October 24, 2017
Competition makes us faster. Collaboration makes us better.
Thank you Matt Sturm and ECG, and the Colorado Hospital Association for inviting me to participate on the collaboration panel at your recent conference on Leading Strategically. I’m grateful for the opportunity to talk about this inspiring and relevant subject. Looking all around us, we can see that competition is alive and well and not necessarily a bad thing. But from my experience, collaboration often allows us to find the best of all, and when done well, working together actually makes us better. So how do you do that successfully?
Reflecting on my experience, a couple of principles for successful collaboration come to mind:
As a mission driven leader, collaboration is best when individual or organizational mission, vision and values are aligned.
- If you take the time to understand where you are aligned and define a goal greater than your organization, you always know where to come back to and how best to make decisions and move forward. If the goal is more options for patient care, or better coverage and quality of care for patients, it's much easier to build a successful collaboration than if the goal is simply increasing market-share.
Collaborations are best when they create something greater than the sum of what each can create on their own; it’s about the greater good.
- Great collaborations make something better than if you had just done it on your own. In teams that are collaborating well, ideas are made better through honest dialogue; the process is iterative and builds upon itself, and the final product is accomplished utilizing everyone's diverse strengths and ideas.
It takes a team; individuals are part of and rely on teams. A collaboration’s success can’t rest on just one person.
- There's a great proverb that says "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." Yes, we need our downtime as leaders, we need to set aside time to think and read and come up with ideas. But if we're being honest, it takes working with others to make things happen. This means taking the time to build a good team. Make sure you set good ground rules and prioritize time to build trust and enough camaraderie to find joy and meaning in the work.
As Covey says, start with the end in mind; how I think about it - how will working together make you and the communities you serve better than either can alone?
- This speaks to aligning mission. When it seems like there is only option A and B in front of you, really thinking about how your organization or business can serve the community or your customer better might just lead you to an unthought-of option C. Particularly in healthcare when you're thinking about collaboration, if it doesn't make sense for our customers, we shouldn't be working on it together.
If you start with what you disagree on, it’s going to be a short conversation. So how do you figure out what you agree on? Remember, what we see depends on where we stand; that means you need to be a good listener, talk last, figure out how to inspire ideas, and keep asking questions, looking for the alignment and the common good.
- After a while in leadership, you start to see the value in speaking last. If you speak first, others around you may agree with you simply because you're the boss. Asking others to go first, you may just hear a new idea or be sparked by something someone says that they might not have otherwise. Never stop asking questions. The most brilliant idea can come from the person you least expect - they may have the freshest eyes or be closer to the problem you're trying to solve than you are. So figure out how to listen well, because if you stop listening and stop asking questions, your people will quickly find someone else to follow.
You’re going to disagree but you don’t have to be disagreeable.
- Another way I think of this is "Be tough on the issues, not on each other." Arguing about solutions, having debate about issues, mining for conflict, getting passionate about your projects - these are all good things. But always remember, even when you need to disagree with someone, you can do it with kindness, with emotional intelligence, and without making it personal.
We must share resources for the greater good. Especially in this healthcare landscape. At the end of the day, if the patient isn’t served better, don’t do it.
- There is no question we are in a crazy time in healthcare. Getting our feet under us as health systems and hospitals adjust to the affordable care act and prepare for population health management and value based reimbursement, while also anticipating future patient needs and keeping up with the pace of medical advancement, and attracting the right talent and resources to keep your health system thriving... rethinking success and underlining the "for the sake of what" in our work is essential. It should always be about making it better for the patient. Better care. Lower cost. A better experience. A faster recovery. A way to never have to get admitted in the first place. And quite simply, at the end of the day, better health.
These are a few of my thoughts - I'm curious about what you think. Have you seen collaboration create something better than individuals or organizations could do alone? What have some of your lessons learned been? I'd love to hear your thoughts or questions. Email me! Or join the conversation on LinkedIn -- > https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/competition-makes-us-faster-collaboration-better-nancy-steiger/.
My best,
Nancy Steiger
It's Time We Embraced Sabbaticals
This summer I resigned my position as CEO of PeaceHealth’s Columbia Network, a group of hospitals in Southwest Washington. Everyone wanted to know what I was going to do next, but my intention was exactly the opposite: my immediate focus was on doing nothing.
For nine years, I worked in leadership positions for the parent organization, usually getting up at 5 a.m. and returning home at 8 p.m. Near the end of this period, I felt out of touch with the personal connection I had always felt with my work. It became a bit, well, robotic.
To put it another way, I’m a mission-driven leader, and I didn’t feel as grounded with my mission.
So I decided to take a break.
But in doing so, in hearing the longing in my colleagues’ and friends’ voices for an answer to the “why” and “what next?” question, I realized that even in an industry designed to care for others, we aren’t very good at self-care.
There’s no real notion of a sabbatical in the healthcare profession. We aren’t supposed to take a break, to recharge, to acknowledge our humanity.
Instead, we’re supposed to toughen up and make do with the occasional vacation.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my profession and have always worked hard because that’s who I am. But after three months off, I’m a different person. There were several days I didn’t get up until 11 a.m., not because I’m lazy but rather because I allowed my body to decide how much rest it needed.
I routinely do yoga, work with a personal trainer, and hop on the treadmill. I work in my garden, read books, and see my friends. When two people close to me fell ill, I was able to fly to them and help out.
I haven’t felt this good in years.
Am I going back to work? Absolutely. I’m thinking hard about my purpose and asking, “How do I use my skills for the highest good?” This is the type of question we ought to ask ourselves more often, but getting an honest answer often requires stepping back and taking a break.
