Managing Change: Embracing Change
Today, I’m happy to present Terri Wallin, RN MHA, who has written an article for us on change. Terri is a master at this process and has proven it over and over in her 30 years as an administrator in multiple settings, including home health. She has much to offer.
Will change in home care ever stop? The short answer is probably no, at least not in the foreseeable future for health care business and services. The truth of the matter is that we change every day – what we wear, what we eat, the routes we take to work, where we shop. Although change seems to occur with ease and regularity in our personal lives, the same experience rarely plays out in our professional lives. So what makes the workplace and environmental changes so difficult? The former examples are often within our control; the latter are not. The drivers or activities causing the change are often external, making the need for change mandatory.
Most healthcare leaders and their staffs are tired of change. However, in a health reform climate, survival depends on managers and staff finding ways to embrace it.
If your normal tendency is to resist change, you might want to look at why. If it is because you are tired of it, read on for tips to help. If it is because of fear, try to identify the fear. Typically, change is related to failure or exposure to not being great at something right at the beginning. Keep in mind that every health care worker across the country is dealing with constant change. No one will be great with change at first, but there are some management guidelines that will help.
After thirty years of change management, I have formulated some steps that will result in a profound culture change over time, but which take deliberation on the part of the leaders:
- Articulate in writing and verbally what the change is and why it is needed
- Clearly identify the difference between the vision and current state
- Even if simple, have a plan of the change that spells out the purpose, timing, timeline for implementation, rationale, scope, responsible parties, goals, milestones, measures, and data sources
- Outline the issues preventing the change from being effective and think through actions that counter each issue
- Outline the benefits of the change
- Produce talking points for your management team that specifically address the change, ensuring consistency with messaging
- Get staff involved in the process
- Identify a few informal leaders early on in the process who adapt to change well. They will help move your organization as they work peer to peer.
One item that is critical to system change is the identification of a timeline. It sounds like a simple thing, but having worked with many leaders on change, it is the one thing that most have to work to be good at. Without identifying an end date, you won’t achieve the goal. Even if the timeline is unreasonable, it forces you to think of the activities needed to accomplish the change. As well, the obstacles will be clear, which will then give you time to mitigate them and minimize their impact. Often you can eliminate obstacles through this process.
Once you have outlined your plan, begin to make it happen. Develop a small team of leaders and staff with a clear charter of work and set regular but brief touch points to ascertain progress and what needs attention to keep forward movement.
Track the milestones and celebrate as you reach them. This sounds trite, but it is critical. Typically, leaders and staff can’t see the progress unless they make a special effort to notice milestones. It actually serves as energy to keep the team moving forward.
There are also personal tips that help with embracing change:
- First of all, determine the positives — the infamous “what’s in it for me?”
- Decide to be positive, and then be positive
- If others have embraced the change and you haven’t, learn from them about what excites them and why they are on board. It may help ignite a flame in you.
- Don’t choose to be around negative people unless you are strong enough to ward off the impact on yourself
- Determine what is in your control and be ok with it
- Let go of what’s not in your control
As leaders, help people identify losses and celebrate the past. This can’t be emphasized enough. If this step is skipped, people will hang on to their pasts and will not change. We have all worked with people who remember something that happened twenty years ago as if it occurred yesterday. This is typically because the process was problematic. Simply put, the people within the process never moved forward. Set the example as a leader and be transparent. If you had to change something in yourself to embrace the change, express it professionally – it will serve to empower others to do the same. Let them know you understand that it is hard to move on.
If you have consistent resisters, be ready to help them find another place to work. It will be better for them, and if they don’t move on, they will impact your team and the results negatively – often for years.
Overall, build a change-friendly climate – it will shift the culture over time if consistently done. Change isn’t difficult if embraced, planned and executed well. But it means all leaders need to be on board, aligned and consistent, expectations must be clear, vision and rationale for change must be articulated, and measures for success must be identified and tracked, preferably with a baseline and a debrief post-change to identify what went well and what didn’t so that you can improve with the next change. Over time, the process gets improved and each change process is better. With each success, leaders become more confident, and staff revel in the success since they are part of it.
Ultimately, the client wins and better care delivery results.
Terri Wallin, RN, MHA, Owner and Consultant Northwest Change Agents, LLC
Category: Articles, Guest Article
Thanks for the article.
I’m looking for Terri Wallin; I knew her when she was with Swedish. I looked at http://www.northwestchangeagents.com but didn’t find her.
Would you please ask Terri to contact me?
Ted Tanase
Total Living Choices
206-709-2801 x123
tedt@TLChoices.com
Terri, thank you for sharing your insights. You make good sense. But that’s nothing new. You always do. Stay strong. dg