I spend a lot of time dreaming about what a wonderful thing it would be if more and more healthcare could “become Lean”. The wisdom of Lean as a philosophy, an operating system and a corporate culture or “corporate way of being” appeals to me because of its universal applicability and its unique ability to enable cooperation toward the execution of the mission or purpose of any organization. It matters not if the corporation is structured as a charity or as a profit-seeking venture. It makes no difference if the purpose or mission of the enterprise is to heal, to transport, to educate, to entertain, to feed, to protect, to house or to enrich those whom it serves.
All organizations by definition are exercises in some form of collaboration and collective activity that will require clarification of roles and responsibilities as well as appropriate use of agency if the enterprise is to properly serve its clients-customers-patients. Organizations that want to survive must remain focused on what Clay Christensen describes “as the job their customers are hiring them to do.” This focus on the customer or consumer will cause them to want to constantly be seeking ways to innovate and to continuously improve what they do and improve how they are aligned internally with their colleagues and externally with their suppliers and business partners for the benefit of the customer/consumer.
I am saddened with a sense of diminished opportunity and vision when I hear people describe the principal role of an organization to be the protection of “shareholder value.” Shareholder value or stakeholder satisfaction is important but I believe that their direct pursuit paradoxically limits the possibility of sustaining either one. Even in the profit-seeking entities, shareholder value is a derivative outcome of succeeding in the service of the mission or purpose which is to serve some persons, groups or cause as the recipients of either the charity of the enterprise’s charity or its product.
Most organizations have a mission directed at serving someone, some population or–as we say in business–“some market.” I believe those organizations that understand their purpose always do the best job of protecting “shareholder value” as well as becoming such an important part of the lives of their customers that the future success of the enterprise is guaranteed. We should strive for a “non-zero” world of continuous win-wins and that world of win-wins should be built on the common interests and objectives of improving the lives of our customer/consumers and the communities in which we live. If we can collaborate for this purpose we will always be relevant and we will be deserving of our reward.
