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The year 2020 has brought the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest and protests, which have resulted in unprecedented health care challenges to hospitals and clinics. The daunting prospect of a fall influenza season has hospital staff and administrators looking ahead to still greater challenges.
This year of crisis has put even greater emphasis on leadership in hospitals, as patients, clinicians, and staff look for direction in the face of uncertainty and stress. But hospital leaders often arrive at their positions unprepared for their roles, according to Leonard Marcus, PhD, director of the Program for Health Care Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston.
“Many times what happens in medicine is that someone with the greatest technical skills or greatest clinical skills emerges to be leader of a department, or a group, or a hospital, without having really paid attention to how they can build their leadership skills,” Dr. Marcus said during the 2020 Society of Hospital Medicine Leadership Virtual Seminar, held online Sept. 16-17.
Over 2 days, Dr. Marcus discussed the complex environments faced by hospital leaders, and some of the tools and strategies that can be used to maintain calm, problem-solve, and chart a course ahead.
He emphasized that hospitals and medical systems are complex, nonlinear organizations, which could be swept up by change in the form of mergers, financial policies, patient surges due to local emergencies, or pandemics.
“Complexity has to be central to how you think about leadership. If you think you can control everything, that doesn’t work that well,” said Dr. Marcus.
Most think of leadership as hierarchical, with a boss on top and underlings below, though this is starting to change. Dr. Marcus suggested a different view. Instead of just “leading down” to those who report to them, leaders should consider “leading up” to their own bosses or oversight committees, and across to other departments or even beyond to interlinked organizations such as nursing homes.
“Being able to build that connectivity not only within your hospital, but beyond your hospital, lets you see the chain that goes through the experience of any patient. You are looking at the problem from a much wider lens. We call this meta-leadership,” Dr. Marcus said.
A key focus of meta-leadership is to create a culture where individuals are working together to help one another succeed. Leadership in hospitals is often dominated by egos, with individual leaders battling one another in a win-lose effort, and this gets in the way of incorporating different perspectives into problem-solving.
Dr. Marcus used an example from previous seminars in which he instructed participants to arm wrestle the person sitting next to them. The goal was to attain as many pins as possible in 30 seconds. About half would fight as hard as they could, and achieve a few victories. The other half worked cooperatively, letting one person win, then the other, so that they could have 30 or 40 wins each. Dr. Marcus told the story of a young nurse who was paired up with a much stronger surgeon. She let him win twice, and when he asked her why she wasn’t resisting, she took his arm and placed it in a winning position, then a losing position, and then a winning position again, and he instantly understood that the cooperative approach could be more effective. Why didn’t she just tell him? She told Dr. Marcus that she knew he wouldn’t take instruction, so she let him win and then demonstrated an alternative. “We nurses learned how to do that a long time ago,” she told Dr. Marcus.
The idea is collaborative problem-solving. “How do you orient people looking to you for leadership so that we’re in this together and we can accomplish a whole lot more in 30 seconds if we’re working together instead of always battling one another? If we’re always battling one another, we’re putting all of our effort into the contest,” said Dr. Marcus. This sort of approach is all the more important when facing the complexity experienced by hospital systems, especially during crises such as COVID-19.
A critical element of meta-leadership is emotional intelligence, which includes elements such as self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, determining motivation of yourself and others, and the social skills to portray yourself as caring, open, and interested.
Emotional intelligence also can help recognize when you’ve entered survival mode in reaction to a crisis or incident, or something as simple as losing your car keys – what Dr. Marcus terms “going to the basement.” Responses revolve around freeze, fight, or flight. It’s helpful in the wake of a car accident, but not when trying to make managerial decisions or respond to a complex situation. It’s vital for leaders to quickly get themselves out of the basement, said Dr. Marcus, and that they help other members of the team get out as well.
He recommended protocols designed in advance, both to recognize when you’re in the basement, and to lift yourself out. Dr. Marcus uses a trigger script, telling himself “I can do this,” and then when he’s working with other people, “we can do this.” He also speaks slowly, measuring every word. Whatever you do, “it has to be a pivot you do to get yourself out of the basement,” he said. It can be helpful to predict the kinds of situations that send you “to the basement” to help recognize it when it has happened.
It’s very important not to lead, negotiate, or make important decisions while in the basement, according to Dr. Marcus. If one thinks about some of the things they’ve said to others while under duress, they are often some of the statements they regret most.
