One of the challenges every hospital value analysis team member has wrestled with is getting results without authority. We have heard this complaint over and over again from team members when we facilitate their supply value analysis program.
Specifically, team members are concerned with how they can influence others in the healthcare organization to change their practices when they lack authority to do so. After all, most of the people they are trying to influence are either their peers or upper management.
We consider this challenge so important that we have a section in our Value Analysis Training Program that covers this topic in detail, since we know that it can be a real impediment to making change happen at your hospital.
Here are five tactics for your team members that will win respect and cultivate influence and cooperation from your peers and upper management and that are essential for hospital value analysis team members to master:
1. Establish credibility by being prepared
If you have done your homework (interviews, shadow your customers, functional analysis) then you will have a leg up on your peers or upper management who really haven’t thought about how their practices are costing your hospital money, time or waste.
2. Use your power base to persuade others
Get your value analysis administrative champion engaged in helping you to persuade your department heads and managers that a change is needed. There is no rule that says you need to go it alone.
3. Sell benefits rather than features to implement lasting change
Too often we tend to sell features (e.g. better, faster or cheaper) rather than benefits (e.g., make your job easier, give you more time for other tasks or reduce infection rates), which are what your customers really care about. Don’t skimp on benefits!
4. Project self-confidence without being pushy
If you visit with a customer and your demeanor is meek, humble, and fidgety, they aren’t going to have much confidence in what you are proposing. However, if you are confident, self-assured, and poised when selling your proposition you have a better chance of succeeding in your mission – without being pushy.
5. Negotiate from a position of strength
If your research has been faultless, your timing is right, and you offer alternatives in your saving proposal, you have a good chance of negotiating a solution that meets your needs and your customers’ needs, wants, and desires, too.
It is said that value analysis team members aren’t given power, but have the right to obtain it by leveraging the power and influence that they already have at their disposal.
So the next time one of your value analysis team members says they don’t have the authority to make change, just remind them of the five essentials for gaining power, influence, and cooperation.
Then, monitor that they are employing one or more of these tactics to get results without authority from their peers and upper management. You will be amazed at how they will get better results than ever before.