Cartoon – The Corporate Trust
Tag Archives: Leadership
Let’s Get Real About Culture: What Does Your Organization Truly Value?
What does your organization value?
I’m not asking what your strategic plan lists as your top goals. I’m also not referring to what senior leaders say are important initiatives. True, these may all be the same things; however, there is often a gap (sometimes a big one) between what the organization ‘says’ it truly values and what the organization ‘truly’ values.
Let me share a couple of examples…
Imagine that it is 1998 and you are sitting in a conference room holding a meeting with your colleagues. The session has been in full swing for two solid hours and everyone is in need of a much-deserved break. A suggestion is made to adjourn for 15 minutes and all eagerly agree. Some scurry to the restroom and others opt to run back to their workspace to check email.
Why did they go back to their workspace?
Consider your organization:
- What’s your organization’s currency?
- What do people in your organization TRULY value?
- What is being rewarded and reinforced?
- Think about the things that people count and brag about. Are they important items that drive goals that matter or are they trivial things with little true value?
Explain this story to a few people in your workplace and ask them to tell you what the current organizational currency is in your organization. You might be surprised!
The best of Chris Van Gorder: 5 timeless leadership tips from Scripps Health’s CEO
Chris Van Gorder is the CEO of San Diego-based Scripps Health, a role he has held since 2000. After leading a major financial and cultural turnaround at the beginning of his tenure, Mr. Van Gorder established himself as one of the hospital industry’s most respected and revered thought leaders.
Here, we’ve collected some of the management principles and philosophies Mr. Van Gorder has shared with Becker’s Hospital Review over the years.
1. Don’t just be a name — be a face. It’s difficult — if not impossible — for leaders to gain the respect and trust of their employees if they aren’t willing to go out and meet them. At Becker’s Hospital Review‘s 7th Annual Meeting in Chicago last April, Mr. Van Gorder said the key to establishing the mutual trust that keeps employees engaged is taking the time to meet them, listen to their ideas and concerns and learn from them.
“When people understand what is going on in the industry and all of the drivers of change, they will be advocates,” said Mr. Van Gorder. “You must take the time to educate so the organization understands where it is going and the strategy it’s using to get there, otherwise people will resist you. I need people pulling us along.”
2. Be an accessible and prompt communicator. Mr. Van Gorder is a famously quick email responder. He is notorious for his ability to remain in constant contact with his executive team and staff. But for him, email is about more than just communication.
“My strategy [for communication] is simple. Being responsive is a sign of respect, which is one of our core values as an organization. I’ve always thought that if someone takes the time to send me a note, I should take the time in return to respond in an appropriate way,” he says. “Since we are a 24/7 organization, the first thing I do in the morning before I even head to work is answer any note that came to me during the night, and the last thing I do before going to bed is make sure I didn’t miss any during the day.”
3. Be strategic, but be flexible. Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” Indeed, the most important trait for health system leaders to possess today is nimbleness and the ability to evolve to meet changing demands.
“The No. 1 thing is being flexible because of all of the changes taking place. I learned a long time ago that strategy is not linear — it must be flexible as the market changes,” Mr. Van Gorder says.
4. Contribute to the community in your own way. Mr. Van Gorder volunteers between 500 and 1,000 hours a year with the San Diego sheriff’s department, where he serves as a reserve assistant sheriff. Taking an active role in law enforcement brings him great fulfillment, and it also helps him make a meaningful difference in people’s lives in an additional way. He says every leader should look for ways to combine their passions with community service.
“For healthcare leaders in particular, we are vital community assets,” he says. “If you want to know if you’re serving the community well, you have to get out there. You don’t have to do something like I’m doing, but there are lots of opportunities to take your expertise in healthcare or leadership and take it to a nonprofit or community group and create some extra benefit.”
5. Prepare for the worst. All leaders hope for the best, but it is their duty to prepare for the worst. Mr. Van Gorder’s previous career as a police officer and current role as a reserve assistant sheriff have conditioned him to always be alert and think about safety for both Scripps’ staff and patients. The health system practices “active shooter” drills in the event of a gunman on campus.
“There will never be a real incident that works like a script,” Mr. Van Gorder explained, “but the ability of police officers, rescuers, staff and even incident commanders to be flexible and adjust to the reality based on past training and experience will be the difference in the end. We pray we will never need to use the skills learned but we need to prepare for this just like we would for any disaster.”
Qualities of a moral leader
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/on-becoming-a-moral-leader/qualities-of-a-moral-leader
Qualities of a moral leader
– Moral leaders approach the world from the perspective of those who have been left out, the vulnerable, the poor. (upbeat music) This is a moment in history where all of us need to practice the attributes and develop the skills of moral leadership. The two that may be the most important are persistence and grit because you have to fight a status quo which is, which is held in place by bureaucracy, corruption, and complacency, and a belief in yourself, a sense of faith that you can make a difference even though the problems might seem overwhelming.
