The question of just how to enroll someone in your Vision came up this week in a conversation with my friend George Swan. George is currently working on health systems organizational development in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). I learn something every time I talk to George. A few months back, he turned me on again to the book, Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization. Thanks to George, tying culture to performance has recently made a huge difference in my business and the businesses of my clients.
It’s About Sharing Information and Understanding
Last week, George was sharing with me his passion to participate in the creation of a regional community health status information database. He envisions a database that can be queried by members of the community from providers of care to recipients of care; his would be a database so comprehensive it would meet the needs of individuals and groups across the continuum of preventative care to palliative care. What a Vision in the interest of a Tribal Community!
George was sharing his challenge: despite almost six years of effort, he hasn’t yet pulled together the key players and critical mass of commitment to make the Vision a reality. He mentioned that with the enrollment of but a single, particular person, his Vision whatsapp number list might breakthrough. After our conversation ended, I reflected on his Success Equation. My last blog on Visionary Leadership, the work of Peter Senge on Learning Organization Theory, the work of Werner Erhard, and George’s own passion for Tribal Leadership have provided me with some insights on a Tribal/Systems-Thinking approach to Change Management. I think George is already moving in this direction.
Tribes within Tribes
A Leader’s behavior is shaped by unwavering commitment and tribal values.” – Warren Bennis
The concept of Tribes is not new to me. For more than fifteen years, I had the opportunity to work with American Indians and Alaska Natives Tribes. I worked directly with and for Federally-recognized Tribes who sought to privatize their health care service delivery systems. I supported Tribal Leaders who believed that it was in the best interest of their Tribes and their members to directly deliver health care that would otherwise be provided by the US Federal Government.
It very quickly became apparent to me that a knowing something about one Tribe meant only that I knew something about one Tribe. Every Tribe was unique; each Tribe had its own culture. I quickly restructured my Mental Model to reflect a presumption that each new Tribe I worked with would be different from, rather than like, any other Tribe with which I worked.
While working with the Yukon
Kuskokwim Health Corporation (YKHC), I had my first conscious experience with the reality that organizations are constituted of Tribes within Tribes. As Corporate Vice President for Hospital and Clinics, I was the head of the Hospital Tribe. This didn’t mean for a minute that I was the head of any of the Tribes within. I struggled in my early months garnering any enrollment in my self-defined corporate vision. In particular, when I as an outsider talked about the requirement to become a “Joint Commission-accredited” hospital, I couldn’t get many of the Yupik Eskimo employees to engage. My arguments of intrinsic value fell on deaf ears. My personal vision wasn’t their personal vision.
One day I noticed that all the Yupik staff deferred to and aligned with a mid-level administrative assistant named Juanita. Previously, I had paid little attention to this person. Shame on me. After some inquiry, I learned that she was the informal leader of the organization. He had worked at the primary system hospital for twenty-five years. Her Tribe, the Yupik Eskimo employees, followed her lead. I undertook to get to know Juanita a little better, to allow her to get to know me a little better. It was a tough row to hoe. But, we eventually connected. In effect, we bonded in a Shared Vision: the success of the, now, tribally-operated hospital she had worked for under Federal-control for several decades. Juanita’s acceptance and support of what I was doing, along with her culturally agreeable strategies for implementation, made all the difference.
Juanita’s Role in Advancing the Stages of Our Tribe’s Maturity
My relationship dynamics with Juanita’s Tribe occurred a couple of decades before I actually read Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization, nevertheless the situation then was reflective of the necessary evolution of the YKHC Tribe and its members from Apathetic Victim (“My Life Sucks”) to Innocent Wonderment (“We’re Great and So are They”). I watched the evolution over an eight-year period. The YKHC Tribe passed through the days of the Lone Warrior, when, “I’m Great; You’re Not” divided the internal Tribes of Native and non-Native employees. Later we all came together to move through a “We’re Great, You’re Not” relationship with the Federal Government. Eventually, we all “Tribed”.
In all the transitions from
Stage to Stage and in the transformation of the YKHC Tribe overall, the participation of Juanita and her endorsement of the processes used were vital and instrumental to YKHC becoming the kind of health care service delivery system the member Tribes wanted to see, for the reasons they wanted to see that outcome. Actually, YKHC became the kind of tribal organization that every other tribal organization in the country wanted to become.
Because of its ability to successfully transform as a Tribe of Tribes, YKHC was subsequently a leader in creating the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC). ANTHC represented an historical aggregation of more than fifty Tribal organizations in Alaska. These Tribes, together, transcended cultural and political differences to directly provide health care service to its members in Alaska in lieu of the US Federal Government. This stage transition moved the Tribes of Alaska through “We’re Great, They are Not” to “We’re Great and So are They.”
This experience of seeing Tribes come together in organizations to create one Statewide Tribe of health care providers and health care recipients, working as partners with the Federal Government, caused me to know that what George wants to accomplish is doable. The question becomes only, “How does he do it?”