What keeps me up at night?

I often have to ask myself what keeps me up at night to help prioritize areas which need to be addressed at the office. I had an amazing sleep last night, however that doesn't mean I don't have things that keep me up at night.

One thing which keeps me up at night... "People". All leaders, managers, and peers struggle with this issue. In business we refer to people as "resources". Branding employees with the resources title desensitizes managers and decision makers so they can make solid business decisions. Those business decisions have a tendency to counter an individuals desire or personal growth need.

In my world "people" equals human capital. Human capital is what drives innovation. Without innovation we would be the status quo and not doing anything to improve the delivery and quality of health care. Finding and retaining "people" who can contribute to our mission is no easy task.

Today's high-tech world has created just as many complexities as efficiencies. My world is ultra challenging (which means ultra fun for me) because I am charged with building and maintaining a high performing team to deliver excellence in several domains which sometime contradict each other. My first approach is to set the bar for myself and for those I'm charged with leading high. I'm a big believer that anything can be accomplished if you put your mind in to it.

I also believe that "high performers" need to do more than just accomplish their goals. High performers need to "lead" low and medium performers without having a negative impact on his/her individual performance. This can often be a major challenge. Interesting enough individuals can not be high performers in every aspect of their life, therefore there are times in which high performers are low performers and need to allow others to lead without becoming a distraction.

Building a high performance team has one major requirement. Everyone needs to know the objective! The larger the organization the more complexities are involved with ensuring everyone knows the objective. There is no easy answer for this. Looking at the sports arena - athletes know their objective. Go out score points and win. There is a definitive beginning and ending in a game.

In business, especially in health care, we have an evolutionary process of continual improvement. This means that there really is no end and it can lead to frustration amongst the IT professional.

My approach is fairly transparent. Observe what works and what doesn't work. Observe where individuals seem to excel and where they seem to struggle. Aggregate those observations and make the appropriate alignment and project management decisions which need to be made knowing that it isn't going to satisfy every one's personal needs. Once a decision is made give it the appropriate time to work then adjust accordingly. Always be open to listening to feedback. Feedback is important, while it has little affect on decisions already made - it will have a major impact on future decisions to be made.