We’re living in a time in the United States and across the world of great division, fear of one another, and these are times when it becomes easy for demagogues to arise and to prey on our fears which are really the broken parts of ourselves, our insecurities, and we’ve seen over and over in history how that can often lead us to make bad decisions and sometimes even do terrible things.This is why this is the moment for moral leadership and to look for those ways that unite us and that transcend left and right, and race and religion and ethnicity, and what we’re learning into this interconnected world is there is so much more that does unite us than that divides us.
Healthcare’s Lipstick on a Goldfish
Had I titled this post ‘Lipstick on a Pig,’ you may have skipped it thinking it was a bit too much Sarah Palin and not enough healthcare. Hence, ‘Lipstick on a goldfish.’ Besides, I found it amusing wondering how one gets a goldfish to stay still long enough to apply the lipstick.
Sticking with the pig theme, Winston Churchill, Mr. Prime Minister to those of us who had a less formal relationship with the man—those who were decades away from the zygote phase of our lives, stated, ‘I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down at us. Pigs treat us as equals.”
Knowing that, I dedicate myself each day to be a better pig (or fish). Having realized that dedicating myself once a day was not yielding the results for which I aspired, I commenced to rededicating myself twice a day. Having rededicated myself twice a day, I wrestled the pig to the ground and schmeared on Katy Kat Pearl Lipstick.
Anyway.
For more than a decade I have been running on a trail along a river. During that same decade, weather permitting, I always encountered two groups of individuals; cyclists and fly fishermen. And for more than a decade, there was a singular constant. Both groups dressed the part of their respective sports.
The fishermen—I could have written the fishermen or the fisherwomen, but by now you know I have little patience when it comes to appeasing those who are politically correct. The people standing in the river are dressed like they had bought every possible fishing accessory from Orvis. Neoprene waders, a fly-fishing vest—one with enough pockets to resemble the type of vest a war photographer in Falluja wore, a Filson Parker Hat, and a Wetfly wooden catch and release net.
The cyclists also dressed the part. They dressed as though they were competing in the Tour de France—expensive cycling shoes, and cycling jerseys and pants festooned with labels of manufacturers of different cycling products. Had I bothered to look closer, I am certain I would have noticed that many of them had shaved their legs to streamline their ride.
During that decade, I never saw a single fishing-person—my attempt to be gender neutral—catch a single fish. Also, I never saw a cyclist who looked like he or she would be competitive in a cycling time-trial.
It is almost as though their mindset is that if they dress the part, good things will happen. Lipstick on a goldfish—or is it goldfishes?
Dressing it up does not yield favorable results.
Cartoon – Leadership Meeting
Cartoon – Haven’t got a Clue
How to Get Your Team to Follow Through After a Meeting
Here are the questions to ask of yourself and your team:
- Is each action item essential to completion of the project?
- At the time we commit, do we fully intend to do whatever it takes to deliver?
- Are we clear about what needs to be done, who will do it, and when it will be done?
- Do we have the ability to say no or negotiate when we can’t fully commit?
- Is it OK if someone follows up to check on our progress?
- Do we have a system to keep track of action items and their completion?
- Do we have an agreement to communicate if something comes up that might interfere with our completion of the task?
This problem-solving discussion will increase everyone’s level of awareness for making and keeping commitments as well as surface problems that keep them from doing so.
Getting to a higher level of completion on action items leads not only to exponential progress toward goals, but also to a tremendous sense of accomplishment — both personally and for the group.
Nibbling at the Status Quo are you?
In every senior position I held, I made extensive use of task forces to develop options, recommendations, and specific plans for implementation. I relied on such ad hoc groups to effect change instead of using existing bureaucratic structures because asking the regular bureaucratic hierarchy (as opposed to individuals within it) if the organization needs to change consistently yields the same response: it almost never provides bold options or recommendations that do more than nibble at the status quo.
– Robert M. Gates
Are You Smoking What You’re Selling?
More of leadership is caught than taught. I believe this: do you? If you do, what are the implications?
One is the seeming contradiction with the core premise of my book, Leaders Made Here. Does this idea of “catching leadership” undermine the entire premise that organizations can intentionally and strategically create a leadership culture? I don’t think so. However, the truth in this statement underscores why existing leaders have a vital role in creating and maintaining a leadership culture.
The process for creating a leadership culture has five tenets. In my previous posts, we reviewed Define It, Teach It, Practice It, and Measure It. Today, let’s focus on the final piece of the puzzle – Model It.
People always watch the leader(s). You know this is true, even when you wish it weren’t. People watch your every move. How you spend your time, how you treat people, the questions you ask, the way you respond to input and criticism.
How does your individual behavior impact the challenge of creating leadership culture? Here are a few thoughts . . .
HENRY KOTULA 