How to boost collaboration and innovation in the healthcare sector

Healthcare Industry Innovation Hobbled by Culture Wars

by Finn Majlergaard | 20. Apr, 2025 | Blog

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The cultural challenges in the healthcare industry have to be addressed

I am writing this article because I have received a number of questions and requests for help lately from companies in the healthcare industry about how to deal with cultural challenges in the healthcare industry. It is a dilemma where you on one side have a group of elderly, very experienced healthcare professionals (let us say doctors) and on the other side, we have a group of younger, less experienced doctors. The older doctors often try to resist introducing new technology, because they feel threatened by it or don't believe it is as good as a very experienced doctor. The younger doctors, on the other hand, can easily see the value of the new technology and some might see the new technology as a shortcut to gain the same level of expertise as their elderly colleagues have developed over several decades.

Managing change in the healthcare industry can be challenging because you on one side have best practices we are comfortable with that has been developed over decades and on the other, we have all the new opportunities the new technology gives us. This dilemma often results in conflicts between the older and experienced doctors and the younger but less experienced doctors.

So the question is: How do we facilitate the change process so that the older, experienced doctors don’t block all development and the younger, less experienced doctors don’t rely too much on a new technology that might not work properly.

An example: Introducing new technology in the healthcare industry

Introducing new technology is both an opportunity and a threat. It is therefore important to understand both perspectives if you have been given the task to introduce a new technology. In this article, I will address the cultural and psychological blocks that prevent us from embracing new necessary technology. I will also address why scepticism is good and why we should be happy that not everybody jumps on the techie wagon right away when a new technology is introduced.

Introducing new technology is seen as an opportunity because

  • It can reduce the number and impact of human errors. For instance; if today, flying was as safe as it was in 1970 a plane would crash every 15 minutes.
  • In the medical field, technology can reduce costs for patients and increase profit for doctors and hospitals
  • Introducing new technology is necessary for competitive reasons
  • It can be a shortcut to becoming an expert for younger doctors.

Introducing new technology is seen as a threat because

  • The skills and expertise you have developed over decades might suddenly become less valuable or even obsolete.
  • New technology often disrupts an industry. Just look at what streaming services did to the DVDs and videotapes.
  • The professional pride and the professional culture is threatened. You are no longer respected for your merits.
  • Can you trust the technology? The fear of losing control is very real.

Cultural challenges in the healthcare industry - a dilemma

The cultural challenge is that the young, less experienced doctors often work closely together with the older, very experienced doctors. Due to the big gap in experience and age (life experience), it is very difficult for the young doctors to introduce new technology or other changes to the well-known routine. That said we also know that not all new technology is perfect and not all new technology has the intended impact on our lives. The scepticism of the older, very experienced doctors is therefore very important and shouldn't be neglected, ignored or overruled.

Instead of ending up in a fight we "just" have to find a way to reconcile the opposing views of the benefits and threats of introducing new technology.

We fear change

All generations fear change, but we fear different kinds of change depending on a variety of different factors. Fear is the most dominant motivation factor influencing all the decisions we make as human beings. In this case, the older doctors fear that they will be pushed out of business by the youngsters + their technology. The younger doctors fear that they will lose the competitive game if they don't introduce new technology. So both groups have fear but very different types of fear.

What can we do when introducing new technology to gain support from most people?

  1. When starting to look at the Cultural challenges in the healthcare industry we have to recognise, respect and embrace the different perspectives. To be able to do that you need to possess a high level of cultural intelligence.
  2. You then have to identify the fears the two groups have. That process can be a bit tricky as most of the fears we have are unconscious to ourselves, but they are nevertheless controlling most of our behaviour. When the fears have been identified and made tangible we can relate to them and most possible overcome them, become free of them and move on.
  3. Then you have to find the potential early adopters in the group that is resisting the introduction of new technology. There are several ways to identify them both through interviews, surveys and pure observation. When we in Gugin are facilitating change processes the early adopters are absolutely necessary to change drivers. If they don't move, no one else moves.
  4. When the first movers have started to use the new technology by overcoming their fear and with proper introduction and training you need them to tell their story to everybody else. They are the ambassadors and their colleagues will listen to them.
  5. Almost all members of the "resistance" group will follow and if you have done your homework properly, most of them will be happy with it. When taking a group of people through a change process like this it is crucial that the right support is available 24/7
  6. When dealing with the cultural challenges in the healthcare industry there will always remain a small group that resist change no matter what. There is no way you can satisfy them and they have no intention to meet you somewhere in between. We have facilitated hundreds of change process and that group will always remain. The only thing you can do is isolate these individuals and make them redundant if possible.

Don't forget the healthy scepticism!

When introducing the new technology listen carefully to the experienced sceptical professionals. For every issue, they raise to pay a lot of attention to addressing it properly. Not only do you show respect to your fellow colleagues you also get a unique opportunity to verify the validity of your own perspective every time to make an effort to answer a sceptical question properly.

