September 2020
Case
HBS Case Collection

Enabling Teamwork at the Cleveland Clinic

By: Amy C. Edmondson and Michaela J. Kerrissey

Format:Print
| Language:English
| Pages:14

Abstract

This case examines efforts to foster teamwork within and across work units in the Cleveland Clinic, a large, distributed healthcare delivery organization. With a long history of valuing teamwork since its founding in 1921, the Clinic had taken dramatic steps to further enable collaboration back in 2008 after the growing complexity of medical care had led to problematic divisions across specialties. The Clinic restructured from departments organized by specialty to “institutes” organized by disease and organ systems. A decade later, when this case takes place, the world has continued to change—with the Clinic substantially expanding its scale and scope—posing new teamwork challenges. The case asks students to understand the Clinic’s efforts to enable teamwork with the Institute Model and to evaluate whether the Model should be continued, abandoned or changed to address new teamwork needs for 2020 and beyond. It reveals the complexities of enabling teamwork in large, distributed organizations in which fluid, cross-boundary “teams of teams” are operating.