.”
These statements all speak to the strategic deficit that many Regional and Community-Based Healthcare Organizations (RCBHOs) are feeling. They have a sense that the way they have approached strategy in the past is not flexible enough to lead them into the future, but they don’t have a good alternative.
Over the next decade RCBHOs will need to enhance their capabilities in strategy, analysis, innovation, business model development, and change management to thrive in shifting market dynamics and embrace emerging technology. However, it is difficult to drive toward these capabilities while there is so much in flight.
There is a quick answer to this gap that helps to bridge from the current day to the agile strategic structure needed – the Step Back Spark. A few simple interventions, including quarterly scenario planning and a longer annual planning retreat open up time for strategic engagement while also increasing connection among leaders. Activities in the Step Back Spark achieve these goals efficiently while keeping executives free to focus on ongoing urgent needs.
The Strategic Deficit
In our Strategy in Action research from earlier this year, more than 60% of healthcare executives said that they expect transformational or disruptive change over the next decade. Despite this sentiment, only 19% believe that they have the strategy they need to manage this change, and only 18% reported that their strategy creates market value that cannot be reproduced by competitors.
Executives from all industries are facing a strategy gap. It can be difficult to focus on the big picture when more pressing concerns emerge daily. Most executives feel that thinking strategically is critically important and yet few find the time to do it. While 97% of senior leaders in one study feel that strategy is critical to their success, 96% said in another study that they lacked time to think strategically.
In healthcare, the stakes can feel especially high. Whether the issues are clinical, operational, legal, or financial, the consequences of making a mistake can feel like life or death. With healthcare executives reporting that they often feel overwhelmed by their own duties, it can be difficult to find the time to focus on strategy. According to 2023 research from Witt-Keifer, nearly three-quarters (74%) of healthcare leaders admitted to having felt burned out within the prior six months, with 93% of those experiencing burnout feeling that it is negatively impacting their organization.
Overwhelmed and Isolated
Significant responsibility and pressure can lead to feelings of isolation for many executives. As they ascend to higher positions, the number of peers with whom they can share concerns diminishes. This sentiment is particularly prevalent among CEOs but is common among other executive leadership team members (ELT) and functional leads. Often, those heading a department or division feel that their roles and responsibilities are not fully understood by their peers, and sometimes even by their CEO.
In the post-pandemic era, the increase in remote roles has reduced social connections among coworkers, widening the gap in understanding between peers. With fewer opportunities for spontaneous conversations that link different areas of the organization, there is less visibility into how others are working together. This disconnection leads to higher levels of loneliness, which in turn results in lower productivity.
Overwhelmed by Change
The stress and pressures executives are feeling are real and unlikely to abate anytime soon. Emerging technology, especially artificial intelligence (AI), is accelerating the pace of change and can leave some leaders concerned about falling behind.
When feeling overwhelmed, it can be difficult to step back and think strategically about addressing challenges. Instead, many feel like they need to work more and be more efficient. There are a plethora of books, articles, and podcasts, all providing insight into steps we can take to do more with our time. However, the executive self-help industry can sometimes lead us to feel that this feeling of overwhelm is due to our own failings rather than the circumstances around us. Yet, the world is getting more complicated and moving more quickly, and our brains have not evolved to manage the level of uncertainty we currently live.
A Strategic Step Back
Strategic work is challenging and requires more focus and concentration than is required when we react to problems before us. Despite this, I’d like to suggest that strategic work is actually an answer to the challenges of being overwhelmed and disconnected from colleagues. It also has the side benefit of helping your organization become more resilient and ready for the future.
Quarterly Scenario Planning – A Strategic Spark
Quarterly half-day scenario planning sessions can be transformative. Rather than reading reports and articles, the executive team takes part in exercises in which they collectively explore potential future scenarios. By exploring emerging trends and risks together, executives align on the impact of these issues and generate an understanding of risks and opportunities along the way. Because these scenarios are explored collectively, they also gain a deeper understanding of colleagues’ challenges and priorities.
Scenarios can include content around competitive dynamics, new partnerships, future plans, organizational vulnerabilities, and more. These sessions give executives a chance to explore critical inputs in greater depth and with an eye on implications for the organization. The process is creative, often sparking ideas and helps participants to remain agile and open-minded.
A Multi-Day Retreat
In today’s world we have become more and more targeted in communication with bullets and instant messages (Slack, Teams, etc.). And yet, the challenges that face us have never been more deep and complex. There is so many urgent requirements that strategic needs are often under-addressed.
While annual one-day retreats are common, consider extending this to a three-day retreat. This extended time allows for a deeper transition from urgent, reactive thinking to strategic, big-picture contemplation. A longer retreat provides the opportunity to introduce, explore, and resolve complex issues, leading to practical next steps.
During such a retreat, you can bring in experts, conduct root-cause analysis exercises, explore scenario planning, and align on strategic goals. Some organizations may concentrate this time to focus on an update to their strategic plan or key business decisions. The depth of discussion and alignment achieved in this format can be game-changing. I can guarantee you that if your executive team sets aside three days for a strategic retreat, there will be requests for too many items on the agenda, and you will find yourself having to prioritize which topics to include.
Alignment and Connection
Something magical can happen as a result of these simple interventions of quarterly scenario planning and an annual multi-day retreat. There can be a sense of relief that time has been built into the schedule to ensure that critical strategic issues are being addressed. Additionally, even though strategic thinking can be tiring, participants in such sessions often report feeling energized and invigorated by creative process and by getting to ideas that have been on their minds but as yet unaddressed. By exploring new ideas and engaging in creative exercises, the team has time to become more aligned around issues and implications for their work. This discipline breaks down siloes and creates greater understanding across functional areas. And of special import, creative collaboration among co-workers increases connection and also reduces rude behavior.
As a strategist, I believe in the importance of strategy for executive leadership. And I also understand firsthand the extreme pressures and challenges that come with the role. In a relatively small intervention related to strategic and creative engagement, leaders can build connection and also help an organization to be more strategically resilient in a changing world.