The Cultural challenges in the healthcare industry are not unique as a concept but since they literally have to do with life and death, we need to be even better at bringing the different perspectives together to develop even better solutions.

 

 

 

Cultural challenges in the healthcare industry - the two generations are far from each other

In the healthcare industry, the tension between the older and younger doctors is intensifying. New technology is threatening the prestige the older doctors have built up over decades. The younger doctors are frustrated over that new initiatives are blocked due to resistance among the older doctors. The older doctors are frustrated over the younger doctors because they seem to believe too much in the new technology. The older doctors fear that the lack of experience the younger doctors have, potentially could have some negative consequences.

The cultural clash we see in the healthcare sector is not unique at all. There is always a clash between tradition and innovation no matter where you look and I guess most of us have felt it on our own body. Either in situations where we wanted to change something and faced resistance. Or in situations where we were under pressure for changing something we were perfectly happy with.

So the cultural challenges in the healthcare industry are not unique. They are just very exposed to the public for at least 2 reasons:

  1. We all observe it when we go to see a doctor or get hospitalised. We hear people complaining about each other, the conservatism, the new technology etc
  2. The healthcare system in many countries is under tremendous pressure. Firstly because the costs are rising rapidly because of increased life expectancy and higher demands for treatments. And secondly, because politicians are trying to find ways to cut the costs without losing voters.

In Gugin we are specialised in resolving situations like this. We work the opposing values and find ways to reconcile them so that younger and older doctors will appreciate each other instead of defending their respective positions.

When we are doing the pre-workshop interviews at e.g. a hospital and we talk to the younger doctors one thing is clear. As much as they want to embrace new technology and develop service concepts, logistics etc. they also want a very experienced doctor to look at them if they one day should need it. When that suddenly become conscious of them the attitude starts to change.

When we interview the older doctors and we start talking about how they wanted to be treated if they got hospitalised they are very clear too. They wanted the new technology to be used on themselves if it can reduce side effects and make a recovery period shorter. That awareness helps to change their attitude too.

With these small changes in attitude, we have a great foundation having a very successful workshop or a very effective consulting engagement with our client

Gugin has developed an intensive workshop that addresses these issues and provides a solution for doctors, hospitals and clinics to use. Here you can read more about healthcare innovation workshop.

 

I just say things as they are…

I just say things as they are – is a phrase we often hear. It reveals that the person saying it has very low cultural and emotional intelligence

What separates a good leader from one who truly moves people? Research — and decades of cultural intelligence practice — point to one word: charisma. And unlike talent, charisma can be learned.

In 1979, Warner Records refused to send Prince on tour. Not because of his music — they knew he was exceptional — but because he lacked charisma. He couldn't yet move an audience. Fast forward one year, and Prince had transformed himself into one of the most commanding performers in the history of popular music. He didn't wait for charisma to arrive. He worked at it, systematically, studying and adopting the techniques of the performers he admired.

That story is not just about rock and roll. It is a precise metaphor for leadership. At Gugin, we have spent over two decades helping leaders across cultures and industries make exactly this kind of transformation — not by telling them to "be more confident," but by equipping them with concrete, learnable strategies rooted in emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence, and communication science.

 

Why Most Charisma Advice Fails

The most common advice leaders receive about charisma is frustratingly vague: project confidence, be warm, be present. These qualities do matter. But they are nearly impossible to "just do" on command, especially under pressure, across cultures, or in unfamiliar organisational contexts.

Research by Professor John Antonakis and his colleagues at the University of Lausanne Business School has shown that charisma is not a personality trait reserved for the few — it is a set of communicative behaviours that can be identified, taught, and practised. In their studies, randomly selected middle managers who underwent structured charisma training were subsequently rated by peers and subordinates as more charismatic, more competent, and more trustworthy. The training worked.

At Gugin, we have built on this science and gone further — weaving it together with emotional intelligence (EQ) and cultural intelligence (CQ) to create a leadership development approach that is both evidence-based and globally applicable.

The Nine Charismatic Behaviours — And What They Really Require

The Antonakis research identifies nine concrete charismatic leadership tactics: using metaphors and stories, showing moral conviction, expressing shared feelings, setting high expectations, using contrast and rhetorical questions, using lists, and animating communication with body language. These are the building blocks. But building blocks need a foundation — and that foundation is emotional and cultural intelligence.

Take metaphors, for example. A metaphor is only powerful if it resonates with the audience. In Gugin's cross-cultural leadership programmes, leaders quickly discover that a metaphor drawn from American sports culture may fall flat in a team from Northern Europe, and that a story invoking individual heroism may alienate a collectivist audience in East Asia. The charismatic tactic is the same; the cultural calibration is everything.

