Beyond Hero Culture: Trusting Your Team to Shine

Do you trust your team to cover when you are gone? I was inspired to comment on the importance of team, especially at this time of year, after listening to one of Bill Russell’s Friday podcasts on his ThisWeekHealth Newsroom show. If you are a regular listener, you know Bill comments on various topics on Fridays rather than focusing on a specific news story. This episode was called – “Step Aside”. It’s definitely one worth listening to.

He talks about lessons from a recent golf tournament where the format was more than what we golfers know as “best ball”. In this tournament, whoever had the best ball didn’t get to hit the next ball. Only the other three could hit it. This ensured everyone was participating fully on the foursome team.

He also talked about “hero culture” which I’m afraid many IT shops still depend on. We know that IT takes a team. And there is no “I” in team! When you or someone else takes a break or is unavailable, can your team cover or can at least one other person step in?

Let’s take that question a step further and apply it to the holiday season. Who is doing the holiday decorating, gift shopping and party planning in your household? Do you have a holiday “hero culture” at home? Or are you sharing the tasks?

I am getting ready for a multi-week vacation which has included working the pre-holiday to do list. Happy to say gift shopping is done! I’ll get as far as I can on all my work tasks and then do my handoff document for my StarBridge Advisors colleagues before I leave. With our team approach, I know everything will be covered just fine.

Whether at work or at home, there is no need to be a hero – think team and know that others will step up and maybe even grow with some new responsibilities. Note to parents – your home team includes your kids!

Wishing you a happy, healthy, stress-free and joyous holiday season!!

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.

Healthcare as a right in more progressive countries   

I wasn’t going to write anything this week since my husband and I just returned from an 18-day trip with Road Scholar – The 4 Nordic Capitals. We spent 3-4 days in each – Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, and Helsinki. It was everything I had hoped it would be! But no one hopes for jet lag and feeling like a zombie the first day or two back.

So, on day 2 of re-entry, I was up very early after too short a night’s sleep as my body adjusts to the 7-hour time difference. Why not start writing? I learned so much on the trip and have lots to share in due time. No question that we can learn a lot from these progressive Nordic countries – Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.

I visited three of these capital cities when we were on a cruise in the Baltic Sea in 2018. But having only 6-8 hours in a port is nothing like immersing yourself for a few days and really learning about the country – their history, political structure, culture, social services, technology, and more.

A day with a Road Scholar tour like this includes a 1-2 hour lecture from the local guide or an outside expert and then guided tours to a variety of sites with usually some free time late afternoon to explore on your own.

Let’s start with how progressive they are. I could start from various angles – a strong focus on sustainability, extensive public transportation infrastructure, free education through the university level, lengthy required maternity/paternity leaves, and of course their healthcare system.

From my lecture notes, here are a few data points I captured on healthcare:

In Finland, healthcare is not completely free but pretty close. Prescriptions are subsidized and you pay a maximum of 700 euro in a year ($769.37 using today’s conversion rate). Think about the people you know in the U.S. who are paying thousands a month for just one critical prescription. Hospitalization is 49 euro a day regardless of what it is for ($53.86 using today’s conversion rate). Think about people in the U.S. who have to declare medical bankruptcy due to hospital bills or deplete their life savings for nursing home care. (A 2015 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that medical bills caused 1 million U.S. adults to declare bankruptcy every year and that 26% of Americans aged 18 to 64 struggle to pay medical bills. Medical bankruptcy is almost unheard of outside the U.S.)

In Sweden medical care is free until you are 19 years old and dental care is free until you are 24. For medical care you pay $25 per visit or procedure. After a maximum of $720 per year you don’t pay. (Local guide spoke in dollars vs euros for us).

Yes, people in these countries have high tax rates but their dollars go to services for the entire population. Healthcare is just one example – they truly believe healthcare is a right with every citizen having equal access to services.

More to come on lessons from the Nordic countries in future weeks….

Leadership and crisis management lessons from Pennsylvania

I love seeing stories of success with lessons to apply to our work in health IT. The recent I-95 collapse in Philadelphia and the re-opening in just 12 days is one of those stories. There was a great opinion piece in the Washington Post on July 16th by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro – “Opinion: We fixed I-95 in 12 days. Here are our lessons for U.S. infrastructure”. Initially experts told the Governor it would be months before they could reopen the highway and get traffic flowing. Instead, they reopened it in just 12 days. Indeed, there are many lessons for leaders in all industries.