Practical leadership skills
On the second day of the Leadership Seminar, Dr. Marcus moved his focus to using leadership skills and techniques. One important technique is to incorporate multiple perspectives. He gave the example of an opaque cube with a cone inside it, with a window on the side and one on top. Viewers from the side see the cone in profile, and see it as a triangle. Viewers from the top see an aerial perspective that looks like the circular base of the cone. The two groups could argue about what’s inside the cube, but they can only identify the object if they work together.
“When dealing with complex reality, you oftentimes find there are different people with different perspectives on a problem. They may have different experiences of what the problem is, and what often happens is that people get into an adversarial fight. Looking at the problem from different perspectives actually allows a much richer and more comprehensive view,” said Dr. Marcus.
The metaphor comes from a study of the tragic events at the Twin Towers in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001. The New York Fire Department had a command center at the base of the building, while the police had a helicopter flying around the buildings. The helicopter could see the steel girders beginning to melt and predicted a collapse, and therefore ordered their personnel out of the buildings. But they were unable to convey that information to the firefighters, who continued to send personnel into the buildings. In all, 343 firefighters lost their lives. The police force lost 32.
To best understand a problem, a key element is the “unknown knowns.” That is, information that is available, that someone has, but is unknown to you. It takes some imagination to conceive of what “unknown knowns” might be out there, but it’s worth the effort to identify possible knowledge sources. It’s vital to seek out this information, because a common leadership mistake is to assume you know something when you really don’t.
“In many ways what you’re doing is looking for obstacles. It could be you don’t have access to the information, that it’s beyond some sort of curtain you need to overcome, or it could be people in your own department who have the information and they’re not sharing it with you,” Dr. Marcus said.
He outlined a tool called the POP-DOC loop, which is a 6-step exercise designed to analyze problems and implement solutions. Step 1 is Perceiving the situation, determining knowns and unknowns, and incorporating multiple perspectives, emotions, and politics. Step 2 is to Orient oneself: examine patterns and how they may replicate themselves as long as conditions don’t change. For example, during COVID-19, physicians have begun to learn how the virus transmits and how it affects the immune system. Step 3, based on those patterns is to make Predictions. With COVID-19, it’s predictable that people who assemble without wearing masks are vulnerable to transmission. Step 4 is to use the predictions to begin to make Decisions. Step 5 is to begin Operationalizing those decisions, and step 6 is to Communicate those decisions effectively.
Dr. Marcus emphasized that POP-DOC is not a one-time exercise. Once decisions have been made and implemented, if they aren’t having the planned effect, it’s important to incorporate the results of those actions and start right back at the beginning of the POP-DOC loop.
“The POP side of the loop is perceiving, analysis. You get out of the basement and understand the situation that surrounds you. On the DOC side, you lead down, lead up, lead across and lead beyond. You’re bringing people into the action to get things done,” Dr. Marcus said.
Another tool Dr. Marcus described, aimed at problem-solving and negotiation, is the “Walk in the Woods.” The idea is to bring two parties together to help each other succeed. The first step is Self-Interest, where both parties articulate their objectives, perspectives, and fears. The second step, Enlarged Interests, requires each party to list their points of agreement, and only then should they focus on and list their points of disagreement. During conflict, people tend to focus on their disagreements. The parties often find that they agree on more than they realize, and this can frame the disagreements as more manageable. The third step, Enlightened Interest, is a free thinking period where both parties come up with potential solutions that had not been previously considered. In step 4, Aligned Interests, the parties discuss some of those ideas that can be explored further.
The Walk in the Woods is applicable to a wide range of situations, and negotiation is central to being a leader. “Being a clinician is all about negotiating – with patients, family members, with other clinicians, with the institution,” Dr. Marcus said. “We all want the patient to have the best possible care, and in the course of those conversations if we can better understand people, have empathy, and if there are new ideas or ways we can individualize our care, let’s do it, and then at the end of the day combine our motivations so that we’re providing the best possible care.”
In the end, meta-leadership is about creating a culture where individuals strive to help each other succeed, said Dr. Marcus. “That’s the essence: involving people, making them part of the solution, and if it’s a solution they’ve created together, everyone wants to make that solution a success.”
For more information, see the book “You’re It,” coauthored by Dr. Marcus, and available on Amazon for $16.99 in hardback, or $3.99 in Kindle format.
