The Trap of Thinking
Tag Archives: Leadership
8 healthcare leaders share their No. 1 piece of advice
Good leadership advice is meant to be shared. Here eight healthcare leaders — including CEOs, CFOs and chief strategy officers — offer the No. 1 piece of advice they would give other leaders in their field.
1. Rob Bloom, CFO of Carthage (N.Y.) Area Hospital. “The best advice I have is to find the courage to change what must be changed and accept those things that cannot be changed in the short term. Regardless of whether a hospital is profitable or struggling, there will be challenges. The difficult task is to determine where to focus resources while accepting criticism for problems that will not change the short-term viability of the organization. You have to learn to trust your judgment and resist pressures from others that might tempt you to alter your course based on their lack of understanding. It is very much a triage process: Stop the bleeding first, then worry about infection later.”
2. Mona Chadha, chief strategy officer of San Francisco-based Dignity Health’s Bay Area. “One of the key strengths of being a good leader is really listening and leading people by example. That to me is one of the successes. Then, do some thinking outside of the box. That’s been my mantra of success in the past.”
3. JoAnn Kunkel, CFO of Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Sanford Health. “The very first CFO I worked for in 1990 always said, ‘you’re only as good as your team. … I’d never be able to be successful without having you and the team working with me.’ [That CFO] was a very thoughtful and inclusive leader. He gave me opportunities to be part of the team and think strategically and develop into a leader. So since then, it’s always been my belief that we have a very strong team that should always participate. If we have someone that needs help, we have multiple individuals ready to step up. And working together makes us all better. My advice would be: It’s important to remember you are only as good as your team. Sometimes I think when you get into these leadership roles you can forget that. You always want to be inclusive, give credit to the work and the team and the efforts that help make you successful in your role.”
4. Michael McAnder, CFO of Atlanta-based Piedmont Healthcare. “I think what I’d say is try and look for the long-term play. You can’t manage this business on a day-to-day basis. You have to have a clear direction and stick with it. I think that’s probably the thing our CEO Kevin Brown has done really well. I have never worked at an organization with a one-page strategic plan before. Every meeting starts with it, and we use it at every presentation. That consistency has brought clarity. It’s also why we’ve gone from five hospitals to 11 in the three years I’ve been here. That resonates with other organizations when we talk about our plan. It’s really important. In addition, obviously, you have to act with integrity and character. If you’re in a position where you can’t do that, you have to make a different decision about whether you can keep working for someone.”
5. Alan B. Miller, CEO of King of Prussia, Pa.-based Universal Health Services. “I often give a few pieces of advice to other CEOs and leaders, including:
- Character is destiny — a person with good character will always be better off in life. Choose your friends carefully because you are known by the friends you keep.
- Hard work is critical. If you are going to do something, do it well.
- Hire the best team possible. Build trust, and rally the team to focus on a common goal.”
6. David Parsons, MD, CMO of Portland-based Northwest Permanente. “Listen to the people you lead and be honest about which problems you can solve and which ones you can’t. People usually don’t mind being told no as long as you are direct and honest about the reasons why. People detest ambivalence.”
7. Mike Pykosz, CEO and founder of Chicago-based Oak Street Health. “Be persistent and be motivated by your mission. One thing we found really early was everything is a lot harder and takes a lot longer than you think it will. Things that make a lot of sense to you and are super logical will always take a little longer. [Success] requires breaking down a lot of little barriers, including a lot of inefficiencies, a lot of complexities and mindshare. But whatever it is, be persistent and have faith that if you’re trying to do the right thing, and if you stay at it, you’ll be able to break down those barriers and accomplish these things.”
8. Michael Wallace, president and CEO of Fort Atkinson, Wis.-based Fort HealthCare. “I’d say visualize the outcome you want and then go get it. I also like the phrase ‘try hard, fail fast, move on, start over.’ You’re one step closer to a solution if the last one didn’t work. But don’t let perfect get in the way of good. I like to be 8 for 10 rather than 3 for 3. Failure is the byproduct of trying to move an organization forward. If I get 8 of 10 things right, I am going to end up further along, closer to my vision than if I wait to be sure about everything to get that perfect 3 for 3.”
Cartoon – Winnable vs. Spinnable
Cartoon – Spin Control
Cartoon – What Statistics Reflect
Spin Belongs in The Gym, Not The Workplace
Spin Belongs in The Gym, Not The Workplace – 4 Ways to Increase Transparency
I have a motto when it comes to honesty and transparency at work: Spin belongs in the gym, not the workplace.