The same applies to moral conviction. Appealing to shared values is one of the most potent charismatic tools a leader has. But whose values? Which moral frameworks? A leader operating across multiple cultural contexts must understand that concepts like fairness, loyalty, duty, and hierarchy carry profoundly different weight in different cultures. High cultural intelligence — the ability to read, respect, and adapt to cultural difference — is what allows a leader to express genuine moral conviction that actually connects rather than alienates.

Emotional Intelligence: The Inner Architecture of Charisma

Charisma without emotional grounding is performance. It can work in the short term, but it rarely sustains trust. The leaders Gugin works with are taught to understand that emotional intelligence is not a soft supplement to charismatic leadership — it is its inner architecture.

Consider the tactic of expressing shared feelings. Antonakis identifies this as key: when a leader says "I feel the same uncertainty you do, and here is how I am holding it," they build identification and trust. But this requires real self-awareness. Leaders must be able to name and regulate their own emotional states before they can credibly reflect the emotions of others. In Gugin's programmes, we invest significant time in developing exactly this capacity — helping leaders identify their emotional triggers, understand how their inner states broadcast outward, and build the emotional vocabulary needed to communicate with authenticity.

Empathy — a core dimension of emotional intelligence — also directly underpins several charismatic behaviours. Setting high expectations while simultaneously communicating belief in others (another of the Antonakis tactics) requires a leader who genuinely sees the potential in the people around them. That kind of seeing is empathic. It cannot be faked over time. When Prince produced the band The Time for Warner Brothers, he did not simply demand excellence — he made each member believe they were capable of more than they thought. That is emotionally intelligent leadership in action.

Cultural Intelligence: Charisma That Travels

One of the most important — and most overlooked — dimensions of charismatic leadership in today's world is its cultural portability. A leader who is magnetic in one cultural context may be perceived as arrogant, shallow, or inappropriate in another. This is not a flaw in those audiences. It is a signal that charisma, like all communication, is culturally embedded.

Gugin's work in over 60 countries has shown us that the nine charismatic tactics are universal in their structure but must be culturally adapted in their expression. Rhetorical questions, for instance, invite participation and create anticipation — but their delivery must match the power-distance norms of the audience. In high-hierarchy cultures, a rhetorical question from a senior leader may silence a room rather than energise it. In low-hierarchy cultures, it may spark exactly the engagement intended. Cultural intelligence tells the leader which dynamic they are working in, and how to adjust.

Similarly, the use of storytelling — one of the most powerful charismatic tools — varies enormously across cultures in terms of what stories are appropriate, how direct or indirect they should be, and what kinds of protagonists resonate. Gugin teaches leaders to build a culturally diverse repertoire of stories and to develop the sensitivity to know which story belongs in which room.

How Gugin Trains Charismatic Leaders

Gugin's leadership development programmes integrate the science of charismatic communication with structured development in emotional and cultural intelligence. The process is iterative and experiential, not theoretical.

Leaders begin by gaining honest self-awareness: understanding how they are currently perceived, what emotional signals they project under pressure, and how their default communication style reads across cultures. This foundation phase often surfaces important blind spots — the technically brilliant executive who speaks too abstractly to inspire, the empathetic manager whose conflict-avoidance reads as a lack of conviction.

From there, leaders move into skill-building: practising charismatic communication tactics in safe, structured environments with real feedback. They learn to craft metaphors that carry cultural resonance, to tell personal stories that build connection without oversharing, to use contrast and rhetorical structure to sharpen their message. They receive coaching on non-verbal communication — the body language, vocal variety, and presence that Antonakis identifies as essential to bringing charisma alive.

Finally, leaders apply these skills in live contexts, with coaching support, and receive 360-degree feedback that tracks their progress. This mirrors the approach Antonakis found to be effective — group training combined with individual coaching — and embeds it within the broader cultural and emotional intelligence framework that makes the development durable and globally relevant.

Charisma as a Leadership Responsibility

There is a deeper point worth making. Charisma is not about making yourself more impressive. At its best, it is about making others feel seen, energised, and capable of more than they believed. It is about communicating in a way that bridges difference, builds shared purpose, and creates the conditions for people to do their best work.

In a world where leaders must navigate unprecedented complexity — technological disruption, geopolitical volatility, multi-generational and multicultural workforces — the ability to communicate with clarity, conviction, and emotional resonance is not optional. It is a strategic capability.

Prince didn't work on his charisma because he wanted to be famous. He worked on it because he knew, instinctively, that the music mattered — and that without the ability to connect, the music would never reach the people it was meant for.

The same is true of leadership. The work matters. Charisma is what carries it across.

 

About Gugin  |  Gugin is a global advisory firm specialising in cultural and emotional intelligence. We help organisations build the leadership capability to thrive in a complex, multicultural world. Learn more at www.gugin.com

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