So how is the leadership thing working out? Palliative care, hospice care and healthcare in general has evolved into the most complex team sport of all time. And getting people to move cohesively around a simple common ground effort should not be that hard…but it is. Some try the bull-horn approach (I did that for a while…and it worked as well as me telling my patients to lose weight), other leaders try the expert approach (I am so smart…that I will just do it myself…)- that didn’t work either (and it was really tiring). Leadership is about building influence and the capacity to change anything with your teammates…not to them.
How do we do this? How do we create common ground that everyone knows, supports and contributes to? How do we tap the intelligence of the team (all of us is always smarter than one of us)? How do we effectively communicate with each other. All of this sounds so simple, but so infrequently done. I look forward to spending a day of discovery, skill building and practice to lead your team. See you soon-
Stephen Beeson MD
Founder, PracticingExcellence.com
ACPE faculty Stephen C. Beeson, MD, will lead the 2014 AAHPM Leadership Forum Ignite Program – Physician Engagement & Influence in Organizational Management. Ignite premieres during the 2014 Annual Assembly and will be offered as a full-day learning experience in subsequent years.