The art of mentoring: insights for leaders

Being a mentor is a fundamental role of leaders. A mentoring relationship may be a formal or informal arrangement. I’m currently participating in two formal mentor programs through the NEHIMSS chapter and the Emerging Leaders Program of RIBBA (Rhode Island Black Business Association). Informally I serve as a mentor for many people.

I’ve written many blogs referencing the importance of being a mentor and having a mentor. Bill Russell and I share a commitment to developing next generation leaders. He outlined his concise framework for mentoring on a recent This Week Health Newsroom podcast – “A Framework for Mentoring”. As Bill explains, it’s all about helping your mentee to expand – their network, experience, knowledge and thinking.

As a leader, you have a broad network, and you can help expose your mentee to it. I truly believe that one of the most important introductions I ever received was as the new CIO at Brigham and Women’s Hospital when I attended my first CHIME conference in early 2000. My boss, John Glaser, CIO at Partners HealthCare, (now called Mass General Brigham) introduced me to his CIO colleagues at other large health systems and academic medical centers.  Those connections helped greatly in my early CIO years and laid the foundation for getting more involved in CHIME. When I mentor people, making introductions to others who can be helpful to them is high on the list early in our conversations.

Expanding a mentee’s experience can happen most effectively when you work together in the same organization. Being able to have your mentee participate in certain meetings or initiatives on your behalf or with you is a powerful show of support and encouragement to them.

And of course, expanding their knowledge and thinking comes from your ongoing discussions and the resources you recommend to them. This Week Health is one of the resources I regularly recommend to mentees and others I talk with who are looking to stay current and relevant. Between the various podcasts, interviews with health IT leaders, and daily news headlines, it is worth checking out and sharing with others. As Bill describes it, “This Week Health is a set of channels and events dedicated to transform healthcare one connection at a time”.

Think back over your career to the people who have mentored you in some way. Guessing you would agree that what mentors do is truly priceless.

Related Posts:

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Mentoring, role models and sometimes a little nudge

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7 Ways to develop the next of generation leaders

Navigating career crossroads

I’m fresh off another stimulating in person CHIME Fall Forum. Many colleagues have already posted on LinkedIn their recaps of the forum speakers and key takeaways. One of my takeaways is the importance of networking on many different levels. A common conversation for me was colleagues who are looking for their next career move or currently in between positions. As I organized my post CHIME to do list on the plane home, I found that I had several people to follow up with from that perspective.

Ironically, when I got home and back into my daily podcast listening routine, the first one I heard was the ThisWeekHealth Newsroom show from November 10 – “The Signs it’s Time to Move on as a Leader”. On Fridays, Bill Russell usually does a stream of conscience commentary on a topic. This one tied very well into some of my CHIME conversations. I encourage you to check it out – only 10 minutes long.

If the end of year approaching has you rethinking your own career plans, check out my previous blogs on career advice. Earlier ones are listed in this blog – “Career advice revisited”. Newer ones are referenced in this blog – “Considering a career move?”. You will find some useful insights and advice for your journey.

And if you’re looking for a career coach, this blog might be helpful – “When to use a career coach”. I’m happy to explore with you what a short 3-month engagement would look like and how best to customize it to meet your unique needs.

Health IT leadership searches and Interim management industry trends

I have written in the past about interim management in terms of when it makes sense for an organization as well as my own experience. Over the past several years, I’ve been fortunate to serve four different healthcare providers as an interim leader – three as CIO, one as CTO. I’ve learned firsthand how interim leaders provide an important bridge during leadership transitions and can make a significant impact on an organization in a short time.

I encourage you to check out my recent StarBridge Advisors blog post – Bridge Builders: Interim Management Solutions for Health Systems. In this new post I cover industry trends I am seeing in health IT leadership searches and interim management decisions including internal interims, relocation and onsite requirements, financial and budget constraints, and more.

