Medical teams and their organizational structure

Tiffan, B.; (2014) The art of team leadership, American Journal of Health -- System Pharmacy, Vol. 7, Issue 10

Credibility -- Author Analysis

Bill Tiffan is a Principal with T2 Management Consultants which he and his wife co-founded in 2000. According to the company website, Tiffan "provides management consulting, team development, executive coaching and facilitation services to organizations that want to improve the effectiveness of individual leaders and executive teams" (T2, 2009). Tiffan previously spent 12 years with and international transition consulting firm where he was Regional Vice President of Sales. Bill also writes a bi-monthly column for the ACPE's professional journal; the focus of his column is executive career development. Tiffan also serves on the Board of Global Partners for Development. Tiffan recently wrote an article for the Medical industry espousing his beliefs concerning medical professionals as they pertain to team leadership, an area in which he has displayed a great degree of expertise.

Intended Audience(s)

Bill focuses his bi-monthly articles on at an audience of career executives and other professionals in a variety of fields. This particular article focused on medical professionals who start their own businesses. Doctors in a wide variety of fields often feel compelled to build their own practices and take on the headaches of every day management. Much of this management entails ensuring that each team member understand his or her role in the organization and must shoulder the responsibilities tasked by his or her respective role. Bill's article is geared towards the leaders of these organizations.

Findings

According to Tiffan's article, leadership is often taken as a matter of course in the field of business, but it can also take place in a variety of other situations such as; in the medical field. Many doctors open their own practices and most immediately come to realize that doing so is akin to opening your own business, a business that needs leadership in order to survive, grow and run smoothly. Bill Tiffan, a Principal at T2 Consultants, recently wrote an article for the Medical industry espousing his beliefs concerning medical professionals as they pertain to team leadership. He says that one of the main problems in the small-business medical community is that "most physicians are trained as individual contributors and it's only on the job that they are actively confronted with the realities of working with teams" (p. 799). Tiffan states that the best method for overcoming that apparent lack of training is to take a number of steps to ensure that everyone in the business are on the same page.

Summary