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Category: Leadership

Facing Forward

Facing Forward

By , , , ,

During the first wave of COVID-19 in the United States, I spent forty days quarantined in a small studio apartment on the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan. As part of my role with a national health system, I was designated Deputy Incident Commander for our statewide market response. There was no path. No one had gone before. I remember the FaceTime calls with my wife and children, the tears, and the prayers covering it all. Our teams were brave, vulnerable, innovative, and relentless in their commitment to serve…

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Crystal Ball

For Health System C-Suites – On making your final selection from your top 3 candidates

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Your Executive Search Committee has narrowed down the candidate pool to the top 3 candidates. There will be a whole host of reasons the top three are in the mix but some of those reasons may not increase the likelihood of success in moving the department/organization forward. Reasons could include the one least likely to make significant changes, or the one most liked, or an internal candidate that everyone knows and are comfortable with. How do you significantly increase your chances of selecting the “best”? Here’s your “crystal ball”…

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Tom Jackiewicz

Helping Physicians Thrive: A Call to Action for the Healthcare C-Suite

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My last LinkedIn article addressed the importance of involving physicians in transformational change. I emphasized the need to redouble efforts to support physicians, elevate physician leaders, and keep physicians at the forefront of major initiatives.

What I didn’t discuss is the commitment those of us in the C-Suite must make to create an environment and culture where physicians can thrive. For decades, we’ve been talking about the need to improve physician-hospital relationships. While discussion is a step in the right direction, the truth is that we, as an industry, should have made more progress by now.

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Quint Studer

In Hard Times, Communication Will Save You.

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In the podcast, Mark explains how TriHealth took a $100 million loss in the first months of the pandemic. During hard times, you expect emotional bank accounts to be depleted, but when you handle things the right way, you can actually strengthen relationships and positively impact the entire organization. In TriHealth’s case, they came back stronger, more aligned, and more cohesive than ever. Now, at about three months into reopening, the system is at about 95 percent of their previous levels of revenue and clinical activity. A huge part of their success lay in how they approached communication.

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Quint Studer

Why the Words We Say Matter

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Great communication plays a vital role in solving almost every problem in the workplace. How well leaders communicate has everything to do with how well employees engage in their work, how they take feedback, and whether or not they feel a sense of meaning and purpose. This type of communication is incredibly hard. It doesn’t come naturally to most.

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Find What’s Right and Recreate It.

Find What’s Right and Recreate It. (Some Questions That May Help)

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Have you ever noticed that when things don’t go well, there’s always a meeting afterward? It’s typical for companies to do a deep dive, analyzing step by step what went wrong and how to fix it. We spend a lot of time, energy, and heartache focusing on what goes wrong.

There is nothing wrong with this: troubleshooting problems, creating solutions, and infusing them into your processes and procedures is critical to helping your business get better and better. However, it’s only one side of the story.

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Michael Brown, MD

Defining Teamwork

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Everyone says they value teamwork, but too often, rewards and recognition focus too much on celebrating the individual. In many cases, it is not even clear what different organizations mean when they say they value teamwork.

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Quint Studer

Why we should say, “I don’t know” more often | Quint Studer

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We are often hesitant to admit we don’t know something. Rather than saying, “I don’t know,” we often give an answer thinking the boss will think less of us if we don’t know. That fear forces answers that sometimes need more thought or research. The reality is that saying, “I don’t know,” or I need a little time to think it through will make your boss and colleagues respect you even more.

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Michael Brown, MD

Seeing Some Opportunities for Good In the Bad (COVID-19)

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Of course, these are hard times, but recently I have been encouraged by stories from the health system of ingenuity, bravery, and solidarity as we respond to COVID-19. This includes accounts of repurposing sections of hospitals, changing how supplies are managed, implementing telemedicine, implementing new sterilization techniques, and modifying staff roles. As the saying goes, “necessity is the mother of all invention”, and the current crisis is demonstrating how a difficult situation can push us to adapt.

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Michael Brown, MD

Coronavirus and the Well-being of the Physician Community

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Today, I was talking to a colleague of mine, Sue Kiernan. She is an executive coach who is thinking about what she can do at this time of crisis for the health system. She recognizes the pressures clinicians are normally under, and she sees how the current situation can contribute to even more stress. We talked about the concept of volunteering “In the Moment Coaching.” This is coaching for physicians and other healthcare professionals who think they might benefit from a 30-minute conversation with a professional coach. One short phone call is not going to change the world, but at the very least, the call provides a brief opportunity to focus clinicians on their well-being rather than just on the problems they are seeing and dealing with all day. There is no long-term contract and no fee for these coaching discussions. She envisions this as her way of contributing.

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