Mindset First, Strategy Second: Finding the Savings and Performance in Changing Culture

Resolving major challenges for health care organizations is a constant challenge. Each military service provides its leaders with superb education and training to lead the constant needs and changes of the mission requirements. The primary trap we leaders may fall into, though, is when we mistake our own expertise and perspectives as the solutions to our organizational challenges. To fully unleash the potential of our people and organizations, we must be deliberate in setting a culture that leverages all the diversity within our organization. At the Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center, Fort Hood, TX, our leadership team initiated an effort to shift the organizational mindset to create this cultural soil. The seeds of our education, training and strategic initiatives then were able to flourish and address our organizational challenges, but only after we addressed our own leadership mindset gap. By establishing and modeling a foundational outward mindset to ensure our team focused on the impact of our actions, we nurtured a culture that was inquisitive, collaborative, and without blame. In doing so, we eliminated negative financial and safety outcomes that threatened our institution and transformed it into a leading Army Medical Center.