Spinning the truth is a way of shaping our communications to make our self, the company, or the situation appear better than it is in reality. It’s become so commonplace in the corporate world that many times we don’t even realize we’re doing it. We “spin” by selectively sharing the facts, overemphasizing the positive, minimizing the negative, or avoiding the obvious, all in an attempt to manipulate the perception of others. See if a few of these spins on the truth sound familiar:
- “We are optimizing and rightsizing our human capital.” (aka, We are eliminating jobs and laying off people.)
- “Quarterly revenue was adversely affected by marketplace dynamics.” (aka, We failed to hit our revenue goal.)
- “Brian’s strength as a salesperson is developing creative business deals and client partnerships, as opposed to the tactical elements of his role.” (aka, We can’t or don’t want to hold Brian accountable for his administrative responsibilities as a salesperson because he brings in too much revenue.)
Spinning the truth is one of the most common ways leaders bust trust. It also leads to tremendous inefficiencies because people are confused about roles, they duplicate work, balls get dropped, and people resort to blaming others. Poor morale, cynicism, and political infighting become the norm when honesty and transparency are disregarded.
There are macro-level societal events and trends driving the need for greater transparency in the workplace. We’re all familiar with the digital privacy concerns related to the pervasiveness of technology in our lives, and we’ve witnessed the corporate scandals of blatant deceit and dishonesty that’s contributed to record low levels of trust. The global meltdown of trust in business, government, and other institutions over the last several years has generated cries for more transparency in communications, legislation, and governance. Oddly enough, research has shown that in our attempts to be more transparent, we may actually be suffering an illusion of transparency—the belief that people are perceiving and understanding our motivations, intents, and communications more than they actually are.
But at the individual, team, and organization levels, what can we do to build greater trust, honesty, and transparency? I have four suggestions:
- Provide access to information. In the absence of information, people will make up their own version of the truth. This leads to gossip, rumors, and misinformation which results in people questioning leadership decisions and losing focus on the mission at hand. Leaders who share information about themselves and the organization build trust and credibility with their followers. When people are entrusted with all the necessary information to make intelligent business decisions, they are compelled to act responsibly and a culture of accountability can be maintained.
- Speak plainly. Avoid double-speak, and reduce or eliminate the use of euphemisms such as right-sizing, optimizing, gaining efficiencies, or other corporate buzzwords. When people hear these words, their BS detectors are automatically activated. They immediately start to parse and interpret your words to decipher what you really mean. Speak plainly in ways that are easily understood. Present complicated data in layman terms and focus on having a dialogue with people, not bombarding them with facts. Our team members are big boys and girls, they can handle the truth. Be a straight-shooter, using healthy doses of compassion and empathy when delivering tough news.
- Share criteria for making decisions. When it comes to making tough decisions, I believe that if people know what I know, and understand what I understand, they will be far more likely to reach the same (or similar) conclusion I did. Even if they don’t, they will usually acknowledge the validity of my decision-making criteria and respect that I approached the process with a clear and focused direction. Unfortunately, many times leaders are afraid to share information or their decision-making criteria because they don’t want to be second-guessed or exposed to legal risk. We’ve become so afraid of being sued or publicly criticized that we tend to only share information on a “need to know” basis. Sharing information on your decision-making process will help people buy into your plans rather than second-guessing them.
- Create communication forums. A lack of communication is often the root of dysfunction in organizations. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing and no one seems to take ownership of making sure people are informed. Everyone likes to blame the Corporate Communications department for the lack of information sharing in the organization, but that blame is misplaced. Let me tell you who has the big “R” (responsibility) for communication—YOU! If you’re a leader, it’s your responsibility to create forums to share information with your team. Ultimately, this starts at the top. A President or CEO cannot delegate communications to some other function. It’s the top dog’s responsibility to ensure alignment all throughout the organization and the only way that starts is to frequently and openly communicate. The forums for communication are only limited by your imagination: town hall meetings, email updates, newsletters, video messages, department meetings, lunch gatherings, and team off-site events are just a few examples.
Spin is a great activity for the gym and it keeps you in fantastic shape. However, in the workplace, spin is deadly to your health as a leader. It leads to low trust, poor morale, and cynicism in your team. Keep spin in the gym and out of the workplace.
Cartoon – Redirecting Our Shared Passion
Successfully transitioning to new leadership roles
Leadership changes are more common and important than ever. But most companies don’t get it right.
Every leadership transition creates uncertainty. Will the new leader uncover and seize opportunities and assemble the right team? Will the changes be sustainable? Will a worthy successor be developed? These questions boil down to one: Will the leader be successful?
Why are leadership transitions important?
Hardly anything that happens at a company is more important than a high-level executive transition. By the nature of the role, a new senior leader’s action or inaction will significantly influence the course of the business, for better or for worse. Yet in spite of these high stakes, leaders are typically underprepared for—and undersupported during—the transition to new roles.