Here are the four key takeaways he comments on:

  1. Empower strong leadership
  2. Speed up the bureaucracy
  3. Encourage creativity
  4. Work together

In the face of a crisis, empowering strong leadership is critical. We’ve seen it in healthcare during the pandemic and when responding to any kind of disaster. As Governor Shapiro describes it – “Managers of every component of the project were empowered to be decisive, take ownership and make a call when necessary — not defer and delay to the often-circular bureaucracy. Decisions were made quickly and in a synchronized manner.”

We have plenty of bureaucracy in healthcare including many processes in IT that seem burdensome. Governor Shapiro described how an executive order he signed shortly after taking office that catalogued each of the 2,400 permits, certificates and licenses the state issues and set timelines for each of them resulted in significantly reducing wait times – with one example cutting the time from eight weeks to two days. IT leaders take note – how many processes can be streamlined in your shop?

Innovation in healthcare is greatly needed and there are many bright spots we read about each day. But innovation is not just the new big flashy stuff, it can be a creative and new way to solve a problem that comes from someone on the team or an observer. Governor Shapiro wrote, “Encourage creativity and allow everyone to bring their ideas forward”. The backfill solution to rebuild the collapsed freeway using a recycled glass product was a result of that creativity from PennDOT engineers.

We all know there is no “I” in team. We accomplish great things by working together. In Pennsylvania, state and federal officials coordinated closely with each other and private contractors and organized labor collaborated working 24/7 to get the job done.

While we never want a crisis to manage through, there will be more. These lessons will be key then and every day.

Related Posts:

Leading through a crisis

Lessons from Succession: What not to do as a leader

I recently wrote a blog post called “Ted Lasso leadership lessons”. If you were a fan of the Ted Lasso series, you can readily see there were many lessons to be learned. Another popular series, Succession, wrapped up around the same time. I wasn’t sure how I could comment on leadership lessons from that series as there didn’t seem to be any characters that you would want to model. But there were plenty of lessons on what not to do as a leader.

Others have figured out what to say about Succession leadership lessons, so I’ll share the insights from one of them. A Forbes article on June 26th by Robert Pearl, MD, titled “5 Fatal Flaws Of Healthcare Leaders: Inspired By HBO’s ‘Succession’” describes five dysfunctional leadership styles to avoid based on some of the lead characters. In his words:

  1. Delusional leaders overestimate their abilities. Their ideas are unrealistic and their vision for the future: pure fiction.
  2. Narcissistic leaders bask in praise and blind loyalty. They reject and punish those who provide honest feedback and fair criticism. Their obsession with status and self-importance blinds them to long-term threats and opportunities, alike.
  3. Immature leaders get promoted before they’re primed and polished. They often lack boundaries and excel at the sport of making others uncomfortable.
  4. Political leaders are better at advancing within an organization than advancing the organization itself. Like chameleons, these leaders change with the scenery, shifting alliances and values as organizational power waxes and wanes.
  5. Compromised leaders are skilled at making promises. They seek support by vowing to fulfill wants and palliate pains.

Dr. Pearl closes the article highlighting three attributes that excellent healthcare leaders must have:

  1. Clear mission and purpose
  2. Experience and expertise
  3. Personal integrity

The third, personal integrity, is particularly critical. As Dr. Pearl says, “Everything changes when an emerging leader becomes the head of an organization and faces a crisis. As risks and pressures intensify, people tend to fall back on approaches and habits they learned in the past, particularly problematic ones.” Without being a spoiler, anyone who watched Succession can see how easily the emerging leaders fell back to their own demise.

I encourage you to read the full article but must warn you with a spoiler alert – if you haven’t seen the show but plan to watch it given all the buzz, bookmark the article to read later.  What buzz you ask? The fourth and final season just received 27 Emmy nominations with a total of 75 nominations over all the seasons.

Related Post:

Ted Lasso leadership lessons

Ted Lasso leadership lessons

I was late to the “Ted Lasso” series so there were some seasons of binge watching. From its earliest days on Apple TV, I kept hearing about this show from my colleague at StarBridge Advisors, David Muntz. He loved it! My husband and I finally started watching some time last year and saw the season 3 finale last week along with all the other devoted fans.

