January 22, 2025: Explore the leadership concept of practice time versus game time. Drawing parallels from sports, we discuss how fostering low-pressure, practice-oriented environments can drive innovation, build stronger teams, and reduce burnout in healthcare IT. Discover why psychological safety, continuous improvement, and strategic planning are essential to success in high-stakes industries like healthcare.
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Today in Health IT, we're discussing Game Time is a Leadership Fallacy, The Real Teamwork Lessons from Sports. My name is Kate Gamble, I'm Managing Editor at This Week Health, where we host a set of channels and events dedicated to transforming healthcare, one connection at a time. Today's episode is brought to you by Chrome OS. Imagine a seamlessly in the background, keeping your data secure, your teams connected, and your patients at the center of care.
Visit This Week Health backslash Google Chrome OS to learn more. Today we're talking about game time is a leadership fallacy, the real teamwork lesson from sports. And I'm joined by Sarah Richardson, President of This Week Health 229 Executive Development Community. Sarah, thank you for being here. Always
great to see you, Kate.
So let's dive in. This article challenges the notion that constant high pressure performance, termed in game time, leads to team success. Instead, it advocates for practice time, emphasizing the importance of low stakes environments where teams can experiment, learn from mistakes, and develop skills without the immediate pressure of deliverables.
Of course, there's a parallel with sports, and the authors argue that regular practice sessions Pre and post project analyses, or watching game film, and effective onboarding processes are crucial for fostering growth, innovation, and sustained performance in business setting. So a lot of this, quite honestly, runs counter to what some of us have experienced or been taught and suggests that when you're always in game time, you're going to burn through energy too quickly.
So what are some of your thoughts around this concept and why it's important to
The reason I was drawn to this article is because we work in the healthcare industry, and it came from the hospitality business before that, in 24 7, 365 environments where there's No time off. There's not much downtime. In theory, it's graveyard shift, midnight to 7, a thing.
But for the most part, you grow up in your career in an always on environment. It is really important to be able to delineate what always on in terms of quote unquote game time looks like, and when practice time or slower periods are, and recognize those, and really appreciate what that means for the team.
As a CIO implementing practice time, it allows your team to innovate and adapt new technologies without the fear of immediate failure, leading to more robust healthcare solutions. Here at This Week Health, we call it the crappy first draft. Just get it out there. Just get the idea. If the idea has some merit, then you can start to flesh it out a little bit more.
Yet don't spend hours and hours trying to create the perfect product when you don't even know if it's going to be something that you're going to pursue. Half the fun. of an environment where you get to practice ideas is the fact that maybe only one of 10 of them is what we're actually going to do, even if all 10 ideas are good.
And so then you really start to draw engagement from the team. You encourage a culture of learning and experimentation that reduces burnout and disengagement among the staff and enhances productivity. And more importantly, the aspect of strategic planning. When your team gets together to think about the quarter, the year, the three to five year moments ahead of you.
When you can allocate time for reflection and practice that, it's going to enable better preparation for the larger scale implementations and reduce the risk of costly errors. I cannot tell you how many times we would do a retreat. And in a previous lifetime, we did it once a month. We got off campus and we went to a local hotel, actually.
And we got a great rate because we negotiated a year ahead of time. One day a month, the whole team out of the office together to just think. Really think, plan, whiteboard, have ideas, have some fun. We always do something fun afterwards. And I took a little bit of heat for that, honestly, from upper echelons.
And they said, how come IT gets to go out of the office one day a month? And I said, how was our performance based on the metrics, et cetera, that we're expected to attain and achieve? And my boss was like, okay, I can't argue. You guys are exceeding expectations. That's why we take time away to think about what's happening in our environment.
You've got to create those spaces for people because of the nature of the work that we do. But Kate, when you consider what it means for the broader healthcare industry, what comes to mind for you?
It makes a lot of sense that this helps with innovation. A practice oriented approach can expedite the development and deployment of cutting edge healthcare technologies by giving people that space to whiteboard and try different ideas.
And it also can lead to improved outcomes because well prepared IT teams can implement systems that enhance patient care, safety, and data management and organizational resilience. By cultivating a learning environment, it equips organizations to better industry challenges and regulatory changes.