The year 2020 has brought the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest and protests, which have resulted in unprecedented health care challenges to hospitals and clinics. The daunting prospect of a fall influenza season has hospital staff and administrators looking ahead to still greater challenges.
This year of crisis has put even greater emphasis on leadership in hospitals, as patients, clinicians, and staff look for direction in the face of uncertainty and stress. But hospital leaders often arrive at their positions unprepared for their roles, according to Leonard Marcus, PhD, director of the Program for Health Care Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston.
“Many times what happens in medicine is that someone with the greatest technical skills or greatest clinical skills emerges to be leader of a department, or a group, or a hospital, without having really paid attention to how they can build their leadership skills,” Dr. Marcus said during the 2020 Society of Hospital Medicine Leadership Virtual Seminar, held online Sept. 16-17.
Over 2 days, Dr. Marcus discussed the complex environments faced by hospital leaders, and some of the tools and strategies that can be used to maintain calm, problem-solve, and chart a course ahead.
He emphasized that hospitals and medical systems are complex, nonlinear organizations, which could be swept up by change in the form of mergers, financial policies, patient surges due to local emergencies, or pandemics.
“Complexity has to be central to how you think about leadership. If you think you can control everything, that doesn’t work that well,” said Dr. Marcus.
Most think of leadership as hierarchical, with a boss on top and underlings below, though this is starting to change. Dr. Marcus suggested a different view. Instead of just “leading down” to those who report to them, leaders should consider “leading up” to their own bosses or oversight committees, and across to other departments or even beyond to interlinked organizations such as nursing homes.
“Being able to build that connectivity not only within your hospital, but beyond your hospital, lets you see the chain that goes through the experience of any patient. You are looking at the problem from a much wider lens. We call this meta-leadership,” Dr. Marcus said.
A key focus of meta-leadership is to create a culture where individuals are working together to help one another succeed. Leadership in hospitals is often dominated by egos, with individual leaders battling one another in a win-lose effort, and this gets in the way of incorporating different perspectives into problem-solving.
Dr. Marcus used an example from previous seminars in which he instructed participants to arm wrestle the person sitting next to them. The goal was to attain as many pins as possible in 30 seconds. About half would fight as hard as they could, and achieve a few victories. The other half worked cooperatively, letting one person win, then the other, so that they could have 30 or 40 wins each. Dr. Marcus told the story of a young nurse who was paired up with a much stronger surgeon. She let him win twice, and when he asked her why she wasn’t resisting, she took his arm and placed it in a winning position, then a losing position, and then a winning position again, and he instantly understood that the cooperative approach could be more effective. Why didn’t she just tell him? She told Dr. Marcus that she knew he wouldn’t take instruction, so she let him win and then demonstrated an alternative. “We nurses learned how to do that a long time ago,” she told Dr. Marcus.
The idea is collaborative problem-solving. “How do you orient people looking to you for leadership so that we’re in this together and we can accomplish a whole lot more in 30 seconds if we’re working together instead of always battling one another? If we’re always battling one another, we’re putting all of our effort into the contest,” said Dr. Marcus. This sort of approach is all the more important when facing the complexity experienced by hospital systems, especially during crises such as COVID-19.
A critical element of meta-leadership is emotional intelligence, which includes elements such as self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, determining motivation of yourself and others, and the social skills to portray yourself as caring, open, and interested.
Emotional intelligence also can help recognize when you’ve entered survival mode in reaction to a crisis or incident, or something as simple as losing your car keys – what Dr. Marcus terms “going to the basement.” Responses revolve around freeze, fight, or flight. It’s helpful in the wake of a car accident, but not when trying to make managerial decisions or respond to a complex situation. It’s vital for leaders to quickly get themselves out of the basement, said Dr. Marcus, and that they help other members of the team get out as well.
He recommended protocols designed in advance, both to recognize when you’re in the basement, and to lift yourself out. Dr. Marcus uses a trigger script, telling himself “I can do this,” and then when he’s working with other people, “we can do this.” He also speaks slowly, measuring every word. Whatever you do, “it has to be a pivot you do to get yourself out of the basement,” he said. It can be helpful to predict the kinds of situations that send you “to the basement” to help recognize it when it has happened.
It’s very important not to lead, negotiate, or make important decisions while in the basement, according to Dr. Marcus. If one thinks about some of the things they’ve said to others while under duress, they are often some of the statements they regret most.
