Category Archives: Leadership Unplanned Departure

Trump Moves to Replace Watchdog Who Identified Critical Medical Shortages

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Accountability, Coronavirus, Credibility, Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS), Health Policy, Leadership Culture, Leadership Intent, Leadership Trust, Leadership Unplanned Departure, Mislead, Misleading, Mistrust, Mortality, Oversight, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Supply Chain • Leave a comment

Trump Moves to Replace Watchdog Who Identified Critical Medical ...

The president announced the nomination of an inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, who, if confirmed, would replace an acting official whose report embarrassed Mr. Trump.

President Trump moved on Friday night to replace a top official at the Department of Health and Human Services who angered him with a report last month highlighting supply shortages and testing delays at hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic.

The White House waited until after business hours to announce the nomination of a new inspector general for the department who, if confirmed, would take over for Christi A. Grimm, the principal deputy inspector general who was publicly assailed by the president at a news briefing three weeks ago.

The nomination was the latest effort by Mr. Trump against watchdog offices around his administration that have defied him. In recent weeks, he fired an inspector general involved in the inquiry that led to the president’s impeachment, nominated a White House aide to another key inspector general post overseeing virus relief spending and moved to block still another inspector general from taking over as chairman of a pandemic spending oversight panel.

Mr. Trump has sought to assert more authority over his administration and clear out officials deemed insufficiently loyal in the three months since his Senate impeachment trial on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress ended in acquittal largely along party lines. While inspectors general are appointed by the president, they are meant to be semiautonomous watchdogs ferreting out waste, fraud and corruption in executive agencies.

The purge has continued unabated even during the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed about 65,000 lives in the United States. Ms. Grimm’s case in effect merged the conflict over Mr. Trump’s response to the outbreak with his determination to sweep out those he perceives to be speaking out against him.

Her report, released last month and based on extensive interviews with hospitals around the country, identified critical shortages of supplies, revealing that hundreds of medical centers were struggling to obtain test kits, protective gear for staff members and ventilators. Mr. Trump was embarrassed by the report at a time he was already under fire for playing down the threat of the virus and not acting quickly enough to ramp up testing and provide equipment to doctors and nurses.

“It’s just wrong,” the president said when asked about the report on April 6. “Did I hear the word ‘inspector general’? Really? It’s wrong. And they’ll talk to you about it. It’s wrong.” He then sought to find out who wrote the report. “Where did he come from, the inspector general? What’s his name? No, what’s his name? What’s his name?”

When the reporter did not know, Mr. Trump insisted. “Well, find me his name,” the president said. “Let me know.” He expressed no interest in the report’s findings except to categorically reject them sight unseen.

After learning that Ms. Grimm had worked during President Barack Obama’s administration, Mr. Trump asserted that the report was politically biased. In fact, Ms. Grimm is not a political appointee but a career official who began working in the inspector general office late in President Bill Clinton’s administration and served under President George W. Bush as well as Mr. Obama. She took over the office in an acting capacity when the previous inspector general stepped down.

Mr. Trump was undaunted and attacked her on Twitter. “Why didn’t the I.G., who spent 8 years with the Obama Administration (Did she Report on the failed H1N1 Swine Flu debacle where 17,000 people died?), want to talk to the Admirals, Generals, V.P. & others in charge, before doing her report,” he wrote, mischaracterizing the government’s generally praised response the 2009 epidemic that actually killed about 12,000 in the United States. “Another Fake Dossier!”

To take over as inspector general, Mr. Trump on Friday night named Jason C. Weida, an assistant United States attorney in Boston. The White House said in its announcement that he had “overseen numerous complex investigations in health care and other sectors.” He must be confirmed by the Senate before assuming the position.

Among several other nominations announced on Friday was the president’s choice for a new ambassador to Ukraine, filling a position last occupied by Marie L. Yovanovitch.

Ms. Yovanovitch was ousted a year ago because she was seen as an obstacle by the president’s advisers as they tried to pressure the government in Kyiv to incriminate Mr. Trump’s Democratic rivals. That effort to solicit political benefit from Ukraine, while withholding security aid, led to Mr. Trump’s impeachment largely along party lines in December.

Mr. Trump selected Lt. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, a retired 40-year Army officer now serving as the director of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany. Mr. Dayton speaks Russian and served as defense attaché in Moscow. More recently, he served as a senior United States defense adviser in Ukraine appointed by Jim Mattis, Mr. Trump’s first defense secretary.

 

 

 

US Navy evacuates over 80% of USS Theodore Roosevelt crew as nearly 600 carrier sailors test positive for coronavirus

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Denial, Failure, Health Policy, Infection Control, Infectious Virus, Leadership Cares, Leadership Transition, Leadership Unplanned Departure, Pandemic • Leave a comment

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-navy-evacuates-roughly-80-of-uss-theodore-roosevelt-crew-2020-4

Coronavirus updates: US Navy evacuates USS Theodore Roosevelt crew ...

