Clinical-Managerial Divides
In truth, the clinical-managerial divide is a combination of corporate conflict and conflict between distinct groups (akin to Inter Team Conflict). It is vital to examine those sections too to develop the fullest understanding of this healthcare-specific, historical situation.
Within the NHS, intra-organisational conflict between managers and clinicians is often high, with each party appearing to have an agenda which is incompatible with the others. Whilst in the past organisations might have continued to survive in spite of this internal conflict, survival and growth in the new world of increasing competition and limited financial resources will become increasingly difficult in those organisations where a clinical-managerial divide remains.
The provocative question is this:
Whilst your clinical and managerial teams and failing to work effectively together, effectively disengaging in key areas of importance, what is happening in the marketplace around you?
The true danger of the clinical managerial divide is that inertia and wasted activity result in departments and Trusts becoming ever less competitive to their more ‘organised’ and internally collaborative neighbours. In effect, they risk being caught with the corporate trousers around their ankles. Furthermore, with ever greater competition from ‘private’ or alternative provider types, Trusts will find these new competitors nimble and proactive, with clear visions, consistent, collaborative internal processes and explicit understanding of what it takes to be successful.
We asking again, what’s happening around you whilst you fight internally?
Clinical-Managerial Perspectives
Clinicians and mangers both need to take sufficient time to really understand the others point of view. In the NHS we rarely afford ourselves this luxury. We often talk to clinicians who tell us they are in conflict with their managers and yet these same clinicians have often never taken the time or opportunity to sit down with their managerial colleagues and actively listen and understand what is driving their goals and interests. Conversely the opposite is true too.Clinicians in general are driven to provide high quality, safe care to their patients. Managers want this too but are also driven by financial pressures which are alleviated/ resolved by attracting patients, meeting targets and driving efficiency. Both parties need to recognise that the two are not mutually exclusive and that for services to survive and prosper they need to be efficient, effective, safe and deliver on patient experience, within the financial constraints facing our health service.
We also believe that two unhelpful points of view are rife within this dilemma:
- Clinicians believe that managers are not intellectually qualified to address complex service issues
- Managers believe that clinicians are not flexible, open-minded or collaborative
Neither viewpoint is valid but both have become self-fulfilling prophecies that go a long way in preventing resolution. Clinicians and managers MUST come to the table with an active desire to collaborate and change this perpetual problem. Both risk their own demise in failing to resolve this.
Simple steps
Simple steps? You want us to resolve one of the great medical bastions in a simple step? OK, if we must...The simplest step
We can break down the clinical-managerial divide and put in place the building blocks of lasting, collaborative relationships in a SINGLE DAY. Guaranteed.
Most frontline clinicians (and nurses, allied professionals, support staff etc... and many mangers, even senior managers too) remain immensely naïve to the true nature of changes taking place in our NHS, the reason or drivers behind them, what the end result will look like, what it takes to be successful, the absolute financial crisis that our NHS is heading for (regardless of whether the recession had occurred or not) and the need to learn to work very differently from the past, accepting where necessary fundamental changes to the whole premise of a National Health Service. This is the equivalent of the dinosaurs (on both sides of the table, we stress) watching the meteor shower and debating whether they like it, feel comfortable with it and what to do about it, all the while not realising that they are setting the scene for their own demise if they do not wake up and act. Harsh, we know, but this is the all too common reality.
Let’s be clear, we are not saying the healthcare professionals are dinosaurs (we are healthcare professionals, after all). The reality is that with increasing pressure, expectation and load, very few people have had the opportunity to step back and examine what is going on (and if they did, they’d find the information spread far and wide).
The solution...
By bringing the Medicology programme; Insights Day - Understanding the Evolving Healthcare Landscape in-house with a facilitator tasked with ensuring that the clinical-managerial divide is dissolved, we can ensure that not only do all participating staff understand where risk lies and what it takes to be successful, but also that they all attach huge risk to the continued lack of collaboration between clinical and managerial teams.
We wouldn’t guarantee it (Medicology 100% money back guarantee) if we didn’t have absolute confidence in the approach.
In the first instance, contact Andrew Vincent, Managing Director and Head of Clinical Business Excellence Centre of Excellence on 07775 646947 or
Resolution and Longer Term Prevention
- Send anyone in key leadership roles on either of the Medicology programmes: Advanced Communication & Influencing Skills or Advanced Influencing, Negotiation and Engagement Skills or bring either of these in-house cost-effectively. This will help prevent inadvertent escalation arising out of the psychological differences between individuals and the natural approaches they often adopt.
- Bring in-house the Medicology programme: Understanding Clinicians and Clinical Teams which aims to increase an appreciation in managers about how best to interact with clinicians, including influencing, creating collabo9rative working relationships and key pitfalls to avoid
- Generate much stronger desire to engage in non-clinical issues by ensuring that everyone is exposed to the Medicology programme; Insights Day - Understanding the Evolving Healthcare Landscape which can be brought in-house for small and larger groups alike, as well as being accessible as both individual and corporate e-learning extremely cost-effectively
- Engage Medicology Consultancy Services to examine engagement, people and conflict issues expressing themselves as a clinical-managerial divide, as well as develop appropriate resolutions and strategies to restore performance, morale, engagement and collaboration
The Medicology team will be able to advise you on the best overall approach. In the first instance, contact Andrew Vincent, Managing Director and Head of Team Performance Centre of Excellence on 07775 646947 or
The Importance of Leadership in Conflict Prevention
There is no doubt that organisations with strong, well developed leaders are much less likely to suffer conflict in any form but especially the clinical-managerial divide. The NHS has thankfully woken up to the importance of clear leadership from both the top of the organisation and at the clinical interface. However the training opportunities lag significantly behind the acceptance that development is necessary. Many clinicians placed ‘in charge of’ services or people have received no formal training in how to get the best out of people or in communicating in a way that builds commitment as opposed to compliance at a team and individual level. Medicology is the undisputed leader in leadership development, especially at the clinical level and we’d be happy to discuss this important aspect of conflict prevention with you in more detail.More information on leadership development with Medicology:
