A Losing Battle at the VA

Shinseki

“I can’t explain the lack of integrity among some of the leaders of our health care facilities,” said Shinseki in a CNN interview.

Coming from a distinguished veteran and senior soldier, that statement is remarkable. Shinseki went on to add that “Leadership and integrity problems can and must be fixed”, but what could go so wrong in the VA that it leaves one of our nation’s most distinguished soldiers baffled and angry?

VA bureaucrats have responded with a list of 17 systemic fixes, and these may all be good ideas, but they will never fix the “lack of integrity” that Shinseki correctly identified as the cause. Systemic fixes for inappropriate scheduling practices will not work on their own because the problem is deeply cultural. In the short term, the new Secretary will see a lot of vocal compliance, hiding and lip-service. In the medium to long term, people will continue to behave according to their own view of “how it really is around here”, rather than anything they see written down from management.

The new Secretary will be besieged by subordinates and consultants offering systemic fixes, because systemic fixes are well within the cultural comfort zone, require no commitment beyond passive compliance and the intellect, and typically justify large budgets. None of these will have the slightest long-term effect on integrity problems at the VA.

The only remedy that will persist six months and more from today is to do the hard work of cultural change. This cannot be done in the intellect alone, because the intellect does not motivate real action or real integrity – good or bad. Actions come from the heart and are motivated by values and personal strategies, and imposed courses, lectures and systems have very little effect on the real behaviors. Moreover, as a veteran intelligence officer, this blogger can say with some authority that there is no system or procedure, however well-designed, that cannot be gamed if the culture permits it.

The VA has an opportunity here to ignore the usual solutions and instead to do something that works. People are whole humans, not disembodied intellects, and any lasting change the new Secretary directs will only be the result of a practical approach to values-based leadership. As well, the VA will want to avoid almost all the conventional approaches which lack originality, credibility, results and measurement.

Our veterans deserve it.

About John Kolm

Team Results USA's CEO John Kolm is an innovator of 21st century team productivity programs, a best-selling author, and a former intelligence officer. Originally from Australia, John formed Team Results in 1996 with retired business partner and decorated veteran Peter Ring as the end result of an experiment that began in 1993. Driven by frustration with the team development options then available to business and government, and with encouragement from early clients, they applied their academic training and practical leadership experience to build the unique approach to team productivity improvement that eventually became Team Results. The company grew rapidly, expanded to a wholly US-owned branch in the United States in 2005, and now operates as a very successful business in both hemispheres. In 2004 John and Peter wrote the global bestseller “Crocodile Charlie and the Holy Grail” (Penguin, available on Amazon.com), consolidating ten years of work with peak clients into a compelling story about team productivity, leadership in business and government, and happiness at work. The book has been re-published in seven languages and fourteen countries, and a sequel is in the works. John is also the author of numerous articles and papers on team dynamics in the modern workplace, some of which can be found in the News Room at www.teamresultsusa.com . John is qualified in Psychology from the University of Melbourne, and in mathematics and statistics from the U.S. National Cryptologic School, where he also taught on the faculty. Email him at John.kolm@teamresultsusa.com .

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