Complexity science Complexity, leadership, and management in healthcare organisations
نویسندگان
چکیده
Current management thinking largely assumes that a well functioning organisation is akin to a well oiled machine. This leads to the notion that performance is optimised when work is specified in detail and shared out to distinct operational units. Clinicians often object to these detailed specifications, while managers bemoan a lack of cooperation. The first article in this series introduced an alternative to the machine metaphor; that of a complex adaptive system (CAS). In this article we describe applications of complexity thinking in the organisation and management of health care.
منابع مشابه
Going beyond the Hero in Leadership Development: The Place of Healthcare Context, Complexity and Relationships; Comment on “Leadership and Leadership Development in Healthcare Settings – A Simplistic Solution to Complex Problems?”
There remains a conviction that the torrent of publications and the financial outlay on leadership development will create managers with the skills and characters of perfect leaders, capable of guiding healthcare organisations through the challenges and crises of the 21st century. The focus of much attention continues to be the search for the (illusory) core set of heroic qualities, abilities o...
متن کاملComplex Leadership in Healthcare: A Scoping Review
Background Nowadays, health systems are generally acknowledged to be complex social systems. Consequently, scholars, academics, practitioners, and policy-makers are exploring how to adopt a complexity perspective in health policy and system research. While leadership and complexity has been studied extensively outside health, the implications of complexity theories for the study of leader...
متن کاملKnowledge Translation in Healthcare – Towards Understanding its True Complexities; Comment on “Using Complexity and Network Concepts to Inform Healthcare Knowledge Translation”
This commentary argues that to fully appreciate the complexities of knowledge transfer one firstly has to distinguish between the notions of “data, information, knowledge and wisdom,” and that the latter two are highly context sensitive. In particular one has to understand knowledge as being personal rather than objective, and hence there is no form of knowledge that a-priori is more authoritat...
متن کاملConnections, Communication and Collaboration in Healthcare’s Complex Adaptive Systems; Comment on “Using Complexity and Network Concepts to Inform Healthcare Knowledge Translation”
A more sophisticated understanding of the unpredictable, disorderly and unstable aspects of healthcare organisations is developing in the knowledge translation (KT) literature. In an article published in this journal, Kitson et al introduced a new model for KT in healthcare based on complexity theory. The Knowledge Translation Complexity Network Model (KTCNM) provides a fresh perspective by mak...
متن کاملBridging the ‘Two Cultures’ of Research and Service: Can Complexity Theory Help?; Comment on “Experience of Health Leadership in Partnering With University-Based Researchers in Canada – A Call to ‘Re-imagine’ Research”
This commentary addresses Bowen et al’s empirical study of perspectives of Canadian healthcare staff towards research and their call for multi-faceted action to improve misalignments in the system. This commentary argues that tensions and misalignments between research and service are inherent and can never be eradicated. Building on previous work by Lanham et al, I pro...
متن کاملWhat About Leadership?; Comment on “Cultures of Silence and Cultures of Voice: The Role of Whistleblowing in Healthcare Organisations”
In their valuable discussion of whistleblowing in healthcare organisations, Mannion and Davies highlight the importance of organisational culture in influencing whether people raise concerns, and whether these concerns are listened to and acted upon. The role of leadership in shaping organisational culture is well-established1 and in this commentary, we will examine the influence of leaders in ...
متن کامل