Related Posts:

Talent shortage? Great resignation? Interim leaders can help

Interim Management – Providing a Bridge During Transition

When an interim CIO makes sense

Stepping into an interim leadership role

Developing tomorrow’s leaders through mentorship and coaching

My commitment to developing next generation leaders is something I’ve often talked and written about. That commitment is as strong as ever.

This week I started a 10-month formal mentor program through the NEHIMSS chapter for two different mentees. We’ll talk every other week for 30 minutes focusing on their goals for the mentorship. A few weeks ago, I started my newest coaching engagement with a seasoned IT leader. We are in the early stages of this process, including gathering input from peers. We’ll talk twice a month for an hour with assignments in between. And I’m finalizing a presentation focused on lessons in leadership to deliver virtually in early November to the management team for a CIO colleague at a large academic health system. He brings in an industry expert 6 times a year to share their views and help educate his team.

I’m impressed with the formality and structure of the NEHIMSS mentor program – it appears to be a great model for other chapters and organizations and has evolved since the program was first started in 2014. Mentor and mentee applications are submitted, the mentorship committee then reviews them, makes the matches, and communicates to the pairs with supporting materials including a FAQ and a list of Do’s and Don’ts. Both parties sign a mentorship partnership agreement that includes the mentee’s goals and the roles of the mentor and mentee for each goal.

I have provided professional coaching services for many health IT leaders over the past 7 years. And I have served as both an informal and formal mentor to many during my decades long health IT career. While both have value, coaching and mentoring are different. Continue reading

What advice would you give your younger self?

I love this question. It was one of the questions for a panel I was supposed to be on this week. The NEHIMSS chapter has an annual Women in IT conference, and I was one of four invited panelists for the three-hour event. But 40 miles into my 100-mile drive to the venue, cruising fast on the freeway, my left front tire totally blew out – down to the rim. Scary yes, but I got myself over to the shoulder and called AAA. My second call was to the panel moderator explaining I wouldn’t be able to make it. An hour and a half later I was again on the road with the spare tire that is designed for maximum 50 MPH taking the back roads home to avoid freeway speeds.

I was looking forward to the event and the panel. I love sharing stories with next generation leaders so this was going to be a fun night. I was ready after the usual panel prep call to cover the range of questions we had agreed on.

While I didn’t get to do the panel, I don’t want this question to go to waste – here’s what I was ready to say when asked what advice I would give my younger self:

  • Know your big rocks – I’ve written on this in the past, “Do you know your big rocks?”. It comes from Stephen Covey and it is a spot-on analogy. Our families and closest friends are our big rocks. Don’t let all the little stuff take up your space first leaving no room for your big rocks.
  • Don’t take crap from anyone – In my 30s, two of my peer managers seemed out to get me. One even threatened me. I was the only woman on the management team for a 5-year period. After a lot of stress and wasted energy processing it all at night talking to my incredibly supportive husband, I decided enough was enough. I let our boss know what was going on and told him that I would let him know of any further incidents. He was going to have to deal with it because I couldn’t. In another situation where a male manager from another department got overly friendly with sexual advances, I reported it to compliance. Hard as reporting something may be, it is necessary to stop the behavior if you can’t stop it yourself.
  • Have a strong support system – Whether it is family or friends, everyone needs a support system they can turn to. I could tell plenty of stories about my incredibly supportive husband and how he has been there for me back when I was a young working mother in management and going to school at night for my MBA as well as the decades since (our 47th wedding anniversary is in a few weeks).
  • Accept that you can make choices – One of my staff wanted to consider coming back from maternity leave after she had her first child in a part-time role but worried about how it would stall her career. She was a project leader on a management track. We talked about her options and I encouraged her to keep in mind that she had choices. After a period of part-time work, she eventually came back full-time, picked up again in a leadership role and then had two more children a few years later. She made choices right for her and balanced growing a family with growing her career.
  • Own your own career and be open to the possibilities – Before I left my CIO position at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for a similar role at Michigan Medicine, we were going through major staffing changes in IT. My staff were concerned about their future in supporting legacy systems vs the new EHR coming in. I told them they had to own their own career and be open to the possibilities. When I make that second point now, I emphasize that there are jobs today that no one heard of 5 or 10 years ago and there will be new ones in the future we can’t even imagine now.

