By Rand O’Leary, FACHE
Throughout my life, I have seen that it is true that your thoughts become your words, and your words become your actions. I wonder if it is possible to reverse-engineer this adage, using our actions and words to impact our thoughts. As another old saying goes: whatever you feed will grow. How do we feed positive thinking? Through kindness and gratitude in word and deed.
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The pandemic has changed many things about our culture and daily life. Even with a likely shift to an endemic state and more “normal” days ahead, many things have changed in the past two years that will not change back to how they were. Among them is the old employment model of emphasizing in-person work. In today’s market, if employers want to attract and retain talent, they must offer flexible work options.
Read MoreWith so much bringing us down, what can we do to lift each other up? We must respond to these difficult times with a deep sense of caring, understanding, and support for one another and our communities.
Read MoreBy Rand O’Leary
If there's one thing that 2020 has definitely called for, its resilience. We're living in turbulent times and COVID-19 has impacted every aspect of American life – from health to work to childcare to education and even exercise.
Read MoreBy Rand O’Leary
While building a culture of trust is essential to a leadership team’s growth and success, the fear of conflict can stop any positive growth in its tracks. Conflict happens, especially in business, and the key is to embrace rather than avoid it. As Patrick Lencioni writes in the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, “All great relationships, the ones that last over time, require productive conflict in order to grow.”
Read MoreBy Rand O’Leary
When it comes to building a strong leadership team, choosing top talent isn’t the only priority; building a culture of trust is also essential to growth and success. According to a recent PwC survey of more than 1,400 CEOs worldwide, more than half of organizational leaders believe a lack of trust is a serious threat to the success of their teams and their business. However, if you are aware of the importance of trust, and actively working to make it part of your workplace culture, you can use it as an asset to your organizational function, rather than a liability.
Environments where trust is a key component encourage innovation, increase the pace of decision making, and often team members outpace their competition. The Workplace Therapist Brandon Smith insists, “Trust enables teams to not just take risks but also to move more quickly. There’s little second-guessing in high trust environments because team members assume there’s positive intent.”
It’s hard for teams to move forward effectively if they don’t trust each another. Instead of innovating, they are second-guessing each other, unnecessarily reworking tasks, or relying on one or two key team members to get the work done. I have found that when you have trust, things move much more efficiently. You have the ability to take the risk because your team feels comfortable and supported. Trust is key, and risk, innovation, growth, and expansion can only happen when you have a solid foundation of trust to build upon.
To maximize your organizational potential and lead in your sector and community, you have to create a climate of trust and transparency.
Read MoreBy Rand O’Leary
“Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.” - Steven Covey
Diversity and inclusion are top priorities in many organizations today, and there are plenty of benefits that come with implementation. First of all, there’s an increase in profitability. A McKinsey & Company report found that companies with leadership in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have financial returns above their industry median, and those with leadership in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity were 35% more likely to do the same. On the other hand, McKinsey also found in a follow up that companies with executive teams in the bottom quartile for both gender diversity and racial and ethnic diversity were 29% less likely to achieve above-average profitability.
There’s more at stake than immediate profitability. Through my own experience, I’ve also seen improvements in:
Retention - Diverse leadership communicates that leaders cannot all look and sound the same, and a diverse leadership team helps create an environment where people of all races, genders, sexuality, religions, socio-economic backgrounds can thrive. It creates an environment where employees can see their path to advancement and leadership positions within the industry.
Read MoreBy Rand O’Leary
The healthcare environment continues to undergo rapid and profound change with mergers, acquisitions and new business models forever changing the landscape of how we lead and deliver healthcare for the next millennium. In my previous article, I discussed the concepts of leading your team through complex problem solving. Today the focus is on you, the leader, how you successfully navigate yourself through new relationships, complex reporting structures and multi-entity healthcare business models.
Read MoreLeaders are expected to be creative problem solvers, challenge the status quo and visualize problems before they occur. Your success as a leader is largely dependent upon how quickly you seek improvement in broken processes, develop new procedures and maximize efficiency and effectiveness.
Below are three tips to help you stay in front of the curve when managing your people and organization through change and drive results:
Read MoreToday’s healthcare environment is shifting at an ever-increasing pace. The transition to community health focused care is both daunting and challenging for most organizations. Now, more than ever physician leadership can play a crucial and important role.
Setup Your Physician Leaders for Success
Before we begin, it’s foundational to understand how physicians view leadership.Physicians are trained to work independently, they value their autonomy and can be reluctant to delegate authority.All good qualities if you’re the patient.My colleague once said me, “these trauma surgeons are sure difficult to work with.”
Read MoreWhen everything seems to be going against you, remember the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it, Henry Ford.
Ask any pilot if they remember the first time they flew the airplane alone. And you’ll get a resounding yes! The solo flight is a milestone in each pilot’s life, it’s the time when preparation and opportunity all come together. You are alone in the airplane, no instructor by your side correcting mistakes, keeping you safe, it’s all up to you.
Read MoreMany high performing companies have discovered the value of servant leadership, which simply defined is serving others first. When leaders make this simple, but fundamental mind shift, the culture and the organization will follow as will bottom line results. Employees working under leaders who put their needs first, build self-confidence, make decisions more autonomously, have greater job satisfaction and engagement, and are more likely to practice this same style with their direct reports.
Read MoreHealthcare has been in a tremendous period of change, mergers, acquisitions, leadership restructures, and new and improved strategic plans and priorities fill the time of most leaders. During this time of change, many leaders may wonder privately, does the mission of this organization still matter? Or is it only about the bottom line?
Read MoreIn healthcare, how often have you heard this, he/she is a great clinician, but has no personality. Or, take me to hospital A, but if I’m really sick take me to hospital B, this assumes hospital A is the “Nice” hospital but Hospital B is where all the best clinicians work. So, the obvious question is, can’t you have both? Yes, if you select the right people.
Read MoreBy Ben Reigle, Founder, RCM Leaders Forum
At the RCM Leaders Forum in May, I suggested we are practicing the same techniques and processes from 10 years ago. No one in the group disagreed. I really thought I would get some optimists arguing with me. There was no dissent. If a collection of the best leaders in the industry (a collective $150B+ in net revenue between them) would agree, is innovation dead? If so, what do we do about it?
By Rand O’Leary
Task oriented leaders, those using just workplans, measurements, goals, dashboards, etc.… sometimes may be left scratching their heads when their teams do not accomplish their goals, or performance begins to decline without any clear reason as to why.
To motivate your teams, and accomplish your goals, perhaps you would be better served to examine your leadership relationship competencies.
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