Radar Detection: Reading the Environment as an Impetus for Change
Leadership was attuned to what was going on in the environment that required the organization to adapt. Financial pressures, demand for better results, outdated models, or requirements for new services or structures were some of the environmental cues reported by leaders as an impetus for change in their organization. Members of the leadership team were constantly “assessing the external environment and bringing creativity and innovation to the table.” They had to be ready to “take advantage of the opportunities that the current state of the environment” presented. In one leader's experience, the organization evolved and “actually became the clay” that molded and adapted to the changing pressures in the environment under leadership that embraced “innovation, creativity and out-of the box thinking.”
Leadership self-knowledge and awareness is critical in organizations that are adapting and changing. The ability of leaders to read their own internal cues related to organizational fit, alignment with values, and the ability to adapt as the organization evolves is essential. Leadership reflection was important and sometimes led to the discovery “that you had to go a different route, taking a risk and blowing the thing up, adapting and using a different approach.” One participant described the development of a "radar” through experiences that helped leaders detect the need for change as well as the organizational readiness and capacity to creatively and adaptively respond.
An Impressionist Vision of the Future, Not Perfect but Guiding
“When I think of innovation, you have to drive that with a vision.” Nurse leaders described the importance of a vision of where they were trying to go as an organization and what they were trying to achieve. That vision did not need to be “so formal” but had to have a basis in solid tenets and values. One leader described articulation of “a vision that it was about the patient and supporting the staff to do the work they need” and that although there was flexibility in how they achieved it, “these tenets will hold.”
One leader described a powerful process used in one organization to clearly articulate shared values and arrive at a “collective vision” that has been embraced by the organization and serves as a guide for their work. The values-based vision and shared commitment to the mission of the organization have provided the freedom for staff to creatively engage in improvement work that is not prescribed by leadership. “Once you lay out the principles…, it is true that we as leaders cannot dictate to them how it is they are going to work on that.” If the staff “can see it and imagine it,” they are “likely to make it happen.”
Communication was an important leadership function as they “delivered the message, answered questions” and became “very visible champions” who never lost sight of moving toward the goal. A common language was established for communicating the values and vision. In the words of one leader, “It was always about the patient and how you got the best outcomes for the patient. We talked in that language from the very beginning” so that “all the staff sing off the same song sheet.”
Flexibility and recognition that the vision would evolve were described by a leader who explained the need to “have a sort of a picture,” but that she “never has a picture thoroughly colored in; it's sort of impressionistic.” She emphasized that if the “work is real, and there is some vision of where it needs to go, it will emerge.”