Thinking and acting from a whole systems perspective enables leaders to determine solutions that will create a better health system for the future. This means not only seeing the details, but also the bigger picture of your work. This page provides resources to help leaders consider a broader perspective, looking at the health system both from a complex, organic systems view as well as a clinical, technical systems view.
Systems Thinking Video Resources:
- Annie's Story: How a Systems Approach Can Change Safety Culture
- Paul Farmer: The Need for Systems Thinking in Health Care
- Spread Systems Thinking
- Peter Senge: Navigating Webs of Interdependence
TED Talks
Our medical systems are broken. Doctors are capable of extraordinary (and expensive) treatments, but they are losing their core focus: actually treating people. Doctor and writer Atul Gawande suggests we take a step back and look at new ways to do medicine — with fewer cowboys and more pit crews.
- As work gets more complex, 6 rules to simplify
Why do people feel so miserable and disengaged at work? Because today's businesses are increasingly and dizzyingly complex — and traditional pillars of management are obsolete, says Yves Morieux. So, he says, it falls to individual employees to navigate the rabbit's warren of interdependencies. In this energetic talk, Morieux offers six rules for "smart simplicity." (Rule One: Understand what your colleagues actually do.)
- Health care should be a team sport
When Eric Dishman was in college, doctors told him he had 2 to 3 years to live. That was a long time ago. Now, Dishman puts his experience and his expertise as a medical tech specialist together to suggest a bold idea for reinventing health care — by putting the patient at the center of a treatment team.
Webinar
Books at the Health Sciences Library
- Cost-Effective Performance Improvement in Hospitals (2004) by Joint Commission Resources
- Critical Issues for the Development of Sustainable E-Health Solutions by Nilmini Wickramasinghe (2011) (Editor); Rajeev Bali (Editor); Reima Suomi (Editor); Stefan Kirn (Editor): This book takes a socio-technical, patient-centric approach which serves to emphasize the importance of a key triumvirate in healthcare management namely, the focus on people, process and technology.
- Edgeware : lessons from complexity science for health care leaders (1998) by Brenda Zimmerman; Curt Lindberg; Paul Plsek: This publication is the first book to address complexity science in health care. It represents a revolutionary new way for health care leaders to think about how they engage employees, work with physicians, manage unmanageably complex tasks and plan for an uncertain future.
- Innovative Lean Development (2009) by Timothy Schipper; Mark D. Swets: Incorporating the fundamental principles of lean manufacturing and the rules and behaviors of structured innovation into the development process, this book unleashes the creativity of everyone involved in developing new products, services, or processes; speeds the process; and leads to higher quality.
- Mastering leadership : an integrated framework for breakthrough performance and extraordinary business results (2016) by Anderson, Robert J. & Adams, W. A. (Bill): In Mastering Leadership, Robert J. Anderson and William A. Adams argue that in order for organizations to generate extraordinary results, leaders must first transform their values, emotional intelligence, and decision-making systems. To that end, the authors provide an integrative framework, known as the Universal Model of Leadership, designed to help leaders evolve both their competencies and their consciousness. They assert that only by changing their worldviews can leaders create and sustain groundbreaking organizations.
- Real Time Leadership Development (2010) by Paul R. Yost; Mary Mannion Plunkett: Real Time Leadership Development provides research and practices-based guidance and tools for leaders to use to fully leverage experience-based development for their own growth and to build the next generation of leaders in their organization.
- The science of leadership: lessons from research for organizational leaders (2014) by Julian Barling:In The Science of Leadership, Julian Barling takes an evidenced-based approach, relying primarily on the knowledge generated from research on organizational leadership conducted around the world and personal reflections based on two decades of involvement in leadership research and leadership development with executives.
