Change Management Early Adopter
Robert Early may not spend a lot of time at home using the ADKAR® Change Management Model. There he is more likely to be spending time with his wife as they keep their two dogs – Bandit, a six-year-old Shepherd mix, and Scout, a six-month-old lab – entertained with long walks and a lot of playtime. But as a project manager in the Transformation Office at Texas Health, he finds the ADKAR® Model has become an integral part of his work, and he is now a certified change practitioner.
It helps to translate processes and procedures into concrete action steps.
Recently, Early and others used ADKAR to identify the barrier point on a project, in this case what might make people hesitant to change their current processes. By identifying this early, the team was able to plan creative ways to share evidence-based data and design processes to make the change easier and more likely to stick, he said.
These changes will come to life later this year when the Reliable Care Blueprinting™ Stroke module rolls out.
“Often times we take change management for granted,” he said. “But what I’ve learned in studying this model is you can save headaches down the road by clearly thinking through the steps and impact each action takes. As we work to improve processes and become more reliable and efficient, this type of advance work is vital to our success.”
What did you want to be as a child and how did you ultimately choose your career/job?
I was introduced to the world of health care at an early age as my mom has worked in Labor and Delivery for most of my life. Initially, I thought I wanted to be an anesthesiologist. Then, during one of my seminar classes at Texas Christian University (TCU), the president and chief executive officer (with a name almost a mirror image of mine) of a local Fort Worth hospital came and spoke about his role and the fulfillment he felt from being on the operational side of health care. That interaction led me to research and ultimately choose an operational role in health care.
How do you feel change management will help Texas Health reach Vision 2026?
The purpose of change management is to mitigate project-critical risks and reduce/remove the variability associated with change. As Texas Health works towards reaching Vision 2026, change management techniques will help us meet the evolving needs and expectations of our communities and consumers by equipping all our employees with the ability, knowledge and support to identify and overcome project roadblocks. This will enable us to make the nimble changes necessary to meet these evolving needs and expectations.
I am excited for the overall impact this will have on Texas Health and in turn, the communities we serve.
What is the most difficult step in the ADKAR model for you? What have you done to help overcome it?
Change in general is hard, and admittedly, the most difficult step for me would be D, the “Desire to change”. My decisions are very data driven, and once I’ve made up my mind, it’s pretty concrete. The change management training helped me to understand how the lack of a desire to change can impact the overall success of projects. It also gave me methods for overcoming this, which I now incorporate when faced with making a change.
As Texas Health staff and Texas Health Physicians Group providers begin taking the change management training, what recommendations would you have for them?
My biggest recommendation would be to dive right in and soak up as much information as possible. They will come out of training equipped with multiple tools which will enable them, and ultimately our entire organization, to successfully tackle increasingly complex changes.
There is research out there that shows projects with a change management plan have a higher success rate (76%) than projects without one (15%), and they will now have the tools to make this happen in their department, at Texas Health and even in their own personal life.
What’s one thing most people might not know about you?
My family has a small cattle ranching operation in Oklahoma. I am just as comfortable working cattle as I am being the project manager on a team of 25 co-workers tasked with developing solutions for a complex topic. Guess which one is easier to herd.
By Lynne Peters • Posted May 19, 2020
