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As healthcare industry workers, we all have our own sets of needs and emotions that drive our decisions and communications with others. Oftentimes the politics of healthcare sneaks in when there are differences of opinion or personality. For that reason, another element to understanding your political landscape is developing and maintaining what I like to call “political awareness.” Being politically aware means you’re mindful of the self-interests around you as you work on a compliance matter. This week, we’re going to take a look at two main elements of political awareness:
(1) Being Observant of the Relationships around You; and
(2) Identifying Formal and Informal Power.
Being Observant of the Relationships around You
When it comes to starting a new job, I tend to think of those first few months as similar to walking into a social gathering for the first time. When you first walk in, you’re not quite oriented to your surroundings. You don’t fully realize that some of the individuals around you are people you actually know. It just feels like a room full of strangers. At some point, though, mysteriously, you do orient to your surroundings and gain a sense of who is around you. Orienting to an organization feels very similar. At first your coworkers appear to be a group of strangers, but over time you’ll get to know them, their roles in the organization, and their backgrounds.
When you are politically aware, it will feel like you have hit the point when you know everyone in the room. You start to notice working relationships of those around you—things like which employees are a little testy with one another. You know, maybe John and Rebecca applied for the same lab director position; John got passed over and now reports to Rebecca. And John doesn’t like it. If you asked Rebecca, I’m sure she isn’t too thrilled about it either.
You may also notice which employees are a little chummy with one another. I once worked with a couple of department directors who always, and I mean always, had lunch together. They would sit next to each other during meetings, and every time there was a work event, there they were, side-by-side. Eventually, I learned they were neighbors and both had kids who went to the same school.
Whether it is a power struggle or a closely held alignment, be observant of the relationships around you. It will become valuable information for how you approach your work when it comes to things like conducting investigations. For example, if you are investigating a matter involving two people with a contentious relationship, it will factor into the credibility weight you give to their opinions about the matter or each other.
To be more obervant of the relationships around you, consider asking yourself the following questions:
Who gets along with others?
Who doesn’t get along with others?
Who is involved in conflict?
Who is a part of a group, clique, or social network in the organization?
Which staff members seem competitive?
Which staff members seem jealous?
Who is respected in a department or across the organization?
Identify Formal and Informal Power
Recall back to my earlier article “Why is Healthcare Political?”where I mentioned that you will have individuals in your organization who hold formal and informal power. Another example of being politically aware is figuring out who holds these types of power.
In terms of formal power, where do certain individuals rank in comparison to others on the organizational chart? That becomes key information when determining who to pursue for support on a compliance matter.
In the context of informal power, your focus is on who in the organization has the position or ability to influence the decisions of others. It’s not always the case that it’s the person with the higher rank in the organization. A lot of work in a corporate setting is based on the groupthink model. For example, a CEO may pull a committee of individuals together with the intent of having them provide their input to help the CEO shape his or her business decisions. As you attend operational meetings, you’ll start to pick up on who has a strong opinion about a particular issue and whom the CEO relies upon in making decisions.
Informal power isn’t limited to those who influence the CEO. Across the organization, you will find that other executives, senior managers, department directors, and supervisors value the opinions of certain employees in the organization. Identifying who holds informal power becomes valuable intel during times when you need support for the compliance program’s agenda. Just keep in mind that obtaining this knowledge takes months, sometimes years as you live with the organization.
To help identify formal and informal power in your organization, consider asking yourself the following questions:
Who holds formal power in a department and across the organization?
Who has the most influence on decisions being made in a department and across the organization?
Who has authority in a department and across the organization but doesn’t act on it?
Who is respected in a department and across the organization?
Who holds others accountable in a department and across the organization?
Who mentors others?
Pulling it All Together
Having a sense of the political landscape around you is a key strategy for navigating the politics of healthcare. This information will be invaluable to you for several reasons. First, you will be a more informed compliance officer. This improves your ability to find solutions that accommodate your organization’s business and compliance program agenda. Second, you will better understand the why behind the decisions made in the organization. Finally, you will be in a better position to predict the political objections from your leaders and proactively address them.
Now that we’ve covered being observant to relationships around you and identifying formal and informal power, next week I’ll cover a third element, which is my personal favorite—the usual suspects of office politics.