Hardworking leaders often believe every disappointing result calls for more effort. When performance slips, you stay later, push harder, and question what you should…
Dr. Thom Mayer is known for practical ideas that get results. His new book, Leading for Exceptional Patient Experience: Making Jobs Easier, Patients’ Lives…
The aftermath of COVID-19, combined with the realities of the aging workforce (retiring Baby Boomers), has created more position turnover than normal. This is…
Healthcare doesn’t need a fresh start—it needs a thoughtful rewire. Rewiring Healthcare: Foundation to Future brings together senior leaders to step back…
You are moving to a new place to live or to work. What are you bringing with you? What are your keepsakes? If you mentioned thank-you notes, cards, and/or letters, you’re not alone. At times, the impact of sending these items is underestimated. I wrote on this subject in a recent HPSG Pulse blog post that I shared on LinkedIn. We all have experiences that make a difference in our lives long after the experience. When I…
When we feel anxiety or fear, our brains trigger a response that has been proven by science, a conscious or unconscious choice of fight or flight. We all have a default, and we owe it to ourselves to know our default. I know mine; it is fight. I tend to run toward a challenge rather than run from it. If you are a healthcare executive, you likely have the same default. Flight, or retreat, is…
We think about learning from what goes wrong. But do we also learn from our successes? It is a standard process to assess when something does not work as expected. The situation is reviewed, and changes are made. A good action is to study those who have the best outcomes. This provides a “success plate,” a template that captures what goes well. It identifies what drives the best outcomes. A senior executive in an addiction…
With the average hospital CEO tenure at 4.8 years, succession planning is no longer optional. It is a core leadership responsibility. Yet too many organizations still treat it as a late-stage conversation, a reactive scramble that starts when departure is already in view. In a recent episode of the Healthcare Plus Podcast, Quint Studer talks with Mark Clement, retiring president and CEO of TriHealth in Cincinnati, and Dr. Chris Reilly, industrial psychologist at Sperduto & Associates, about…
A quiet truth runs beneath many of the most meaningful moments in healthcare: What people need most is not always clinical expertise…it is human presence. When I was young and working my first job as a graduate nurse, I cared for a 15-year-old girl who was hospitalized with pneumonia. I had no idea that a brief interaction with her would become one of the most important lessons of my career. I was working on a…
Reducing variance has been a key focus of mine for many years. Notice I said many years. It shows that reducing variance is a never-ending journey. Is leadership variance always a bad thing? There are those situations when a leader may vary an approach seeking improvement. I call these operational trials. There are times when a situation arises where a process or action needs to not be followed. These are isolated or emergency situations. In general, reducing…
Ever find a letter from years back? People keep things they value. Not in terms of dollars, but in terms of how they make them feel. If you do not read further, I ask you to do this: Drop a note, card, or letter to someone who makes, or has made, an impact on your life. Take 10 seconds and close your eyes. Think about a person who has made a difference in your life,…
If you leave, who will take your place? If there’s a family emergency, who can fill in for you? Should job openings be filled externally or internally with a candidate who has been developed along the way? A related question: Are individuals who achieve great individual results great at developing others? Most know the answer is “not always.” It could be that things come more naturally to them, and they assume the same is true…
I worked out at the same gym for 14 years. I went regularly and did the same routine, over and over. Results were okay, but I had definitely reached a plateau. Then I changed gyms and enlisted the help of a personal trainer. Wow, what a difference! He really opened my eyes to some new things: simple changes I could make that helped me to do exponentially better. Before long, my results improved noticeably. This…
Leadership isn’t ultimately about what the leader can do. It’s about what the leader can multiply. A leader who develops others creates capacity that compounds over time. Their influence doesn’t stop with what they can do; it keeps expanding through the people they’ve poured into. In fact, the ability to develop others is one of the most important skill sets a leader can possess. Here are a few reasons why: Organizations outlast individuals. A leader…