  • The Navy revealed Sunday that nearly 600 sailors aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt have tested positive for coronavirus.
  • In its battle with the virus, the service has evacuated almost 4,000 sailors, more than 80 percent of the crew, airwing and embarked staffs ashore in Guam, where the carrier is in port.
  • The carrier’s former captain had pleaded with the Navy to remove the majority of the crew in response to the virus. He was relieved of his command after a letter he wrote leaked to the media.

The US Navy has evacuated the majority of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, aboard which hundreds of sailors have tested positive for the coronavirus.

In an update Sunday, the Navy revealed that 585 sailors have tested positive, and 3,967 sailors have been moved ashore in Guam, where the carrier is in port. Now, over 80 percent of the ship’s roughly 4,800 crew, staff and squadrons are off the ship, which deployed in January. Some of the crew has to stay aboard to guard the ship and to maintain its two nuclear reactors.

Sailors evacuated from the ship are put in isolation for 14 days in local hotels and other available facilities. At least one USS Theodore Roosevelt sailor who tested positive has been hospitalized.

The first three coronavirus cases aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt were announced on March 24.

On April 2, the day he fired the aircraft carrier’s commanding officer, then-acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said that there were 114 cases on the ship, adding that he expected that number to rise. “I can tell you with great certainty there’s going to be more. It will probably be in the hundreds,” he told reporters at the Pentagon.

His prediction turned out to be accurate.

On March 30, Capt. Brett Crozier, then the USS Theodore Roosevelt’s commanding officer, wrote a letter warning that “the spread of the disease is ongoing and accelerating.” In his plea, he called on the Navy to take decisive action and evacuate the overwhelming majority of the crew.

Crozier was relieved of his command after the letter leaked to the media.

Modly, who flew out to the carrier at a cost of $243,000 to taxpayers, bashed the captain to the crew after firing him. He apologized and then later resigned.

Speaking to CNN Friday, Vice Adm. Bill Merz, the commander of 7th Fleet, revealed that some sailors are “upset” and “struggling.”

Having personally visited the USS Theodore Roosevelt, he said that “there was lots of anxiety about the virus,” adding that “as you can imagine, the morale covers the spectrum, considering what they have been through.”

The coronavirus has created a lot of unexpected challenges for not just the Navy, but the military overall.

“What we have to do is we have to figure out how to plan for operations in these kind of COVID environments,” Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten said Thursday. “This’ll be a new way of doing business that we have to focus in on, and we’re adjusting to that new world as we speak today.”

 

 

 

 

EVERY HOSPITAL BOARD NEEDS A CEO SUCCESSION PLAN. HALF ARE FAILING.

Posted on by • Posted in Board, CEO, Executive Session, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Interim CEO, Interim CFO, Interim Executives, Interim Resources, Leadership, Leadership Continuity, Leadership Unplanned Departure, Succession Plan, Talent Management • Leave a comment

https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/strategy/every-hospital-board-needs-ceo-succession-plan-half-are-failing

The organization needs to have a strong sense for who will lead next. That’s ultimately the responsibility of the board, not the incumbent. This article appears in the July/August 2019 edition of HealthLeaders magazine.

The departure of a CEO can severely disrupt an organization’s progress, especially when the leader leaves suddenly without a clear successor. Despite the well-known need for succession planning, an alarming number of healthcare provider organizations are chugging along without a plan in place, just hoping that their top executives stick around for the foreseeable future.

Forty-nine percent of hospital and health system boards lack a formal CEO succession plan, according to the American Hospital Association Trustee Services 2019 national healthcare governance survey report. That leaves them vulnerable to the disruptive gusts of a CEO’s sudden departure, and it can inhibit their ability to pursue longer-term strategies by leaving them overly dependent on one leader’s vision.

The failure of these boards to formalize CEO succession plans is outrageous and unacceptable, says Jamie Orlikoff, president of the Chicago-based healthcare governance and leadership consulting firm Orlikoff & Associates Inc. and board member of St. Charles Health System in Bend, Oregon. “Whatever the reasons are, it’s just a fundamental and inexcusable abrogation of a basic governance responsibility, so I am nothing less than shocked that the figure is almost 50%,” Orlikoff says.

Why Plans Aren’t Made There are typically a few basic reasons why an organization may be slow to finalize a CEO succession plan. Perhaps the current CEO just doesn’t want to talk about it, Orlikoff says. Some executives are more comfortable talking to their families about their own life insurance plans than they are talking to the board about what to do in the event of their sudden departure, he says. Or perhaps it’s the board members who don’t want to talk about it. Orlikoff says at least four board chairpersons for various organizations have told him in the past seven years that they don’t want their current CEOs to leave and that they don’t want to think about succession planning because the recruitment process is too burdensome. Or there could be an unhealthy power dynamic between the CEO and the board, with the CEO asserting control over tasks that should be handled by the board members, Orlikoff says.

