With all the hype about the importance of cultivating physician leadership, more organizations are engaging outside experts to help them build physician leadership development programs. Like many of the necessities brought on by health reform, this is a proposition that takes a significant investment on many levels. Building a leadership program internally is the best way for organizations to minimize costs.
For the past five years, my organization has provided leadership development training via a homegrown program that consistently rivals what is offered by the most credible physician training organizations. We have spoken with representatives from these companies and continue to feel confident about our choice to develop our physician leadership academy in house.
Here are six strategies for using internal resources to develop physician leaders.
Start small.
Journal clubs, Ted Talks and “Lunch & Learns” all count as leadership development. While my organization started with a two-and-a-half-day leadership program, we have learned to provide training in all sizes, from two-hour single topic courses to year-long cohort learning and, ultimately, the opportunity to become a faculty member in the academy. Starting small whets a physician’s appetite for more.
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Make it easy to participate.
Offering classes in the middle of the day or in hard-to-reach locations will not yield high levels of participation. We have learned to offer courses beginning at 7 a.m., or full-day sessions on Fridays and Saturdays, which have been clear preferences among our physicians. We build our schedule out a year in advance so that physicians, administrators (who are responsible for arranging coverage) and faculty can plan their schedules. Our programs rotate to facilities that are geographically convenient for physicians so they don’t have to travel far to attend.
Leverage experts as faculty.
Members of my organization’s senior leadership team, including the CEO, are faculty members in our physician leadership academy. Whether it’s sharing their own personal path to physician leadership, walking participants through the budget process or providing them with a case study on strategic planning, experts enjoy teaching and physicians appreciate learning from them. The other, very intentional outcome is building stronger physician/administration partnerships, which is something I am both passionate about and accountable for in my role as program director for physician engagement. We also have distinguished faculty from outside the organization who offer their services for free, enabling participants to test out material and ideas on an engaged group of physicians.
Find funding.
This is easier said than done, but not as difficult as you may think. There are more and more organizations providing grants for leadership development, and your own organization may be able to tap into foundation grants. It’s less expensive to redirect the time of your staff than to contract with vendors who may not be able to tailor their curriculum to your needs or accurately reflect your culture.
Make it relevant.
You cannot simply recycle off-the-shelf leadership training for a physician audience because physicians care about different things. Our curriculum is based on feedback from physicians, organizational priorities and industry imperatives. Everything is translated into language familiar to physicians, and my program co-director is a well-respected physician leader, ensuring the material is meaningful and resonant. Physicians apply their skills to projects they are leading or challenges they are facing, so their new knowledge is immediately useful and doesn’t create more work for them.
Provide something of value.
Arrange for physicians to receive continuing medical education (CME) for free in exchange for their participation in leadership development. This helps offset the cost that physicians are paying through lost wages. My organization sees free courses as a win-win: While physicians save money and gain knowledge, the organization provides insight into organizational culture, priorities and strategies. As a response to feedback from academy participants, we plan to provide lunch with the CEO and other senior leaders as a graduation present. Here, they will discuss challenges facing both physicians and our administrative team, which will likely yield better solutions in the long run.
In this time of rampant transformation, physicians must be given the opportunity to learn effective leadership skills. The good news is there are a variety of ways to do this. Physicians tend to be excellent students, so creating small opportunities for them to improve their leadership skills will create a more confident, competent and collegial workforce. These benefits should motivate leaders in organizations of any size to take the simple steps I’ve outlined above to grow a strong cadre of physician leaders.
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