Cardiovascular leaders moving beyond logic: an active strategy for advancing cardiac services

Cardiac leaders need to put forth cogent, well-articulated, conceptually sound reasons for pursuing issues that they consider to be significant to the future of their service. Logic, rationality, and quantification of issues are "givens"--they are the price of admission that one pays to have an issue contested in the organizational arena. Understanding the larger sphere in which CV issues reside by contextualizing logic and rationality in terms of organizational culture, power, politics, group dynamics, and ego improves the chance that the cardiac agenda will receive thoughtful consideration and support by organizational decision-makers. Clearly, optimal CV performance can only be attained through the process of sophisticated interdependence. Accordingly, by understanding and using the Iceberg in its entirety, CV leaders will manifest the power of it to bring about constructive change and market viability. The completed model appears in Figure 6. As your cardiovascular team advocates for the CV agenda, take care to "be as wary as snakes but as harmless as doves.