Now, a football team is intended to be dynamic, motivated by a common goal (winning!), athletically capable, led by a team of anxious and passionate coaches, and most importantly – integrated. It's a team, for crying out loud! You can't win games with just a wide receiver. Who's going to throw him the ball?! And, the business world is no different. After watching game after game of teams that lack solid team work, I felt compelled to write a short article on the value of integration. Just as you would expect well-informed adjustments to operations in a football team's offense to potentially produce more yardage, you would expect well-informed adjustments to a business operation to produce cost-savings and/or greater potential for revenue generation.
It's this concept of integration that many fail to consider when making business decisions. For example, in healthcare, perhaps it's implementing an EHR/EMR system, ignoring the impact on other existing capabilities and/or systems/processes that are relatively or completely untouched by the new one. Or, perhaps it's failing to consider the integration of various performance indicators in making a crucial investment decision. Making a decision on a single indicator alone – such as on cost reduction – may not be the best if you intend to (1) reduce cost, (2) improve revenue generation, (3) minimize risk, (4) ensure timely acquisition and performance, and (5) consumer/customer satisfaction. That's at least five (5) indicators. The key here, again, being integration – how to evaluate decisions based on various indicators/factors, but starting with ones that are actually meaningful in your decision making. Use them!
If anything sticks with you following your review of these few words, just remember to think beyond the obvious. There's more to making decisions if you want them to be good.
