Executive Brief 2: Organization Senior Leaders

• Metaphor Title: “Navigating the Sky with a Precision Compass”

As we prepare for a transformative period in our care delivery model through the expanded integration of telemedicine and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven diagnostics, we must align our leadership approach, cultural values, and strategic vision (Burrell, 2023).

To help illuminate this journey, I invite you to consider the metaphor of navigating the sky with a precision compass. This metaphor captures the precision, collaboration, adaptability, and direction required of us as we embrace this vital evolution in healthcare. Using Schein’s generative metaphor framework, this brief will outline how our change initiative is akin to skilled aviators soaring through new skies — guided by shared intent, supported by a unified crew, and focused on reaching new destinations in patient care.

Response

• Leadership: The Aviators at the Helm

In this metaphor, Mayo Clinic’s senior leadership represents the aviators at the helm of an aircraft, responsible for guiding our organization through new skies shaped by digital healthcare innovations. Just as experienced pilots must read complex instruments, respond swiftly to changing weather conditions, and maintain unwavering focus on their flight path, our leadership team must be agile, visionary, and informed.

As aviators, we rely not only on advanced tools but on one another — co-pilots, air traffic control, and ground crew — to safely guide our institution through turbulence and toward opportunity. Effective leadership in this change initiative will require distributed authority, shared communication, and a high degree of trust in the systems and people that comprise our flight crew (Chia & Turner, 2022).

By nurturing collaborative leadership, we ensure that decisions are aligned with our mission and that all departments — clinical, technological, administrative — are coordinated in real-time to support our transformation. Leadership must also recognize that flying through innovation requires letting go of outdated routes and embracing new trajectories (Chia & Turner, 2022). Our leaders must be champions of this change, modeling the behaviors, communication, and confidence needed to encourage buy-in from all levels of the organization.

• Change: Flying Through New Skies

Change, in this metaphor, is our navigation through evolving skies — skies that are increasingly shaped by telemedicine, virtual care, and AI-powered decision-making. These skies are vast and promising but not without unpredictable weather: regulatory uncertainties, integration challenges, cost concerns, and staff adaptability.

The expansion of telehealth and AI diagnostics is more than a technological upgrade; it represents a paradigm shift in how we think about accessibility, efficiency, and precision in patient care. As pilots must adapt mid-flight to unexpected conditions, we, too, must embrace continuous learning and flexibility. The skies will not always be clear, but with the right navigation systems (data infrastructure, clinician training, regulatory support), we can maintain our course.

This metaphor makes it clear that change is not just a phase — it’s an ongoing journey. We must be equipped with updated maps (evidence-based practices), backup systems (resilient operations), and a strong ground team (IT, education, and support staff) to ensure the success of this transition (Innocent et al., 2024). Just as aviation is about forward movement and calculated risk, so too is our journey toward a more digitally integrated Mayo Clinic.

• Culture: The Crew and Their Shared Language

Culture is the crew’s operating language, safety protocols, and shared values that keep everyone aligned, especially when flying through clouds. At Mayo Clinic, our culture of patient-centered care, excellence, and teamwork is our cockpit’s guiding ethos. As we transition to this new model, we must ensure that our culture not only persists but adapts to support innovation without compromising compassion.

Flight crews are bound by clear communication, mutual respect, and a shared commitment to the mission. Our internal culture must reflect the same — fostering interdisciplinary dialogue, psychological safety, and responsiveness to feedback. Everyone from physicians to support staff must feel that their voice matters and that their role is crucial in keeping our aircraft in the air.

To maintain cultural continuity, we should invest in reinforcing values during training and onboarding for digital platforms. As we scale AI and virtual care, it’s vital to ensure that our empathetic, human touch is not lost in translation. Technology should enhance our culture, not replace it (Morrow et al., 2023). This involves embedding our values into digital systems — using patient-centered design, ethical AI practices, and transparent data usage to uphold the trust patients place in us.

• Intent: Reaching a New Destination Together

Last but not least, the cause of this transformation is given human form in our metaphor as our flight plan destination: an idealized future in which Mayo Clinic remains at the world level of integrated, innovative, and equitable healthcare. This is not just about keeping up with what industry norms require but leading the change — the flagship carrier of the sky of medicine today.

Our vision is to ensure that patients can receive the best of Mayo Clinic’s world-class talent no matter where they are—rural Minnesota or another continent. Virtual care platforms and artificial intelligence tools are driving us forward, enabling our clinical excellence to extend beyond geographical boundaries.

This vision also embodies the promise of curbing clinician burnout, increasing diagnostic quality, and making costs affordable care. In all our flight missions, our role is multi-functional: we need to protect our passengers (patients), have perfectly functional equipment (equipment), and come on time and in one piece (measurable outcomes) (Morrow et al., 2023). To realize it, we have to set the goals of every department in a direction toward this destination. Our workstreams need to be explicitly charted, our milestones established, and our metrics measured — the way the performance of an aircraft is monitored constantly in flight.

Conclusion

As we embark on this pivotal journey to integrate AI and telemedicine across Mayo Clinic, let us envision ourselves as aviators navigating a high-stakes, purpose-driven flight. Our leadership is the cockpit crew steering through transformation; the change is the skies we traverse; our culture is the shared language and trust among the crew; and our intent is the bold new destination where every patient, anywhere, receives the best care in the world. With our compass set and our engines fueled by purpose and innovation, we are ready to soar — together.

Related Free Assessment for MGMT 8175

MGMT 8175 Assignment Executive Brief 4

MGMT 8175 Assignment Executive Brief 3