State of the Union
5 virtues of consequential leadership
In recent years, I’ve written and spoken a lot about consequential leadership. History has presented us with far too many examples to share here: Abraham Lincoln, Ernest Shackleton, Rosa Parks, Amelia Earhart, and John Lewis are a few names that immediately come to mind.
As we watch Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine unfold night by night, attack by attack, and tweet by tweet, the gut-wrenching and heartbreaking scenes expose an unimaginable magnitude of inhumanity. At the same time, we’re witnessing an unforeseen spirit of resilience, patriotism, and heroism emerge that reveals the best of humanity.
No one personifies the consequential leadership we are observing more than Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It has been said that a crisis doesn’t build character—it reveals it. The heroic response to this crucible has demanded much of Zelenskyy and his people. But it has revealed even more about the character of this unfamiliar leader and country than any of us ever expected.
As I reflect on this past week, there are five virtues of consequential leadership Zelenskyy and his brave comrades are illuminating for us we can learn from.
Conviction: Consequential leaders know—and honor—their purpose. They recognize their responsibility to use the talent, health, education, opportunities, and influence they are blessed with to solve big problems and do really hard things. And in rare circumstances—like Zelenskyy’s— they are called to do things no person should ever have to do. While most of us devote our lives to preparing to be the leader we want to be, in moments of consequence, we must become the leaders the world needs us to be.
Courage: Consequential leaders have the fearlessness to live their purpose—even under life-threatening conditions. It’s easy for us to talk about our convictions when times are good from the comfort and safety of our corporate suites and government offices. But how many of us and our political leaders would, or could, summon the primal valor we’re seeing Zelenskyy and his lieutenants model?
Composure: Consequential leaders thrive under fire and in times of great uncertainty. There is no blueprint for moments of consequence like the one Zelenskyy is facing. There is no playbook for responding to the unprovoked invasion of your country by a neighboring world superpower. However, leaders of consequence like Zelenskyy don’t panic. They stay calm, rational, and in control. They know that panic fuels fear and that composure catalyzes confidence.
Communication: Consequential leaders communicate frequently, authentically, and truthfully. They speak to our minds, move our hearts, and have the intuition to know when and how to deliver the hard truth as well as realistic hope. Consequential leaders like Zelenskyy are brutally blunt about the abundance of resources they are lacking, but they also remind us of the prosperity of blessings we have—things like family, friends, country, and faith.
Compassion: Finally, consequential leaders put serving others ahead of serving themselves. Zelenskyy and leaders like him put the public interest ahead of their self-interest. While most leaders measure their success in the world, consequential leaders measure their significance on the world. It is never too late for any of us to rethink how we gauge our leadership impact.
It is unclear how the battle over Ukraine will play out. But it is unambiguously clear this moment will redefine leadership for generations. As in all moments of great consequence, history will judge Zelenskyy and Putin, as well as other world leaders, by how they acted–and the consequences of their humanity and inhumanity.
As New York Times columnist David Brooks tweeted yesterday: “Would you be Zelenskyy? Would I? What a high and heroic standard that guy has set for us in the years ahead.”
Cartoon – Making Fewer Mistakes
Cartoon – Today’s Meeting
Cartoon – Importance of Customer Data
Cartoon – The Company We Acquired is making us look bad
Cartoon – Either Right or Very Clever
Cartoon – Beatles Song Lyric
Cartoon – The Due Diligence Phase
Optum’s strategy for 2022 growth
Optum spent the last decade investing in significant growth, adding thousands of physicians to its network and purchasing ASC company Surgical Care Affiliates in 2017. Now the company is focusing more on its primary care network, data offerings and $115 billion pharmacy and medical care business line.
Optum, owned by UnitedHealth Group, has three divisions:
- Optum Health, the healthcare provider division which includes physician groups and ambulatory surgery centers
- Optum Insight, which houses the data analytics platforms designed to connect clinical, administrative and financial data
- Optum Rx, a pharmacy benefits and care services business
Each division has a unique growth strategy focused on the patient and provider experience.
Provider growth
Optum Health now has 60,000 employed or aligned physicians and partners with 100 payers. Optum as a whole now works with 80 percent of health plans and 90 percent of hospitals and 90 percent of Fortune 100 companies.
Wyatt Decker, CEO of Optum Health, said in the 2021 earnings call in January that Optum Health is still a growth platform and the company will make investments to more deeply penetrate established markets. He expects Optum Health to deliver 8 percent to 10 percent margins annually going forward.
“Our approach strengthens the critical provider-patient relationship by empowering our primary care physicians with the latest information, insights and best practices to help them efficiently coordinate all patient care, manage referrals and identify higher-quality, lower-cost options,” the company said in its 2021 yearend highlights report.
ASCs certainly fit the high quality, low-cost care description, but Optum’s executives fell shy of mentioning whether the company would focus on growth in that sector during the 2021 earnings call.
Optum is also expanding its virtual care capabilities, focused on chronic care patients, and its behavioral health services. The company said it needs to add physicians, clinicians and technology to support patient care in those areas. Optum said it has its sights set on providing more whole-person, value-based care, scaling in new markets and having the key data insights to do it better than anyone else.
Value-based care
Last year, Optum and UnitedHealth Group’s health insurance business, UnitedHealthcare, worked together with external partners to grow in commercial and government payer markets, innovate and add 500,000 patients to their value-based contracts. Optum served 100 million patients, and 2 million of the patients were under fully accountable arrangements. Both companies also had a sharpened focus on the consumer experience.
“Taken together, these efforts helped us add more than $30 billion in revenue for the year, about $10 billion above our initial outlook,” said Andrew Witty, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, during the earnings call, as transcribed by The Motley Fool. “And you should expect similar growth in the year ahead. We see an even greater demand for integration to bring together the fragmented pieces of the health system, to harness the tremendous innovation occurring in the marketplace, to help better align the incentives for providers, payers and consumers, and to organize the system around value.”
Data and information
Optum Insights aims to continue growing by acquiring Change Healthcare, a healthcare data and technology company.
“The combination will advance our ability to create products and services that improve the delivery of healthcare and reduce the high costs and inefficiencies that plague the health system,” Optum claimed on its fact sheet about the transaction. “We will share these innovations broadly to benefit those who engage with the health system today and well into the future.”
The acquisition could make the episode of care more seamless for patients and reduce administrative burden for providers, as well as give payers a comprehensive view of the patient’s health outcomes with the potential to reduce cost. But it could also give Optum and UnitedHealth Group an unfair advantage over competitors, the Justice Department argued in a lawsuit filed in February.
“Across Optum, we operate with the highest ethical standards in protecting confidential data and information of our clients and adhere to the safeguards we have had in place for more than a decade to ensure data is accessed and used only for permissible purposes,” according to a statement on Optum’s website responding to the Justice Department’s lawsuit. “We will not be distracted by the DOJ’s complaint and will continue to honorably serve our clients and consumers and those that engage in the health system.”
HENRY KOTULA 