Bred To Lead | With Dr. Jake Tayler Jacobs
Ep. 039 The Dance Begins: Curing Operational Blindness in Healthcare
24 Feb 2026
Chapter 1: What is operational blindness and why does it matter?
Bridge Builders, before we get started today, I have an announcement. Operational Blindness, the book is officially out. I'm super excited about it. This book right here is our best work here at Sims Healthcare. We talk about why healthcare leaders can't see what's costing them millions of dollars and how to fix it. And how the industry currently right now is not dealing with a people issue.
We're dealing with a system issue. We're having a hard time keeping our best people. If our most tenured talent are aging out and we continuously deal with shortages, there has to be a systemic root problem and not just what we're visibly seeing. We're not just seeing a shortage. We're seeing something else changing.
That we believe that in operational blindness, we're going to talk about just sort of subsector of the healthcare space. And we hope that it can be a value add to anyone that is watching or listening. So you can go to bread to lead.com forward slash blind bread to lead.com forward slash blind. So you can get a copy of this book. And if you find us live, we're speaking on stage somewhere.
Chapter 2: How can healthcare leaders identify systemic issues?
You invite us to your chapter or we're talking to you one-on-one. Some of you also are awarded a free copy of Operational Blindness if you're out and about. And if you cannot afford the actual book right now, things are just tight right now. What I would encourage you to do, I would encourage you to just listen to this free podcast. There's so many valuable points that we pull out.
And I use the podcast as a microphone to the book that was actually written. And if you're newer to leadership, bread to lead is a great book to start with. If you're newer to SPD management, leadership built to bleed is the next great book. This is actually my, I believe like 11th or 12th book that I've written. You go to Amazon, you always see it.
And so I know some of you that are listening, you're not in healthcare. So this book, operational blindness, It's great for health care. However, there are nuggets that you can pull from it that doesn't necessarily cater to your industry because there are some things that are health care specific. But there are lots of things that you can pull from.
And I know that there are tons of listeners that are listening that are not in health care, but you engage with the Bridge Builders every single week. And some of you are in manufacturing, you're in tech, you're in a logistics company or professional services firm. You found this podcast because you care about leadership and operational excellence. You might be wondering, is this book for you?
What I will tell you is this book does use health care specific studies as a case study because that's my current world that I'm in. That's where we're spending a lot of our time. However, I need you to know those that are listening that don't know me. I'm an operational turnaround specialist and re-engineering inefficient systems and operational structures.
Some of the things that bring me the most joy and operational blindness, the condition that we tailored and that we named is in every organization all over the country. So those are things that you can purchase to be able to support. And I'm excited.
about that and and today we're going into you know pretty much two things um the last couple of episodes we talked about all types of stuff um um as as far as the diagnosis um and the first thing of today i'm going to be painting you a picture of what transformation looks like and and what becomes possible when you can um dream outside of the condition that you're in
And then the second point, I'm going to give you a formal definition, the precise clinical diagnosis of exactly what operational blindness is. It's going to be the vision, then it's going to be precision, then next. Until then, I will see you all because I'm happy to be back on Bread to Lead. Let's get it.
I don't take the lead. I don't take the lead. since the age of 12 i've been about my father's business at the age of 30 he sent me to his vineyard
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Chapter 3: What does transformation look like in healthcare systems?
And professional services. Imagine back office operations team that can show exactly how their processes accelerate or constrain client delivery. Who gets investment instead of cuts because their value is finally visible. In retail, imagine the supply chain.
chain team that can connect their inventory decisions to same store sales performance, who stops being squeezed for efficiency and starts being optimized for revenue impact. The specifics vary. The principle is constant. When you make the invisible visible, everything changes.
When upstream functions can see their downstream impact and communicate the impact in terms leadership understands, they stop being overhead and they become strategic. When leadership can see the true cost of underinvestment, not just the line item savings. But the downstream consequences, they make different decisions.
When the system enables success instead of guaranteeing failure, the same people produce different outcomes. That's the dance. That's what becomes possible. Now. What I just described was Destination. but you need the map to get there. And that's what the book provides. It's not just a diagnosis. It's the complete framework.
The cost, the cost quantification, the transformation methodology, the road specific playbook. That's what this book does. Go to bread to lead.com or slash blind. The second portion that I want to read of the book is pages 33 through 35. And then 33 to 35 is the formal definition.
It says, let me be precise about what I mean by operational blindness because precision matters when you're naming a problem that most people don't know exists. Operational blindness is a systemic condition in which leaders cannot see the dysfunction in their own operations because the measurement systems, reporting structures, and feedback mechanisms they rely on do not surface them.
Several elements of this definition are important. First, it's systemic. Operational blindness isn't a person failing or a personal failing. It's not about individual incompetence or lack of effort. It emerges from the structure of the operation itself, from how information flows, what gets measured, and what gets reported.
You can replace every person in the department and still have operational blindness if the system remains unchanged. The leaders affected by operational blindness, this is the second definition, especially with visibility and capability. is that the leaders affected by operational blindness often have the skills, experience, and motivation to fix problems. If only they could see them.
The limitation isn't their ability to act, it's their ability to perceive. They're making decisions in the dark. They don't even know that the lights are off. Third, it operates through measurement systems. What you measure shapes what you see. What you see shapes what you manage.
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Chapter 4: How do measurement systems contribute to operational blindness?
And that's what Sterile by Design is. Sterile by Design is our operating system that we built specifically to cure operational blindness. It addresses every element of the definition. It's systemic. It changes the system, not just the people. It creates visibility, connecting upstream operations to downstream outcomes. It builds measurement systems that track what matters.
It establishes feedback mechanisms that enable learning. It breaks the self-perpetuating cycle by surfacing what's been invisible. We've implemented it across healthcare organizations, and the principle applies beyond healthcare, but specifically for the OR and Sterile Processing Department.
If you want to see a demo of what this looks like and you're running a hospital that has a surgical department, please go to civshealthcare.com forward slash demo. Let's talk about what the operational blindness has cost the organization and what it would look like to cure it. Everyone, this is Dr. Jake of Bread to Lead, the business of health.
Healthcare, we're talking about operational blindness today. And we pulled a little bit out the book. I hope you took some of these nuggets. This is a podcast, not a podcast. Our whole purpose is to educate and train you, not to just entertain you. Most importantly, I love you. There's absolutely nothing you can do about it. And I'll see you on the very next show.
Peace. since the age of 12 i've been about my father's business at the age of 30 he sent me to his vineyard
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