There are so many lessons to share from this incredibly upbeat soccer coach who we came to know and love. Here are a couple pieces worth reading whether you are a fan or not – no spoilers:

If you haven’t already clicked through to the Becker’s article link above to read perspectives on the lessons from well-known healthcare leaders, please do. In the meantime, here are the lessons:

  1. Lead with empathy.
  2. Being vulnerable doesn’t make you weak.
  3. Optimism is infectious.
  4. Doing the right thing is never the wrong thing.
  5. Winning and losing aren’t everything.
  6. Optimists take more chances.
  7. Everyone differs from everyone else.
  8. Embrace change.
  9. Empowerment breeds confidence.
  10. Winning is an attitude.
  11. Humor cuts through tension.
  12. Courage is the willingness to attempt.
  13. Nobody is bigger than the team.
  14. Be self-aware and genuine. A truly authentic leader doesn’t have the time or the inclination to be anyone but themselves.
  15. Don’t dwell on mistakes or let them define you.
  16. Stay teachable.

I like all of them but 1, 4, and 13 are favorites. Continue reading

What makes an effective sales approach?

HIMSS23 is less than two weeks away. The second annual ViVE event happened last week. It is a busy time of year for healthcare vendors and their sales staff. I’ve been on both sides of this relationship – for many years as CIO and buyer and for fewer years selling services. It gives me a unique vantage point.

Buyers attending these conferences will be looking at vendors who have solutions they need now (and have budget for) and vendors who are new and interesting with innovative and niche solutions that they may want to explore further in the coming year (explore is the key word here). And they will be meeting with their current vendors to strengthen connections and get educated on what is newly available or coming soon as they leverage their existing investments.

Sales staff will be working hard to get the attention of potential buyers. They may even reach that stage of annoying and overbearing. We all know that kind of salesperson.

In my work as principal at StarBridge Advisors, I recognize it’s all about relationships. As I said in a previous blog post, it’s not just about who you know. It’s about who you are and how you show up with people. You need to be capable and competent with the right knowledge and experience, but also honest and authentic with high integrity. That’s what it takes to be successful in a business that is all about relationships. One of the best pieces of sales advice I got from a colleague was the “know-like-trust-need” model. People need to know who you are and what you can do, they need to like you, and they need to trust you. If you have all that, when they need you, they’ll call you. Simple. That’s why I focus on relationships.

My husband and I were recently on the buyer side of a sales discussion. By the end I thought, this will blog, meaning, there’s a kernel here to learn from and share. So, what happened? 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

10 tips for next generation leaders

 

Leadership lessons at sea

How do you handle or deal with unmet expectations or changes that are outside your control? Do you complain and spread negative energy or accept it and make the most of it? More importantly, as a leader, how do you stay calm, instill confidence, and take care of the people impacted?

My husband and I are just back from a 13-day Viking cruise called “In Search of the Northern Lights”. Did we see them? Yes, check. Did we see and do everything that was promised in the itinerary when we booked the cruise? No.

A few hours into our first night at sea the captain announced that there was a medical emergency onboard and that we were heading back to our port of origin, Bergen, Norway. Within an hour he announced that there would be a medical evacuation by helicopter instead. A sign that the guest’s medical situation had worsened. He and his team handled it effectively as they were trained to do.

For the rest of us, the next few days were sailing north of the Arctic Circle with stunning scenery plus tours and excursions on land in Alta and Tromso, learning more about Norway’s history, culture, social systems, the impact of climate change in the Arctic, and the life of indigenous Norwegians, the Sami people.

On day 7, the captain announced the bad news that would affect all of us. Due to a weather system with hurricane level winds, we were going to stay in our current port, Tromso, an extra day, skip the next two ports altogether (Narvik, Norway and Amsterdam), and have an extra day at sea once we could safely start to sail again. So, we were faced with three sailing days from Tromso heading straight to London where we were to disembark. On the first of the three sea days, the captain gave us more bad news. We weren’t surprised, we physically felt what was happening on the sea.

We had left Tromso when there was a break in the storm but ended up at sea in very high winds. We later learned that the winds were up to 60-70 miles an hour and the waves were up to 25-40 feet. That meant very slow going. Continue reading

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.