Okay! We have come a long way - talking through various aspects of hospital strategy. Now the rubber meets the road. Let's say we have a great strategy. Now what?

For this, I turn to a great HealthLeaders article that cites some very compelling research done by HBR. There is indeed a strategy-to-performance gap within all industries - in fact, the firms studied fell 37% short of their strategic plan's financial targets. The culprit is planning and execution - more precisely, the lack of linking between planning and execution.

HBR also identified the 11 factors that accounted for this gap. Oddly enough, many of these factors are "soft skills," such as poorly communicated strategy, unclear accountabilities in execution, organizational silos, etc.

To bridge the gap, the research came up with seven simple rules. They are common sense, they are nothing new and very ordinary-looking, yet I'd be hard-pressed to think of one organization that practices all 7:
Rule 1: Keep it simple; make it concrete (Can anyone say "SMART" goals?)
Rule 2: Debate assumptions; not forecasts (this gets at the less politically charged, more constructive debate)
Rule 3: Use a rigorous framework; speak a common language (i.e. change management 101)
Rule 4: Discuss resource deployments early (i.e. expectations management 101)
Rule 5: Clearly identify priorities (don't try to solve everything at once, i.e. focus 101)
Rule 6: Continuously monitor performance
Rule 7: Reward and develop execution capabilities (put some skin into the game)

Again, these look deceptively simply, but the human side of change management is difficult. Like I've posted before, IT implementations and corporate mergers (and strategic direction changing) all have something in common - everyone's usually so focused on the visible/tangible aspects of the change event that no one thinks about the unseen human side of things. And that'll get you every time.