I will go back with a clear head and a strong sense of what matters most to me. That will come from taking the time to recharge.
As leaders, we have to model the behaviors we want to engender in our teams. Personally, I want to empower people to improve their health and achieve a sustainable work/life balance. If we fail to do this - if we model “work until you fall down” practices - then what kind of people will we attract to our organizations?
The sabbatical is a self-care activity not currently sanctioned in our society. We should rethink this. Taking a pause is not a negative reflection on you. To the contrary, it is a sign of wisdom and maturity.
How Do You Make Others Feel?
Maya Angelou said, "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
This beautifully epitomizes how I try to carry myself as a leader, and it is a wonderful guidepost for how any of us conduct ourselves professionally.
Too often, organizations get caught up in words, numbers, messages, instructions, processes, and procedures. These all serve understandable purposes, but they are bare necessities and not nearly enough to produce spectacular results. These necessities aren’t enough to create a culture that attracts the best and the brightest.
To create such a culture and positively impact how others feel, you must engage both their hearts and minds. You must tap into their values, and find the overlaps between their values and the values of the organization you are helping to lead.
When I first took over management of one medical center, employees walked down the hallways with their heads down, like robots, never making eye contact or greeting one another. No one would stop to pick up a piece of paper out of place. As a newcomer, I didn’t feel welcome and I didn’t think our visitors did either. My goal was to change this as quickly as possible, and one way you can do this is by modeling the behaviors you hope to foster: being present, remembering names and faces, smiling at people,and being caring and appreciative.
Leadership is ultimately about transformation, and it has been said often that culture trumps strategy any day. To transform a culture, you need to focus on WHY more than how or what.
Instead of telling people what to do or how to do it, it’s important to get input from all levels of an organization, from front-line, direct service providers, to managers, to support staff, and address the reasons to make a change. This means listening, engaging people, understanding what provides them with a feeling a purpose, and helping them understand how they are valuable to the organization, what they can do to serve the organization’s mission.
For example, at another medical center, developing a new service was an important component of our growth strategy. This program required higher levels of coordination and performance because critically ill patients need to have their care exceedingly well coordinated to move rapidly through the medical center.
At first, my approach focused on explaining to physicians and staff what and how I wanted to do, and there was a lot of pushback. Physicians heard “I’m going to be on call more often.” The staff saw it as more work. They focused on the negatives.
Once I understood the wisdom of explaining why, I tried again and explained that programs like this elevate the level of care throughout the medical center thereby providing better care, and physicians and staff want to be associated with better care. The reputation can also generate more business for the medical center and a physician’s practice, which is another positive.
Even then, not everyone was on board, but once my team understood the why, and knew they would have input into the what and how, they got behind our plan.
In this case, the why tapped into how physicians and staff want to feel: proud of their work and of making a real difference for the people in the community they serve.
The more you can help people to feel like they are making a difference, the more likely they are to make a positive difference, day after day. Then you can spend even less time on how and what, because others will be figuring out better ways to perform each critical task.
One caution: superficial actions aren’t enough. You can’t just smile and be cheerful. You should listen to others, understand how they are feeling, and react in a substantive manner.
I’m genuinely curious to hear your perspective. What is it that YOU do to uplift and inspire others?
Your Checkbook and Calendar Reveal Your Values
A reader’s comment on my last article, It's Time We Embraced Sabbaticals, stopped me in my tracks. Bob Korzeniowski wrote, “Sabbaticals are only for those who are rich.”
At first, I cringed at the possibility I had inadvertently published an elitist article. But it didn’t take long for me to gain some perspective. Sabbaticals are most common in academia, and most university professors are anything but rich. Sabbaticals aren’t a function of wealth, but rather of priorities.
The fact is that most of us have a greater ability to change our lives than we acknowledge. I recently read an article about Behan Gifford and her husband Jamie, who have spent the past eight years sailing around the world with their children, surviving on about $25,000 a year. They’re not rich, they just decided to teach their kids about the world by wandering around it. Most people would argue they can’t “afford” to sail around the world, but in reality they aren’t willing to sell all their possessions and live on $25,000 a year… in order to spend 100% of their time exploring the world.
It’s not that someone can or can’t take a sabbatical. It’s a matter of choice… how much are you willing to sacrifice for what’s important to you?
So if you value recharging above all else, you will figure out how to take the time to recharge. As this relates to leadership, it’s all about congruency. Are your actions congruent with your words?
Whatever you value should be reflected in two fundamental ways:
1. How you spend your time
2. How you spend your money
Having worked for so long in the healthcare industry, I’ve seen leaders who struggle to model the right behaviors, and I’m no exception. For example, they say they want to improve patient experience, but they fail to sufficiently fund it or to invest enough of their own time in this area.
If you were a leader serious about patient experience, you would model the behaviors you want your team to emulate. You’d make patient rounds most days, rather than occasionally. You’d stop putting most of your capital budget into the likes of the latest technologies and would instead invest some of that funding into quality and training that enhances patient experience. It’s all too easy to blame middle management for falling short of your words and goals, but if you don’t provide sufficient resources - including your own time - how is your team going to move the dial?
You can find this disconnect in nearly every industry. Executives spend money on new technology, but won’t invest in the training necessary to allow their team to fully leverage that technology. Instead, they stop halfway, spending 70% of the necessary funds and investing 50% or less of the time their team needs to master a very different set of processes.
Nearly everything we want has a cost that can be measured in both time and money. Only the most superficial things are free in these regards.
No matter what your role in life, the best way to judge what really matters to you is how you invest your time and money. If you say you want to improve your health, you need to participate in self care behaviors. If you say you care about the community, volunteer your time and contribute money.
What does your calendar and checkbook reveal about you?