Community Health Center Management Principles for Boards and Senior Managers - Principle 13 - Rules for Prioritizing

Community Health Center Management Principles for Boards and Senior Managers - Principle 13 - Rules for Prioritizing

This is a continuing series for effective Community Health Center Governing Boards and Senior Management.

Today we address:

Principle 13 - Rules for Prioritizing:
· Courage over analysis
· The future over the past
· Opportunity not problems
· Your own direction – not the bandwagon
· Aim high at something that will make a positive difference
· Revise priorities in the light of reality.

Next post: Community Health Center Management Principles for Boards and Senior Managers - Principle 14 - Incompetence

Community Health Center Management Principles for Boards and Senior Managers - Principle 12 - Decision Making

Community Health Center Management Principles for Boards and Senior Managers - Principle 12 - Decision Making

This is a continuing series for effective Community Health Center Governing Boards and Senior Management.

Today we address:

Principle 12 - Decision Making

· Questions to ask prior to making a decision:
1. Is the situation:
Degenerative?
Self-healing
A nuisance?
Something with which we will have to live?


2. What will happen if we do nothing?


3. Is action needed?


4. What are all the alternatives?


5. Ask:
§ The risks?
§ The costs?
§ The effort needed?
§ The time span required?

· Important features and elements of decisions:
1. Knowing whether the problem is generic, or an exception. (If generic, it can only be solved through establishing a rule or principle.)


2. Defining the specifications that the answer to the problem has to satisfy, i.e., its boundary decisions. (What are the clear specifications that the decision must accomplish?)


3. Thinking through what is right, i.e., the solution that will fully satisfy the specifications before the necessary compromises are made. (What is right vs. what is acceptable)


4. Testing the validity and effectiveness of the decision against the actual course of events, against the expectations that underlie the decision.


5. How to convert the decision into action (Effectiveness).

· The Decisional Process:
1. Decisions start with opinions – not facts.
2. What are the criteria of relevance?
3. Decisions spring from the clash and conflict of divergent opinions.


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for Boards and Senior Managers - Principle 13 - Rules for Prioritizing