The consequences are huge
Executive transitions are typically high-stakes, high-tension events: when asked to rank life’s challenges in order of difficulty, the top one is “making a transition at work”—ahead of bereavement, divorce, and health issues.2 If the transition succeeds, the leader’s company will probably be successful; nine out of ten teams whose leader had a successful transition go on to meet their three-year performance goals (Exhibit 1). Moreover, the attrition risk for such teams is 13 percent lower, their level of discretionary effort is 2 percent higher, and they generate 5 percent more revenue and profit than average. But when leaders struggle through a transition, the performance of their direct reports is 15 percent lower than it would be with high-performing leaders. The direct reports are also 20 percent more likely to be disengaged or to leave the organization.
Successful or not, transitions have direct expenses—typically, for advertising, searches, relocation, sign-on bonuses, referral awards, and the overhead of HR professionals and other leaders involved in the process. For senior-executive roles, these outlays have been estimated at 213 percent of the annual salary.4Yet perhaps the most significant cost is losing six, 12, or 18 months while the competition races ahead.
Nearly half of leadership transitions fail
Studies show that two years after executive transitions, anywhere between 27 and 46 percent of them are regarded as failures or disappointments.5Leaders rank organizational politics as the main challenge: 68 percent of transitions founder on issues related to politics, culture, and people, and 67 percent of leaders wish they had moved faster to change the culture. These matters aren’t problems only for leaders who come in from the outside: 79 percent of external and 69 percent of internal hires report that implementing culture change is difficult. Bear in mind that these are senior leaders who demonstrated success and showed intelligence, initiative, and results in their previous roles. It would seem that Marshall Goldsmith’s advice—“What got you here won’t get you there”6—is fully applicable to executive transitions.
Leadership transitions are more frequent, yet new leaders get little help
The pace and magnitude of change are constantly rising in the business world, so it is no surprise that senior-executive transitions are increasingly common: CEO turnover rates have shot up from 11.6 percent in 2010 to 16.6 percent in 2015.7Since 69 percent of new CEOs reshuffle their management teams within the first two years, transitions then cascade through the senior ranks. Sixty-seven percent of leaders report that their organizations now experience “some or many more” transitions than they did in the previous year.
‘No profit, no mission’ — Why this CEO believes every healthcare leader needs a strong understanding of finance
In this special Speaker Series, Becker’s Healthcare caught up with Mark R. Anderson, CEO of AC Group, a healthcare technology and advisory research firm based in Montgomery, Texas.
Mr. Anderson will speak on a panel at Becker’s Hospital Review 7th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable titled “The CEO paradox: Can you really have volume and value?” at 12:00 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 12. Learn more about the event and register to attend in Chicago.
Question: What keeps you excited and motivated to come to work each day?
Mark Anderson: The knowledge that we are finally moving away from fee-for-service billing to value-based reimbursement. For example, at AC Group, we have been able to cut medical costs for diabetic patients by 38 percent just by tracking blood sugar levels at home. Pay for results — don’t pay for just seeing the patient.
Q: What major challenges, financial or otherwise, are affecting hospitals in the markets you serve? How is your hospital responding?
MA: With hospital bankruptcies on the rise, we need to change how we deliver cost effective care and how we are paid. Because of high deductible health plans, the patient portion of the bill has increased from 9.4 percent in 2019 to 26.9 percent in 2017. How do we collect from the patient? How can we share clinical information about the patient with all providers without hurting our financial position?
Q: What initially piqued your interest in healthcare?
MA: It was my high school graduation present from my father. I wanted a trip to Hawaii and all I got was a letter stating, “Congratulations for finishing in the top 4 percent of your high school class. For your reward, you start work on Monday as the statistician for the hospital CEO.” Forty-five years and 250 hospitals later, I am still in hospital executive management.
Q: What is one of the most interesting healthcare industry changes you’ve observed in recent years?
MA: To name a few: Moving to electronic billing in 1985, moving from spending 2.1 percent on IT in 2005 to over 6.5 percent today (was it worth it?), forcing physicians to become data entry clerks so we can maximize coding with very little improvement in “health,” and moving to value-based reimbursement from fee-for-service so we are finally paid on quality, outcomes and our ability to lower costs through care coordination and remote patient monitoring. The four walls of the hospital are not the only care delivery system. Ninety-five percent of healthcare is delivered in the home.
Q: What is one piece of professional advice you would give to your younger self?
MA: Don’t enter the healthcare market without a strong financial knowledge base. Healthcare is a business. As the nuns told me back in 1976, no profit — no mission to help the poor and disadvantaged.
Cartoon – Not Really Much of a Leader
HENRY KOTULA 