Practical leadership skills
On the second day of the Leadership Seminar, Dr. Marcus moved his focus to using leadership skills and techniques. One important technique is to incorporate multiple perspectives. He gave the example of an opaque cube with a cone inside it, with a window on the side and one on top. Viewers from the side see the cone in profile, and see it as a triangle. Viewers from the top see an aerial perspective that looks like the circular base of the cone. The two groups could argue about what’s inside the cube, but they can only identify the object if they work together.
“When dealing with complex reality, you oftentimes find there are different people with different perspectives on a problem. They may have different experiences of what the problem is, and what often happens is that people get into an adversarial fight. Looking at the problem from different perspectives actually allows a much richer and more comprehensive view,” said Dr. Marcus.
The metaphor comes from a study of the tragic events at the Twin Towers in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001. The New York Fire Department had a command center at the base of the building, while the police had a helicopter flying around the buildings. The helicopter could see the steel girders beginning to melt and predicted a collapse, and therefore ordered their personnel out of the buildings. But they were unable to convey that information to the firefighters, who continued to send personnel into the buildings. In all, 343 firefighters lost their lives. The police force lost 32.
To best understand a problem, a key element is the “unknown knowns.” That is, information that is available, that someone has, but is unknown to you. It takes some imagination to conceive of what “unknown knowns” might be out there, but it’s worth the effort to identify possible knowledge sources. It’s vital to seek out this information, because a common leadership mistake is to assume you know something when you really don’t.
“In many ways what you’re doing is looking for obstacles. It could be you don’t have access to the information, that it’s beyond some sort of curtain you need to overcome, or it could be people in your own department who have the information and they’re not sharing it with you,” Dr. Marcus said.
He outlined a tool called the POP-DOC loop, which is a 6-step exercise designed to analyze problems and implement solutions. Step 1 is Perceiving the situation, determining knowns and unknowns, and incorporating multiple perspectives, emotions, and politics. Step 2 is to Orient oneself: examine patterns and how they may replicate themselves as long as conditions don’t change. For example, during COVID-19, physicians have begun to learn how the virus transmits and how it affects the immune system. Step 3, based on those patterns is to make Predictions. With COVID-19, it’s predictable that people who assemble without wearing masks are vulnerable to transmission. Step 4 is to use the predictions to begin to make Decisions. Step 5 is to begin Operationalizing those decisions, and step 6 is to Communicate those decisions effectively.
Dr. Marcus emphasized that POP-DOC is not a one-time exercise. Once decisions have been made and implemented, if they aren’t having the planned effect, it’s important to incorporate the results of those actions and start right back at the beginning of the POP-DOC loop.
“The POP side of the loop is perceiving, analysis. You get out of the basement and understand the situation that surrounds you. On the DOC side, you lead down, lead up, lead across and lead beyond. You’re bringing people into the action to get things done,” Dr. Marcus said.
Another tool Dr. Marcus described, aimed at problem-solving and negotiation, is the “Walk in the Woods.” The idea is to bring two parties together to help each other succeed. The first step is Self-Interest, where both parties articulate their objectives, perspectives, and fears. The second step, Enlarged Interests, requires each party to list their points of agreement, and only then should they focus on and list their points of disagreement. During conflict, people tend to focus on their disagreements. The parties often find that they agree on more than they realize, and this can frame the disagreements as more manageable. The third step, Enlightened Interest, is a free thinking period where both parties come up with potential solutions that had not been previously considered. In step 4, Aligned Interests, the parties discuss some of those ideas that can be explored further.
The Walk in the Woods is applicable to a wide range of situations, and negotiation is central to being a leader. “Being a clinician is all about negotiating – with patients, family members, with other clinicians, with the institution,” Dr. Marcus said. “We all want the patient to have the best possible care, and in the course of those conversations if we can better understand people, have empathy, and if there are new ideas or ways we can individualize our care, let’s do it, and then at the end of the day combine our motivations so that we’re providing the best possible care.”
In the end, meta-leadership is about creating a culture where individuals strive to help each other succeed, said Dr. Marcus. “That’s the essence: involving people, making them part of the solution, and if it’s a solution they’ve created together, everyone wants to make that solution a success.”
For more information, see the book “You’re It,” coauthored by Dr. Marcus, and available on Amazon for $16.99 in hardback, or $3.99 in Kindle format.
