"I have seen this movie before, and not only in health care. A corporate team spent months crafting a return-to-office plan without talking to the managers who would enforce it or the employees who would rebuild their lives around it. On Day 1, it collapsed. No one was sure who counted as "essential," what equipment was allowed at home, or how hybrid meetings should run."
"Why do we keep getting it wrong? Because including implementers slows things down, and including those most affected slows them even more. The people with a stake in the process and/or outcome may report that the timeline is unrealistic, the tech will not hold, or the brilliant idea has a flaw that someone missed. It is easier to sit with people who already agree with you. It is more comfortable to imagine the world works the way you hope it does. But that comfort is expensive. Every shortcut taken at the design stage turns into chaos, delays, and damage control later."
"So how do we get better? We need people in positions of power, legislators, agency heads, hospital executives and corporate leaders, to insist on meaningful consultation with the communities their decisions will touch, and to do it before the press conference. Bring in the people who will use it, enforce it and live with it. Test policies in messy, real-world conditions. Value lived experience alongside credentials. These are not nice-to-haves. They are the difference between policies that harm and policies that work - and in some situations, perhaps even between life and"
Top-down decisions that exclude implementers and affected people produce collapsed plans, clogged services, and widespread problems. Examples include a failed corporate return-to-office rollout and a vaccination schedule that jammed phone lines and increased waits. Excluding those who will enforce or live with a policy hides practical flaws and unrealistic timelines. Including implementers and affected communities may slow design but prevents chaos, delays, and damage control. Leaders must require meaningful consultation, test policies in messy real-world conditions, and value lived experience alongside credentials to create policies that work and minimize harm.
Read at BuzzFeed
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