Healthcare and tech news abounds with rumors and plans related to Amazon’s entry into healthcare. Other’s such as Google and Microsoft are pursuing an interest in healthcare as well. A tracking of patent applications indicates the interest is with AI, EHR, home monitoring and ambulatory services. Amazon has repeatedly used new applications and paradigms to solve old problems. Is healthcare an old problem in search of a new solution? Likely so.
In my 35+ years of healthcare leadership, innovation has been a difficult struggle. Many innovations were incremental improvements to remaining, outdated models. With a suppressive layer of regulation, bureaucracy, and complexity, the healthcare delivery model is difficult to change.
We look to each other for best practices; we search the literature for proven science, we take a few steps back and try to gaze at the problem with fresh eyes. Little changed given the multitude of restrictions placed on our creativity. New players, such as Amazon, have the freedom to pick the prime opportunities within the care continuum, leaving traditional providers with the ongoing mission to provide care, all care.
Are we doomed to be subsumed by new minds from new places? No, I don’t think so. The complexity of healthcare has readied the minds of healthcare leaders to guide our society through this maze. The missing ingredient is learning agility.
Learning agility is the solution to complexity, uncertainty, and bureaucracy. In short, learning agility is the willingness and ability to learn from the past and apply those learnings in new ways.
Learning Agility is an Emotional Paradox
Life is a great teacher. The most effective life lessons are an emotional experience. We don’t truly learn until we have put knowledge to the test in experiences. An agile thinker must embrace the emotion of opposing views, seemingly paradoxical questions, in a way that breaks through present paradigms and finds opportunity in new thoughts. A leader must synthesize multiple roles to be a practical visionary and path-finder. The journey forward for an agile leader will require letting some things go, ignoring others, embracing the new, but rarely staying the course.
Learning Agility is Definitional
Few would argue that we are judged to be a success or failure on the merits of our actions. In the complexity of an unknown future of healthcare, the success of a leader will be defined based on their ability to change themselves and then change their circumstances. Learning agility is the core power that is necessary for change. Learning agility will determine the leader of the future.
Learning Agility is Threatened by Defensiveness
If learning agility requires a leader to learn from the past and apply that knowledge to future problems, then using past solutions as a “plug-and-play” answer to future challenges will not work. The best way to determine if you tend to let the past solve the future is by examining your level of defensiveness. Defensiveness says that my current approach is defensible. New ways are not appropriate or necessary. Defensiveness defeats learning agility.
So, how do you develop learning agility?
Here are three tips for leaders:
Monitor your level of defensiveness. Do you dismiss new ideas immediately? Do you have trusted colleagues in your life who think differently than you? Can you point to examples of how you have disrupted your behavior?
Take on scary challenges. Fear is an emotion. Emotional experiences teach great lessons. Prove to yourself that you can tackle the job that others avoid. Volunteer for projects that require new skills and new ways of thinking.
Build your power of reflection. Learning agility requires deep thought and accurate self-awareness. Become a student of self. Understand how you react under pressure. Keep a leadership journal that documents your challenges, what worked, and the lessons you learned along the way. Ask yourself hard questions about why you act the way you do.
Amazon and others will continue to mine the healthcare industry for opportunities. You have years of knowledge and experience in the world of healthcare. Apply that knowledge and embrace the agility necessary to think in new ways. Challenge the conventional. Tackle the problematic. Let learning agility be your new mental model.