What does the Challenger disaster have to do with medtech?
Sometimes I've heard business leaders say "that can't happen" or "we just need to get this done". Though leaders often do need to emphasise time pressures, I do not believe these phrases are productive.
When staff raise concerns about timelines, processes or projects, they are identifying a business risk. For me, the constructive leadership action to take is to work through that risk with them:
What is the risk that I have just been made aware of?
How likely is it?
What could the impacts be? (legal, regulatory, financial, project timelines, reputation, human resources)
What options are available to control it?
What is the best action at this time?
I would also encourage team members to come to me having thought through the above process. This not only develops their skills, but creates the potential for a risk to be mitigated without it being escalated to me. When it is escalated to me, it is with a lot more detail.
"We just need to get this done" could be an off-hand comment, made occasionally. Heard more often though, I think it is indicative of pseudo-transformational leadership. This is a leadership style which initially appears charismatic and inspirational, but in the thick of it discourages independent thought.
Whilst I'm extrapolating, we can relate this leadership style to the Challenger space shuttle disaster. This is a classic study in sociological and management literature. During development, it was found that O-rings in the solid rocket boosters could leak under certain conditions, which could lead to catastrophic failure. Engineers repeatedly raised this as a substantial risk, but managers normalised the risk because it hadn't yet caused a disaster. On the day of the launch, engineers stated that the launch should not go ahead with ambient temperature under 53F, as the O-rings would be too brittle, increasing the chance of catastrophe. Somewhat famously now, NASA management decided that making the launch was more important than mitigating that risk. All seven astronauts on board died when an O-ring failed 73 seconds after launch.
Why is the Challenger disaster relevant? It's a stark example, but space and medtech are both safety critical industries. Management style matters. As a manager, director, or chief, you have both visible and invisible influence over how risks to patient safety are handled.
I believe that an attitude of "just get it done" leads to the normalisation of tolerating increased risk. Your risk management reports might say everything is okay - "the clinical benefits of this device outweigh the residual risks". But if the culture has cultivated tolerance to increased risk, was that conclusion made fully rationally? Have staff ignored certain risk factors, because they know you have ignored them?