The Changing NHS

Rob Millard has a great post on his The Adventure of Strategy Blog called ‘Increasing Your Strategic Clock Speed’. Rob lists and expands on 10 ideas to reduce the time-lag between

a) the rate of change in the market;

b) the rate at which a firm can formulate a strategic response to those changes; and

c) the rate at which the firm can implement the changes necessary to execute the strategy.

His suggestions include:

1. Formulate Strategy with Execution in Mind
2. Broaden Participation in Strategy
3. Delegate Real Authority and Accountability
4. Focus Action on the Short Term
5. Get Good at Simplification
6. Think Scenarios, not Predictions …..read all 10 here.

Rob’s post got me thinking. These are great generic suggestions that the NHS should take on board, but are there any additional ideas that are particularly suitable to speeding up the NHS’s strategic clock speed? After all, in my experience, there is sometimes a 5 year gap between using new language that describes a strategic aspiration and actually being able to point at something tangible – this lag may be 10 years in the case of operating systematic and comprehensive Chronic Disease Management systems!

What about if:

1. You started a Strategy Salon. A weekly 90 minute drop-in where any clinician and manager can come along to informally explore the strategic implications of emerging NHS policy with the Chief Executive and other Executive directors. After all, strategy is the product of strategic conversations. Increase the number and quality of the conversations and you might improve and accelerate the development of strategy.

2. Strategic ambitions are prioritised and those not making the cut are dropped completely rather than described as ‘second order priorities’ (but everything is a priority I hear you say!) - There is a limit to any organisation’s capacity to deliver on new strategic ambitions and we need to get better at coping with this constraint;

3. Strategic ambitions are communicated to all staff in ways that help them to understand what is intended AND to translate this intent into practical implications for how they personally choose to spend their time - Too often the responsibility for implementation rests on a few, already overburden shoulders. In part this a cultural problem associated with delegation but it’s also related to how well strategic ambitions are communicated.

4. Scare talent is deployed to ensure that the most important initiatives are achieved. Every organisation has a handful of managers who are brilliant at initiating, leading or finishing projects. We need to make better use of our ‘Stars’ – They exist. That’s a fact. Let’s use them!

5. Incentives are offered for getting an initiative to successfully go live before a certain target date. Incentives could be financial but there are lots of other ways of incentivising brilliant performance. For example, teams that complete key initiatives ahead of schedule could be allowed to choose their next project for themselves.

Do these ideas appeal to you? Do you have other suggestions to increase 'clock speed'?

Steve

www.stevepashley.co.uk

strategy

nhs

change management