It’s hardly a secret that sponsors are critical to a unit-based team’s performance. Look at any high-performing team, and you’re likely to find an engaged sponsor. The link is so fundamental that teams can’t be rated at Level 4 or 5 on the Path to Performance without sponsors.
That leaves teams with a Catch-22, however, because they can’t control whether they have sponsors or how effective those sponsors are.
Paradoxically, despite the clear links between sponsorship, high-performing teams and results, sponsorship has not received as much attention as other areas in the partnership structure.
“We have had a plan for team development but not a plan for sponsorship,” says John August, the executive director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions. But that, he says, is changing with the 2012 National Agreement, which took effect Oct. 1.
The agreement outlines prescriptive measures to strengthen sponsorship organization-wide, mandating that “sponsors will receive more comprehensive support to be effective in their role.”
As a first step, the Office of Labor Management Partnership conducted a study this summer that surveyed more than 8,700 co-leads, sponsors and UBT consultants and included focus groups and dozens of one-on-one interviews.
“This is a great opportunity to impact sponsorship,” says Janet Coffman, the coalition’s director of education and transformation. “Sponsorship can feel so far away when it’s ineffective, but when it works well, it can be the key to UBTs’ success.”
The preliminary results give credence to the anecdotal, recurring complaints about sponsorship. The frequently expressed concerns documented by the study include:
- Multiple and inconsistent training for sponsors.
- Limited leadership development training, tools and resources.
- Poor comprehension and inconsistent use of tools and processes.
- Inconsistent engagement and oversight of sponsors by executive management, physician and labor leaders.
- Few opportunities for sponsor-to-sponsor sharing and networking.
- Limited resources available to assist in addressing complex UBT issues.
- Lack of an organizational plan and commitment to develop UBT sponsorship as a business strategy across management, physician and labor groups.
- Perception of insufficient funds and staffing allocated to sponsorship work.
