The Bard Group’s Getting Started process provides newly-formed or restructured leadership teams with a roadmap and tools to hit the ground running...together, and in the right direction.

The fundamental work of a leadership team is to reach decisions. But new teams must establish goals and ground rules to allow them to do that work. Getting Started gives new teams the tools to clearly define and articulate:

• Their purpose
• Their structure
• Their authority
• Their internal processes
• Their measures of success

One function of Getting Started is to create the narrative that will give direction and coherence to the work of the team, and present that narrative to the larger organization. People ask, “Hey, what’s the story here?” precisely because they make sense of change and progress through stories that weave disparate observations or facts into an integrated whole. If there is no story, those within an organization are likely to create their own, based on incomplete observations. That can lead to suspicion and mistrust, and undermine the team’s efforts.

By using Getting Started, new teams begin their work with:

• A charter describing the team’s purpose and goals, its scope of authority, ground rules for conduct, and a framework for decision-making
• Thirty-, 60-, 90-, and 180-day plans for team activities, to get the team off to a running start
• A process for setting agendas that keep future team meetings action-oriented and efficient
• Tools for telling their story to the larger organization

Getting Started is one part of The Bard Group’s comprehensive toolkit for teaching healthcare organizations and their leaders how to manage change and improve quality, outcomes, and business performance.