At a recent book launch event in my author community, my dear fellow author Alison Coughlan reminded me of my own opening in chapter 5 ‘Adopting a playbook for multi-party collaboration to catalyze change behavior’. It goes like this.
Darkness cannot drive our darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that. (MLK 1957)
Too often in my career as a doctor & business leader in health care, I have encountered dead-ends & insurmountable barriers that felt like darkness. Over & over again, I experienced situations where great ideas have struggled to gain momentum due to differences of personal opinion. I am sure, you have, too. I have similarly witnessed many times how individual leaders – acting as integrators & mediators – were able to drive resolution by bringing light back into a room of conflict, diverging interests & irreconcilable opinions. And doing so in a collaborative, solution-oriented & empathetic manner. Do you, too? Tell us more. We need to share those stories of winning co-creation on the health care stage and perpetuate positive behavior.
In health care, what we need is more of these integrators that bring back light into a room of dominant conservative, hierarchical & change-resistant demeanor.
We have no time to waste. Waste destroys value.
And value creation requires an active effort & the will to collaborate. The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us what is feasible. It has not only painfully showcased the flaws & gaps in our infrastructure & systems. But it has also showcased the phenomenal progress that can be achieved once public, private, patients & cross-border alliances work together. A single virus with no passport & no borders has shown us how fast barriers can be broken down. More than 4 vaccines in less than 1 year? Unheard of. Unprecedented in medicine of humankind.
Let’s harness that change for the better and let’s leverage the multiple public-private partnerships that have spurred in various regions & continents. Let’s harness the push on digitalization. Let’s harness the new spirit of data-sharing and of cross-border solution finding! Let’s harness the pull from patient-empowered remote health management. Together!
Society expects us to do better. Much better.
Our only chance to do better though is by working together. Today, silos reach so deep and different sets of expertise diverge so much so that 1 actor alone cannot master it. Not doctors. Not pharma. Not policy. Not insurers. Certainly not patients! All 5 key actors have to jointly dance a Tango For Five! Let’s get to work. Share your experiences in below comment section.
This is so true. I was amazed by how quickly science moved to help the fight against covid. Things always get challenged when people have their own agendas and disregard others. People need to see those in front and behind them.
you got it! own agendas, frustrations & pressure to deliver are key barriers to collaboration we ought to collectively address. Each of us. Covid has shown what emergencies do: they galvanize the common purpose and the reason to act. Together. How can we perpetuate that sense of common purpose to act outside of a global public health crisis?