What makes the relationship between the CEO and the board so tricky is how it ties together two distinct relationships. On the one hand, the CEO and the board are strategic partners defining and executing a shared vision. On the other, they are an employee and an employer. “Those are two very, very different and very important functions,” Orlikoff says.

“Some boards have great difficulty envisioning the distinction between those two roles.” A board should lean on the CEO as a strategic partner because the CEO is likely to know more about the industry and more about the local market than the board members do, Orlikoff says. But when the board neglects to assert its proper place in the employer-employee relationship, the CEO may be given free rein over a broader scope of issues than is appropriate, and that can impede the CEO succession planning process, he adds.

In other words, while it’s perfectly appropriate for a CEO to groom a potential successor, the board should not defer to the CEO’s selection, and the CEO should not insist that the board do so. How to Fix This The existence or nonexistence of a formal CEO succession plan is often a symptom of whether the relationship between a CEO and the board is healthy, Orlikoff says.

Notably, the task of devising a succession plan is one exercise that can improve that relationship, he adds. While the detailed steps each organization should take will vary from one situation to another, there are two specific items that Orlikoff recommends: 1. Ask about the mundane threat of a bus.

Whether you’re a CEO or board member for an organization without a formal succession plan in place, there’s one straightforward question you can ask to kickstart productive dialogue on the topic: What do we do if our CEO gets hit by a bus tonight? The question is nonthreatening. It doesn’t signal a CEO’s possible intent to resign or retire. It doesn’t suggest the board members are thinking about giving him or her the boot.

It simply asks, as a matter of fact, how the organization will maintain continuity in the event of an unplanned CEO departure, just as parents would speak with their families about life insurance, Orlikoff says. The CEO should tell the board, without any other senior leaders present, whom the CEO would pick to step into the interim CEO role, Orlikoff says. That will inevitably prompt follow-up questions: Would the interim CEO be a good permanent replacement? Which of the requisite skills do they lack? How well do they align with our long-term needs and vision?

The conversations about an unplanned CEO departure will flow naturally into questions about a planned departure. Where are we in the current CEO’s contract cycle? When does the CEO want to retire? What skills and traits will our next CEO need to lead the organization into the future of healthcare?

Conversations about an unplanned departure should begin on the very first day of a new CEO’s contract, Orlikoff says. Conversations about a planned departure should begin at the end of the CEO’s first year, he says. For a CEO with a five-year contract, the board should start asking halfway through contract whether the CEO wishes to renew a contract or leave the organization, and the board should know three years into the five-year contract whether the CEO wants to stay, he says.

Hold executive sessions without the CEO present. An increasing number of hospital and health system boards are routinely listing executive sessions on their meeting agendas, and that’s a good thing, according to the AHA Trustee Services survey. A slight majority, 52%, of all respondents routinely included an executive session in the agenda of every board meeting, according to the survey report. But 26% of system boards, 59% of subsidiary boards, and 48% of freestanding boards still don’t.

Even if a board has an executive session, though, that doesn’t mean members are able to fully discuss the topics in their purview. The survey found that CEOs participate in the entire executive session for a majority, 54%, of all boards. That includes 41% of system boards and 57% for both subsidiary and freestanding boards. That deprives trustees of an opportunity to discuss the CEO in his or her absence and might impede the CEO succession planning process, Orlikoff says.

Related: 4 Steps for Planning CEO Succession Boards should think of their meetings in three stages, Orlikoff says. The first stage includes everyone in the room, including board members, the CEO, senior executives, and invited guests. The second stage is a modified executive session that includes the board members and CEO only, which is where the majority of the meeting should take place. The third stage should be an executive session with the board members only. “Confident, secure CEOs know that their boards need to go into executive session without them present occasionally in order to perform certain governance functions. They encourage it,” Orlikoff says. “Insecure CEOs or those who are attempting to control and manipulate the board are very uncomfortable with executive sessions and don’t want the board going into an executive session.”

It’s Mutually Beneficial While it may be difficult to prompt board members to think about a future under different leadership, CEOs who do so are not only investing in the organization’s long-term success but also signaling that they are the sort of leader willing to make investments in the organization’s long-term success. “When a CEO goes to the board and says, ‘You guys need to do this,’ … it demonstrates an incredibly high degree of confidence.

It also demonstrates an incredibly high degree of commitment to the organization,” Orlikoff says. “It shows that you’re thinking beyond yourself,” he adds. “You’re thinking about the best interests of the organization, that you’re willing to have difficult conversations for the good of the organization.”

“INSECURE CEOS OR THOSE WHO ARE ATTEMPTING TO CONTROL AND MANIPULATE THE BOARD ARE VERY UNCOMFORTABLE WITH EXECUTIVE SESSIONS AND DON’T WANT THE BOARD GOING INTO AN EXECUTIVE SESSION.”

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Not having a formal succession plan may be a symptom of an unhealthy relationship between the CEO and the board.

When CEOs prompt the board to think about who will lead next, it demonstrates self-confidence and commitment to the organization.