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Health care management teams and boards mistake action for progress much too often. Here is how it happens: Someone identifies a problem, and that person or a colleague proposes a solution. The team or board debates the solution and decides whether to implement. That sounds reasonable, right? No!
They forgot “ready, aim.”
“Ready” is ensuring that you know what the problem actually is, that you know the facts of your current situation. … “Ready” means being able to formulate a brief problem statement on which everyone can agree.
“Aim” means that you also agree on a target--not how you intend to get there, but where you intend to go.
One of the most common causes of dysfunctional planning was putting the cart before the horse, or in this case, the proposal before the target.
Managers frequently get caught up in day-to-day operations. Financial pressures often narrow their field of vision. One action leads to another. One step follows the other. They are in a cycle of “Ready, fire. Ready, fire. Ready, fire.…”
There is one more lesson of “ready, aim, fire” that is worth considering. Although some boards and management teams have the tendency to act without thinking or without establishing an overall sense of direction, others have a tendency to think and plan without moving to action. … Action without a target leads to ineffectiveness because there is movement without direction. Planning without implementation is “ready, aim” without “fire.”
Only when you know where you are starting from and where you want to go can you decide how best to get there.
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