Question

In the case study An Academic Medical Center's Journey to Quality, what steps did the president take to unfreeze the old culture?

Answer 1

The focus of change was on areas like

1. Excellence in everything UNTHSC did
2. Goals determined and executed by a strategic map:

• Working with the management team, the previously developed strategic plans were refined over two months and kept for execution. The discussion was done among all stakeholders across the organization, and aligned institutional plans to school specific ones, department plans and as per specific individual employee expectations. The strategy map was polished with inputs from leadership, faculty and staff. The mission statement and values were clarified and specific and focused goals, tactical initiatives and metrics on each mission centric areas. The strategic maps were developed for each area in the context of a new Strategic management system (SMS).
• The communication of vision and strategy was the role of the president and executive team. Several meetings with the leaders, staff and faculty were done, separately. These meetings included presentation of quarterly metrics, progress on the new strategy and new plans.
• Empowering employees to act on the Vision and Strategy: Th president and executive team changed the responsibility of departmental budgets from deans, vice presidents to the head of each departments. Also he eliminated the deficit spending in all accounts.
• A performance based compensation plan was subsequently implemented, though with much resistence from the employees.
• By the Spring of 2007, the change of culture was evidently seen. The president and executive team continued working with the employees to consolidate the gains as well as to produce more change, with the goal to become the top ten health science center.

3. Budget dedicated to priorities set forth in the strategic plan: a lot of the significant actions were:

• Restructuring the office by moving a number of staffs to different positions on the campus, hired a new executive director with MBA degree, consolidated certain responsibilities to senior leaders.
• Established strategic thinking councils (STC) representing each of the mission centered areas like administrative, academic, research, clinical and community engagements. The monthly meetings were set for STC to examine the issues of strategic planning and getting inputs and providing outputs to others.
• The STC addressed employee concerns and were ready to take up the challenge of changing traditions, with the strong support of the President. The results motivated the council members and more and more people participated the change effort. These efforts made the culture change as well the members understood the president’s call and need regarding the change.
• The President also established a leadership team comprising the executive team and the academic and non academic heads of all departments. This was done to ensure that the vision and message of change was accurately communicated beyond the executive team and provide a direct line of communication between these leaders and the president.
• Also the executive team met monthly to discuss operational and strategic issues to better understand the need for change and move towards a culture of excellence. The president working with each members developed a written set of performance expectations. This made the senior leaders to rethink whether they actually suited the position, and made it clear to the members of staff that President is realistic about his strategic plans.
• Evaluation of each faculty and staff member were to be done as per the standardized forms, which clearly gave the message that change is accountability of each individual staff and it has to be done.
• A legislative agenda around a new program called the Health Institutes of Texas was built to address the unmet health needs of Texans and also to create an organizational structure built around core research programs. Though many different opinions on the change aroused, most of the senior leaders, faculty and staff were supporting the change.

The staff turnover was evident and it led to many new recruitment and hirings.

4. Accountability by measuring the results: The office of Strategy and Measurement was established for this, replacing Institutional planning and performance improvement department.