The Role Leaders SHOULD Play

SAN FRANCISCO (April 16, 2009) – Long airline flights are conducive to swollen feet and great periods of reflection. I have been thinking a great deal about the important role that leaders play in moving their organization to best-in-class status. Or, the blame they deserve when their organization’s fail to deliver.

For health system or hospital Chief Executive Officers, best-in-class performance means meeting a robust set of standards for patient care quality, safety and the satisfaction of their customers – from the physicians, their patients as well as family members. The best of the best organizations also focus an enormous amount of energy and resources in achieving through-the-roof scores for employee satisfaction.

Let’s be clear. When we talk about best-in-class performance, we are not talking about best effort. No, we are talking about a record of consistently delivering perfection in patient care, safety and customer satisfaction, or as close to perfection as humanly possible.

This type of extraordinary performance does not happen by accident. The CEOs who hope to get anywhere near this level of accomplishment must build exceptional teams who are passionate about this vision. Then, the CEO must champion significant investment in education and development – in the current bad times as well as the good. Without this type of investment in human capital development, best-in-class results cannot and will not occur.

A great many CEOs, when pressed on the issue will most certainly boast that they spend an enormous amount of time on developing their people. OK, let’s face it, far too many CEOs – a startlingly high number – are blowing smoke. The clinical quality and poor financial results just do not support any other conclusion.

There are two ways to ferret out truth from fiction.

1. Does the CEO (and the CFO) view spending money on developing their leaders and managers as an investment or an expense? Again, one only must look at how little is budgeted for human capital development at so many hospitals. This certainly helps explain why we have so many continuing problems with quality care and safety, including preventable deaths. I do not mean to unfairly demean, but is there any other conclusion?

2. In his wonderful book “Talent Is Overrated,” Geoff Colvin writes that companies like to brag about their commitment to human capital issues. Colvin quotes Noel Tichy, a University of Michigan professor and top authority on this subject: “Testing their commitment is easy. Just show me the CEO’s calendar."

John G. Self is Chairman and Senior Client Advisor of JohnMarch Partners. He is a Co-Founder of the Firm. A former investigative reporter and crime writer with more than 30-years of leadership experience in public relations, national marketing and business development and as Chief Executive Officer of hospitals, and consulting firms, Mr. Self is highly regarded for his keen insight into business culture and the types of leaders who will succeed. You can contact Mr. Self at 214.220.1234 or [email protected]. Or you can follow him on Twitter at Self_JohnMarch.

Comments

[Brandon]

John,
Talent development is certainly an aspect of the corporate world that often gets overlooked. And it seems this oversight happens frequently in health care.
I often hear executive management teams reply that the most important priority for their organizations is the patient. If so, why wouldn’t they have the best people servicing patients? I mean, if the patient is the most important concern of the health care org, then employees ought to be more important than the patients because employees of the hospital are the ones affecting patient's overall experience.
Yet, many employees at hospitals (and physician practices too) are not motivated, overworked, under-paid, poorly qualified, and lack customer service skills, among other things.
I find it interesting that the top 100 companies to work for according to Forbes magazine are generally high revenue generating companies with great brands and great reputations. Coincidence? Unlikely.
Thus, I agree. We need more leaders in health care organizations that will not manage people, but rather guide, motivate, develop, and inspires them.

@pediatricInc

[Steve Davis]

John,

Very on-target. And besides the CEO's calendar, ask what was on the agenda for the last several all-hands leadership meetings. It's difficult being truly quality-driven when all you talk about is meeting the budget.

And then there's that pesky "role-modeling" aspect to being a leader - what you SAY versus your actions and how you treat those around you. It starts from the top.

Steve Davis