There you go – I had plenty more to say on the panel given the other great questions we were going to discuss but wanted to at least share this one.

And after this car experience, my parting advice is keep your AAA membership current and keep your cell phone charged.

Related Posts:

7 Ways to develop the next generation of leaders

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Confidence gap, wage gap, and more

We have much progress to celebrate as women but sad to say that in 2023, there is still so much more to do. I’ve seen many excellent pieces recently that illustrate the gender gaps that exist in the workplace.

Have you ever heard of “Tall Poppy Syndrome”? I hadn’t. I saw this post on LinkedIn from Women of Influence+ on a study they conducted of over 4,700 women around the world. From the post, their research shows that almost 90% of women worldwide are belittled and undermined because of their success at work. As they say, “The Tallest Poppy, our groundbreaking study, reveals an eye-opening story about how Tall Poppy Syndrome (TPS) negatively impacts ambitious, high-performing women, and what this means for organizations”. Here is the press release summarizing the results and a link to access their white paper.

It’s no wonder that many women get “imposter syndrome”, even women in executive level positions. As Becker’s reported in this short article, “75% of female executives get imposter syndrome”, imposter syndrome is doubting one’s abilities and feeling like a fraud. The article notes that women expect lower pay than men, are subject to condescension and have less faith they will be treated equally. This all leads to lowered confidence.

As Becker’s reported in this short article, “The gender ‘confidence gap’ is wide in the workplace”, the confidence gap and wage gap continue. And we are now seeing the promotions gap more clearly. Continue reading

#EmbraceEquity

Today is International Women’s Day (IWD) and March is Women’s History Month. The International Women’s Day 2023 campaign theme is #EmbraceEquity. As their website says, “The aim of the IWD 2023 #EmbraceEquity campaign theme is to get the world talking about Why equal opportunities aren’t enough. People start from different places, so true inclusion and belonging require equitable action. International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality.”

Yes, we have much progress to celebrate but sad to say that in 2023, there is still so much more to do. Especially with our current political climate and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs being under attack in some states. Take Florida for example where the governor announced in February that he intends to ban state universities from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, calling them discriminatory.

I continue to participate in CHIME’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee as we start another year of programming for all CHIME members. As leaders, raising awareness and finding ways to take positive and meaningful action for our employees and our patients is what this work is about. This Friday as part of the DE&I Dialogues series, we will host a live webinar entitled, “Why DE&I: Defining Health Disparity, Inequity, and Inequality”. The webinar will cover why DE&I is important in your healthcare organization and how it impacts patient care. Featured speakers are Andrea Daugherty, CIO at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin, Cletis Earle, SVP and CIO at Penn State Health, and Dr. Eric Quinones, Chief Healthcare Advisor at World Wide Technology. You can register here for the March 10, 12PM ET webinar. I hope you will join us this Friday and for future DE&I Dialogues as we continue to learn and work together in 2023.

Related Posts:

International Women’s Day all year long

Women’s History Month, not exactly a Hallmark care event!

One year later – an increased focus on diversity equity and inclusion

 

Considering a career move?

The start of the new year is often a career transition time for people. We’ve heard much in the recent period about the great resignation, silent quitting, and remote work options being in demand. And we’ve seen significant layoffs in the tech industry and to an extent in healthcare providers dealing with significant financial challenges. If you or a colleague are considering a job change, some of my previous posts may be useful to revisit.

Career advice revisited is a list of posts providing career advice that I wrote prior to May 2021. I consider many of them “classics” that are still useful – they cover dealing with a competitive market, questions to ask yourself, interviewing and resume tips, and more.