And part of this makes me think of football, of course, big fan. And , I've been to Giants training camp before, and when you're watching the practices, it's really cool because you can see them try out these trick plays that can either work or fall flat, but it's practice.
So if it fails, the player doesn't get cut on the spot. The play will probably get cut, but it's even in that type of environment, that having space to try different things and learn . Um, the Giants whole season has been a crappy first draft, but that's another story. But as we think about, how can leaders incorporate this into this strategy?
Is there anything else that CIOs can keep in mind?
I'm just going to literally play off of your football analogy because, 49er fan, we were supposed to be in first place going in injury, among other components of our season. And if there wasn't a practice squad and there wasn't the second and third string opportunities for people to really think about, we didn't completely have the worst season ever.
You saw some people step up that were second and third string because they're on the practice squad. Or they're part of the planning that goes into contingencies that are absolutely necessary in these big organizations. Anytime. You're watching game day and you're seeing all these amazing things happen, the amazing things happen because of all of the behind the scenes work that goes into that.
That is true of any organization in any company. You don't just show up And talk about the news. You don't just show up and hope that your flea flicker works in a high pressure situation, which I don't know why I love that play so much, but as a CIO, it is absolutely crucial to know where to add these pieces in and to know your team well enough to tell them, Hey, you know what, I'm, I am calling a timeout, I am saying this may be a cultural shift for you.
It may be a challenge for us to go from game time to practice time, especially if the ethos or the mentality within the healthcare organization is that high pressure space. You have to create those bubbles or those opportunities for it to be part of the way you're doing business. When you have a model and you promote a culture that values practice, learning, and continuous improvement, it doesn't give you a pass to not be doing a good job.
You don't show up for work intending to do a bad job that day. If you're having a day though where you know you're in more of a practice mode or practice elements, If you want to make sure that all of those things are woven into the culture of your organization, then you can actually just say that, Hey, you know what, this is my crappy first draft.
Hey, you know what, this is an idea I'm considering. Hey, I wrote this in my whiteboard or on my whiteboard in my office. Hey, go take a peek and make some notes. When you're constantly iterating, and that's one of the things I do miss about an in person environment, are the whiteboard, sticky note, goofy moments, where you just go in and you write things and figure it out together.
The piece that I really want to drive home is the practical implementation of this. Consider kicking off a project, thinking about how are we going to work together? What are our roles and responsibilities? What's unique about the challenges that we're going to be facing? How are we going to approach solving it?
And how are we going to handle feedback and disagreements? When you're doing that, in that practice type of mode, it gives people safety, psychological safety, which is really key in core team development, to be able to meet the Your customers, where they are, as well as your organization. And okay, Hey, we did it.
We won the game. We won the project. We did a great job. What worked, what could have gone better? What would we do differently next time? I ask those three questions constantly in my career. Is what did we like? What did we didn't like? What do we need to do next time? And when you ask people literally what do you need most from me?
How can I be showing up differently for you in these environments? That is that practice of you've got a bit of a timeout. You've got some safety, you've got practice. You're not always expected to be perfect. And what do we say to people? Don't let perfect get in the way of good enough.
Very well said.
And it made me think of breaking down game tape. There's a reason that. Teams do it. I remember as a high school athlete, I remember learning from that. , , practice is not going to make perfect, but it's going to make stronger teams.
And hey, if you're on the sidelines after a play, what are you doing?
Watching the immediate to see what worked and what didn't work. We do that at work now. You and I always go back and listen to our shows. So that we figure out how can we be better next time. Just part of, you don't love listening to your own voice every so often, but you do love figuring out is the content valuable to those receiving it.
That is a universal question anytime you're producing something that is for consumption, whether that's a patient, a clinician, or a member of the 229 community.
Do not let perfect get in the way of good. Okay. Don't forget to share this podcast with a friend or colleague. Use it as a foundation for daily or weekly discussions on the topics that are relevant to you and the industry.
They can subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Sarah, thank you for joining and thank you to everyone for listening.
That's a wrap.