HBS Participant's Profile

Leveraging your current good relationship appears to make sense. Consider offering and expanding services that your organization does better at the events. Work on adding value to areas that they cannot/ do not want to compete on. Demonstrate your expertise so they will not want to continue to expand into other sectors. Planning meetings and good communication of any proposed changes of service provision at the event will be important for your success.

The surgeon departures should viewed as an opportunity for broader strategic evaluation, aside from just program closure or moving staff. It appears that some of the hospitals face different constraints and issues, such as geography/weather/volumes. Are there services that can aligned better at the smaller hospital so the transfer issues can be mitigated? Tele-health consult options could be investigated. Better understanding the historical staffing tensions is also critical before any staffing decisions are rendered. Analysis into program quality and low surgical volumes should also be included.

We tease out “curiosity” in our hiring process in different ways. It varies based on the type of position. For example, in hiring analytic positions, there is a technical test given. Many of the questions on the test are quantitative, so responses are very standard. There are some questions, however, that are very open. Additional resources are available to assist with completion. Candidates receive additional credit for how they respond to these and dive deeper in the questions. There is also a debrief after the test to allow the candidate to ask questions. “Curiosity” also becomes evident in their interest in looking/ or not looking to better understand components of the test.

A conservative approach may the best business plan given the identified risks. Perhaps strong/ profitable current services within pediatrics should be evaluated for the expansion into the adult care market. Leveraging experience and expertise from the current ambulatory care pediatric services would make the most sense for such new market entrance. It also appears that there is a desire from your experienced doctors to treat both children and adults. Using their enthusiasm and specializations would seem to be a natural starting place, rather than experimenting with new specialties for this venture.

Our organization has created division strategy units. These units are led by a physician leader. They receive support from a designated senior leader, project manager and small resource team. The senior leader at the table helps ensure that the unit is headed in a direction that is congruent with the larger strategy of the organization. Specific division goals and initiatives, however, are created within the unit. Monthly report backs to the organization senior leader team are conducted. A lot of ownership and very actionable tactics has already been produced by this new infrastructure.