Two more recent posts since that time provide additional perspective and advice. I wrote Reflections on recent career conversations after talking with many colleagues at the 2022 CHIME Fall Forum. And the post Paying it forward with career advice from late summer 2022 includes links to useful articles and tools for comparing opportunities and deciding whether to stay or go.

For more focused posts here are two more to check out – STEM or not, own your career and Know someone interested in a nursing career?

If you are looking for a career coach to help you through a transition, the post, When to use a career coach, could be helpful. I am happy to talk about how I might assist you.

Note – I am taking a short break from writing new posts the next few weeks. With all the blog posts I’ve written over the past 8 years, I’m using this break to share some of my “classics”. Thank you for being a subscriber – I hope you will encourage your colleagues to subscribe in the coming year.

Reflections on recent career conversations

I’ve often written about career advice. After talking to several people in transition while I was at the CHIME 2022 Fall Forum last week, I decided it’s a good time to revisit the topic. Here are some of those interactions – anonymized of course – followed by my general advice given the common themes:

  • I asked a colleague who I knew was unhappy with their situation a few years ago how things are going these days. I got the same response as before – still unhappy. I say, time to do something about it. No one should stay in an organization or position where they are truly unhappy if there are options out there.
  • I met a CIO whose position was eliminated due to a merger. While actively looking for the next position, there are concerns that lacking Epic experience at the CIO level is an obstacle. Yes, there are benefits to having worked with a particular vendor and understanding the challenges and issues with their products and services but as I like to say, the CIO is not doing report writing in the tool so in the end, does specific vendor experience matter?
  • I met a CIO who is concerned about ageism. Will they be given a chance if they are 60 years old? There are laws against age discrimination but unfortunately, we know it’s a reality. I say go for it and focus on your experience.
  • I spoke with someone who is mid-career and unhappy in their current organization given cultural issues and limited opportunities. They are actively looking at a wide range of options as they should be.
  • I got an email from someone at a vendor whose position was eliminated and wanted help networking. I connected that person with someone who is well connected in that specific part of our industry.
  • I spoke to a couple CIOs who have retirement dates set. They will be thinking about the next chapter and whether to go cold turkey or stay involved in some way. The beauty of that phase is you can pick and choose, say “yes” to what you are passionate about and “no” to what you no longer want to do.
  • I spoke to a CIO who isn’t ready to retire but is open to working less and considering alternatives. This may be a growing trend after the pace and demands of the past few years.

And I spent time with some of the people I have formally coached in recent years. Hearing how they are doing and seeing how they have grown in their roles and careers is very rewarding. I’m honored that I helped in some small way. Continue reading

Paying it forward with career advice

I get a lot of calls, emails, and LinkedIn messages asking for career advice. Knowing that people have been very supportive of me over my career, I try to pay it forward. I do a short call, find out where the person is at in their job search and career transition, ask some key questions, and give whatever advice makes sense for their situation. For people I know well and keep in touch with during their search, I often share useful articles that I find. These may include resume writing and layout, prepping for the interview, how to follow-up after the interview, dealing with rejection, how to identify red flags, or building your personal brand.

Many of the resources I have found and shared are from LinkedIn which as we all know is the “go to” for professional networking and content.

A Fortune article by Jennifer Mizgata in March of this year addresses a key question many people are faced with – “Should I take a fancy new career opportunity or stick with the old job I still like?”.  In it she references a great HBR piece, “A Scorecard to Help You Compare Two Jobs”, written in 2017 by a former colleague of mine from Mass General, Allison Rimm. It includes a scorecard tool similar to one I have used when doing career coaching.

I’ve written a lot on career management over the years. My post, “Career advice revisited” from May 2021 has links to most of them. Check it out and share with anyone you know who might find it helpful. In other words, let’s pay it forward!

Note – I am taking a short break from writing new posts over the next month. With all the blog posts I’ve written over the past 8 years, I’m using this break to share some of my “classics”. Thank you for being a subscriber – I hope you will encourage your colleagues to subscribe in the coming year.