The Needs and Expectations of Current and Future

Faculty Leaders Ricardo Azziz, MD, MPH, MBA

Professor, Obstetrics, Gynecology and Medicine President, Georgia Health Sciences University CEO, Georgia Health Sciences Health System Paul G. McDonough

Lectureship and Symposium May 18, 2012

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The Needs and Expectations of Current and Future Faculty Leaders

• Developing Yourself • Developing Your Team • Engaging the Community: A Two-Way Street • Fund-raising: A Critical Skill • Managing Transformation & Change: The Fundamental Role of

a Leader • Reading the Tea Leaves & Watching the Smoke Signals • Communicating in a Complex Heterogeneous Environment • Managing the Culture Clash • Managing Risk • Managing Your Image and Value

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No matter where you live within the organizational

structure, leadership at any level involves…

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Developing Yourself • Understand leadership competencies & skills • Invest in your own development

– Close educational gaps – Reading – books & periodicals – Executive coaching

• Leverage strengths/compensate for weaknesses – Formulate personal statements of vision, goals, value, and

management principles

• Develop network • Get involved • Understand that titles matter less than experience

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Leadership in Research-Oriented

Organizations (ROOs)

Davidson et al, J Health Adm Edu, in press

NCHL is National Center for Healthcare Leadership

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• Learn how to: – Manage… – Lead… – Think and understand… – Manage… – Distinguish… – Delegate… – Understand & manage… – Handle… – Cope with and learn from…

• Document your gains proactively • Choose the right challenge • The ‘luck’ factor – Taking the door you weren’t expecting to open

Developing Yourself People

Without control or authority Business

Up Strategies v. tactics

With appropriate follow-up ‘Political Capital’

Media Relations Mistakes

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Developing Your Team • Remember… you are the least important person in

the room… it’s all about the team

• Develop/communicate clear ‘management principles’

• Does your team know who their clients are?

• Does your team know what excellence looks like?

• Can your team stretch beyond their ‘comfort zone’?

• Value clear ownership in a matrix environment

• The value of caution… & the problem of non-believers

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The RIGHT People: Your Most Important Asset

• Critical to have strict rigor in people decisions – Keep the right people on the bus… and in the right

seats... and get the wrong people off the bus!

– Be compassionate, but firm

– When you need to make a people change… ACT!

– Learn to interview

– Hire ‘the best’

– When in doubt, don’t hire – keep looking

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The Impact of Non-Alignment… Tier

1 2 3 4

• If we assume that: – There are 4 tiers of hierarchy, each supervisor has 4 direct reports, and all leaders have equal weight… and

• If direct supervisor is aligned, their direct reports are 75% aligned • BUT, if direct supervisor is not aligned, their direct reports are 75% misaligned

– If all 4 top leaders are aligned… only 56.25% of rank & file will be aligned; – Even less if there are non-alignment (non-believers) at the top!

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“The one quality that can develop by studious reflection and practice is the leadership of men.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 –1969)

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• Titling , taxonomy, & administrative effort • Ownership & authority • Evaluating performance • Implementing incentives

– Salary-at-risk vs. bonus • Measuring success: If you can’t measure it,

you can’t improve it – Applying metrics to performance – The Brass Ring: What is the ultimate deliverable?

Ensuring Accountability

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Engaging the Community: A Two-Way Street

• Growth at the institution cannot be maximized without active community support

• Who are your communities (stake-holders)?

• Do you know what/who the underlying levers and drivers in your local community are?

• Serving as a community leader

• Working with your legislators – Getting re-elected is often the most important factor

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Fund-raising: A Critical Skill • Understand the system & processes of philanthropy • Serve as the ‘Chief Development Officer’ • Are you a philanthropist?

• Principles of philanthropy: – People give to people – People want to and are going to give… they just need to be

convinced that your goals are worthy of support – Philanthropy is not charity, it’s partnership & investment – Be strategic, be passionate – The right team & the right structure are critical – It’s about follow-up and stewardship

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Managing Transformation & Change: The Fundamental Role of a Leader

• Define and sell the vision - Engage to find the path • Choose the right bridging leaders • Org structure: Form should follow Function • Maintain flexibility implementing integration strategy • The need for attention to detail • The need for enhanced communication • Keeping pace: Changing the tires at 60 MPH • Never under-estimate the fear of change

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Effecting Change – Where Should We Be? The importance of setting the vision first

Here

There

There!! “If you do not know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere”

Henry Kissinger Here

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“We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”

Albert Einstein (1879- 1955)

Encourage and Support Thinking ‘Outside of the Box’

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• Be ‘out there’ – Host gatherings… and take the time to engage and listen – Ask for perspectives or advice – Serve on local & state boards, committees, or

organizations – Attend events of economic or political interest

• Systematically review news items & periodicals • Use ‘relationship people’ wisely – beware of bias • Search for the broad underlying trends – ‘the current

beneath’ – and apply to local condition

Reading the Tea Leaves & Watching the Smoke Signals

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Communicating in a Complex Heterogeneous Environment

• ‘Throwing pebbles into a tar pit’ – The challenge of ‘getting the message out’

• Your voice: Your team’s voice • Minimizing dissonance in the orchestra • Leverage interactive opportunities

– Open Forums, Q&As, and FAQs

• The value of transparency (with education) as a tool for transformation

• Strive to over-communicate

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Managing the Culture Clash • Culture: The hidden barrier

– State vs. corporate – Health system vs. university

• Death by committee – Researchers vs. clinicians – Educators vs. everybody else

• “Because we’ve always done it that way” • Town-gown • Institutional memory

– When SOPs are not the norm

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Managing Risk "Progress always involves risks. You can’t steal

second base and keep your foot on first.” Frederick B. Wilcox

• Audit • Compliance • Enterprise-wide risk management • Ethics • Credentialing, certification & accreditation

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Managing Your Image and Value • The first 100 days: Detailed planning - rapid results -

high impact

• Understand the concept of ‘CEO capital’

• Learning to roll up your sleeves

• The visible CEO

• Being nimble – Are you the bottleneck?

• Building and learning to trust

• Know who your clients are…

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• The devil is in the details…. stay vigilant

• Managing peer-relations

• Understanding the dangers of leadership

• Managing your time – the most precious commodity

• ‘Getting the monkey off your back’: The art of delegation… with follow-up

• Staying healthy… Inverting the pyramid

• Codification & analysis - documenting the gains

Managing Your Image and Value

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Last Thoughts • Leadership is a privilege • The aptitude for leadership may be inherited,

but the skills are learned • ‘The art of building bridges’ – the key to

transformative leadership • Take ‘the road less traveled’ – look for

experience over titles and watch for the opportunities you were not looking for

• “God isn’t done with me yet!”: The value of continuing development

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Last Thoughts • Do you know what Excellence looks like? • Keeping Pace: do not underestimate the speed

of your competition • Learn to expect and manage mistakes • Do the ‘right thing’, not the ‘expedient thing’ • Be fair, compassionate… and firm • Lead from the heart • Remember, it’s all about leadership….

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And If All Else Fails… Don’t Despair!

Thank You