The year 2020 has brought the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest and protests, which have resulted in unprecedented health care challenges to hospitals and clinics. The daunting prospect of a fall influenza season has hospital staff and administrators looking ahead to still greater challenges.
This year of crisis has put even greater emphasis on leadership in hospitals, as patients, clinicians, and staff look for direction in the face of uncertainty and stress. But hospital leaders often arrive at their positions unprepared for their roles, according to Leonard Marcus, PhD, director of the Program for Health Care Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston.
“Many times what happens in medicine is that someone with the greatest technical skills or greatest clinical skills emerges to be leader of a department, or a group, or a hospital, without having really paid attention to how they can build their leadership skills,” Dr. Marcus said during the 2020 Society of Hospital Medicine Leadership Virtual Seminar, held online Sept. 16-17.
Over 2 days, Dr. Marcus discussed the complex environments faced by hospital leaders, and some of the tools and strategies that can be used to maintain calm, problem-solve, and chart a course ahead.
He emphasized that hospitals and medical systems are complex, nonlinear organizations, which could be swept up by change in the form of mergers, financial policies, patient surges due to local emergencies, or pandemics.
“Complexity has to be central to how you think about leadership. If you think you can control everything, that doesn’t work that well,” said Dr. Marcus.
Most think of leadership as hierarchical, with a boss on top and underlings below, though this is starting to change. Dr. Marcus suggested a different view. Instead of just “leading down” to those who report to them, leaders should consider “leading up” to their own bosses or oversight committees, and across to other departments or even beyond to interlinked organizations such as nursing homes.
“Being able to build that connectivity not only within your hospital, but beyond your hospital, lets you see the chain that goes through the experience of any patient. You are looking at the problem from a much wider lens. We call this meta-leadership,” Dr. Marcus said.
A key focus of meta-leadership is to create a culture where individuals are working together to help one another succeed. Leadership in hospitals is often dominated by egos, with individual leaders battling one another in a win-lose effort, and this gets in the way of incorporating different perspectives into problem-solving.
Dr. Marcus used an example from previous seminars in which he instructed participants to arm wrestle the person sitting next to them. The goal was to attain as many pins as possible in 30 seconds. About half would fight as hard as they could, and achieve a few victories. The other half worked cooperatively, letting one person win, then the other, so that they could have 30 or 40 wins each. Dr. Marcus told the story of a young nurse who was paired up with a much stronger surgeon. She let him win twice, and when he asked her why she wasn’t resisting, she took his arm and placed it in a winning position, then a losing position, and then a winning position again, and he instantly understood that the cooperative approach could be more effective. Why didn’t she just tell him? She told Dr. Marcus that she knew he wouldn’t take instruction, so she let him win and then demonstrated an alternative. “We nurses learned how to do that a long time ago,” she told Dr. Marcus.
The idea is collaborative problem-solving. “How do you orient people looking to you for leadership so that we’re in this together and we can accomplish a whole lot more in 30 seconds if we’re working together instead of always battling one another? If we’re always battling one another, we’re putting all of our effort into the contest,” said Dr. Marcus. This sort of approach is all the more important when facing the complexity experienced by hospital systems, especially during crises such as COVID-19.
A critical element of meta-leadership is emotional intelligence, which includes elements such as self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, determining motivation of yourself and others, and the social skills to portray yourself as caring, open, and interested.
Emotional intelligence also can help recognize when you’ve entered survival mode in reaction to a crisis or incident, or something as simple as losing your car keys – what Dr. Marcus terms “going to the basement.” Responses revolve around freeze, fight, or flight. It’s helpful in the wake of a car accident, but not when trying to make managerial decisions or respond to a complex situation. It’s vital for leaders to quickly get themselves out of the basement, said Dr. Marcus, and that they help other members of the team get out as well.
He recommended protocols designed in advance, both to recognize when you’re in the basement, and to lift yourself out. Dr. Marcus uses a trigger script, telling himself “I can do this,” and then when he’s working with other people, “we can do this.” He also speaks slowly, measuring every word. Whatever you do, “it has to be a pivot you do to get yourself out of the basement,” he said. It can be helpful to predict the kinds of situations that send you “to the basement” to help recognize it when it has happened.
It’s very important not to lead, negotiate, or make important decisions while in the basement, according to Dr. Marcus. If one thinks about some of the things they’ve said to others while under duress, they are often some of the statements they regret most.
Practical leadership skills
On the second day of the Leadership Seminar, Dr. Marcus moved his focus to using leadership skills and techniques. One important technique is to incorporate multiple perspectives. He gave the example of an opaque cube with a cone inside it, with a window on the side and one on top. Viewers from the side see the cone in profile, and see it as a triangle. Viewers from the top see an aerial perspective that looks like the circular base of the cone. The two groups could argue about what’s inside the cube, but they can only identify the object if they work together.
“When dealing with complex reality, you oftentimes find there are different people with different perspectives on a problem. They may have different experiences of what the problem is, and what often happens is that people get into an adversarial fight. Looking at the problem from different perspectives actually allows a much richer and more comprehensive view,” said Dr. Marcus.
The metaphor comes from a study of the tragic events at the Twin Towers in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001. The New York Fire Department had a command center at the base of the building, while the police had a helicopter flying around the buildings. The helicopter could see the steel girders beginning to melt and predicted a collapse, and therefore ordered their personnel out of the buildings. But they were unable to convey that information to the firefighters, who continued to send personnel into the buildings. In all, 343 firefighters lost their lives. The police force lost 32.
To best understand a problem, a key element is the “unknown knowns.” That is, information that is available, that someone has, but is unknown to you. It takes some imagination to conceive of what “unknown knowns” might be out there, but it’s worth the effort to identify possible knowledge sources. It’s vital to seek out this information, because a common leadership mistake is to assume you know something when you really don’t.
“In many ways what you’re doing is looking for obstacles. It could be you don’t have access to the information, that it’s beyond some sort of curtain you need to overcome, or it could be people in your own department who have the information and they’re not sharing it with you,” Dr. Marcus said.
He outlined a tool called the POP-DOC loop, which is a 6-step exercise designed to analyze problems and implement solutions. Step 1 is Perceiving the situation, determining knowns and unknowns, and incorporating multiple perspectives, emotions, and politics. Step 2 is to Orient oneself: examine patterns and how they may replicate themselves as long as conditions don’t change. For example, during COVID-19, physicians have begun to learn how the virus transmits and how it affects the immune system. Step 3, based on those patterns is to make Predictions. With COVID-19, it’s predictable that people who assemble without wearing masks are vulnerable to transmission. Step 4 is to use the predictions to begin to make Decisions. Step 5 is to begin Operationalizing those decisions, and step 6 is to Communicate those decisions effectively.
Dr. Marcus emphasized that POP-DOC is not a one-time exercise. Once decisions have been made and implemented, if they aren’t having the planned effect, it’s important to incorporate the results of those actions and start right back at the beginning of the POP-DOC loop.
“The POP side of the loop is perceiving, analysis. You get out of the basement and understand the situation that surrounds you. On the DOC side, you lead down, lead up, lead across and lead beyond. You’re bringing people into the action to get things done,” Dr. Marcus said.
Another tool Dr. Marcus described, aimed at problem-solving and negotiation, is the “Walk in the Woods.” The idea is to bring two parties together to help each other succeed. The first step is Self-Interest, where both parties articulate their objectives, perspectives, and fears. The second step, Enlarged Interests, requires each party to list their points of agreement, and only then should they focus on and list their points of disagreement. During conflict, people tend to focus on their disagreements. The parties often find that they agree on more than they realize, and this can frame the disagreements as more manageable. The third step, Enlightened Interest, is a free thinking period where both parties come up with potential solutions that had not been previously considered. In step 4, Aligned Interests, the parties discuss some of those ideas that can be explored further.
The Walk in the Woods is applicable to a wide range of situations, and negotiation is central to being a leader. “Being a clinician is all about negotiating – with patients, family members, with other clinicians, with the institution,” Dr. Marcus said. “We all want the patient to have the best possible care, and in the course of those conversations if we can better understand people, have empathy, and if there are new ideas or ways we can individualize our care, let’s do it, and then at the end of the day combine our motivations so that we’re providing the best possible care.”
In the end, meta-leadership is about creating a culture where individuals strive to help each other succeed, said Dr. Marcus. “That’s the essence: involving people, making them part of the solution, and if it’s a solution they’ve created together, everyone wants to make that solution a success.”
For more information, see the book “You’re It,” coauthored by Dr. Marcus, and available on Amazon for $16.99 in hardback, or $3.99 in Kindle format.
FROM THE SHM LEADERSHIP SEMINAR