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Archive for October, 2011

When George Will Called Me A Liar

Monday, October 31st, 2011

It was an innocent enough evening. My wife Sheila and I were down in Sarasota, Florida visiting my brother Chuck and his wife Robyn when they announced they had secured us a couple of tickets to join them at the monthly lecture series offered by the Ringling College Library Association. George Will was the featured speaker and when we entered the beautiful lecture hall, it was a packed house. Our seats were in the last row of the balcony. We were glad to be there.

George Will is one of my favorite columnists. His writing is nearly poetic and his mind transforms complex ideas into understandable simplicity. Even when I disagree with what he says, I have to admit that he says it so deftly that I put down my paper and am forced to reconsider my thinking! On top of all that, Will is a major league baseball fan and his books on the sport are addictive. In fact, he commented that he only writes his political columns to support his baseball habit.

Now I think George Will customizes his lectures to challenge his audience and given the predominant older population in Sarasota, he went right at the core issue of Medicare and Social Security suggesting that the Social Security age should be raised to 74 and that significant changes should be made to Medicare including increasing co-pays and patient responsibilities for the management of their own health.

That is where I got in trouble…

I am passionate about helping people become better consumers of health care. I’ve heard all the arguments…”Health care isn’t like other services”. “The doctor patient relationship is sacred and money shouldn’t get in the way”. “People can’t understand about the complexity of health care costs”. “We shouldn’t have to worry about health care costs when we are sick”. With all that, I am convinced that patients like you and me must become more involved in questioning and understanding how much medical procedures cost. Its really a simple question…”Doc, how much do these different procedures cost?”

So Mr. Will looks up at the vast audience in that beautiful hall and asked “Has anyone ever asked their physician how much a medical procedure cost? My hand shot up as I had just spoken to my knee doctor about the costs for three different options to treat my chronic knee pain. Mr. Will looked across the auditorium and seeing my hand as being the only one raised shouted up at me “Liar” and proceeded to discuss the very topic of why it is important for patients to get involved with this aspect of healthcare. I completely agreed with him and regretted that he didn’t invite me up to the stage to discuss the matter further, but I guess he didn’t think he needed my help. Later that evening my brother and sister-in-law, who were sitting downstairs on the main floor said that after Mr. Will called someone a liar up in the cheap seats, they looked at each other and said “that was Rich”.

I wrote a couple of notes to Mr. Will after the lecture challenging him on his accusation and even considered suing him for slander but decided that it was probably good that I had him in my corner on this issue. I’m not so sure about the rest of them. Maybe next time he’ll call me a socialist

Posted in Citrin Consulting, Healthcare | No Comments »

It Is Critical For Leaders To Know Their Strengths

Friday, October 28th, 2011

Richard explains why it is critical that leaders know their own strengths.

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Posted in Leadership Skills, Podcast Series: Absolute Citrin, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Oops…My Best People Are Not in My Key Roles!!

Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

So what happens when we review what the senior management team identifies as the strategic roles in the company and they discover that they do not necessarily have the strongest people in these critical roles? Perhaps it has been someone who has been with the company for 25 years or maybe they got bumped up because the prior manager left unexpectedly. While everyone thinks they may have earned the opportunity to be in an important role in the organization they may not be the best person for that particular strategic role. I see this occurring in many organizations where the metric of seniority and tenure trumps competency and value.

I remember a conversation I was having with a retired Air Force Colonel who told me that in the military they expect officers to change jobs every 5 years or so. “The Air Force doesn’t want people to get stale and that means new jobs and new responsibilities”. But in the private sector, he told me, he was surprised how many people had survived in their current role for 10-15-20-25 or 30 years just doing an okay job. But just an okay job in today’s competitive environment leaves any company behind the proverbial “eight ball”.

Before you panic, however, remember that the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, so what is required is to evaluate who are your top performers, what are the key or critical positions and then evaluate the options for how to realign the organization to make certain that you get your best people in the key roles within your company.

As Jack Welch, the legendary leader of General Electric once said “The team with the best players wins”.

Posted in Leadership Skills, Talent Management | No Comments »

Your Leadership Style

Monday, October 24th, 2011

Richard speaks on leadership styles and moving the company ahead.

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Posted in Leadership Skills, Podcast Series: Absolute Citrin | No Comments »

Resilience In The Workplace

Friday, October 21st, 2011

Richard speaks on resilience in the workplace.

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Posted in Podcast Series: Absolute Citrin, Resilience | No Comments »

Resilience, Nebraska Style

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

A couple of weeks ago I was out visiting our family in Nebraska. As is part of our family tradition, I had the opportunity to attend a Nebraska Football game. Like all Fall Saturdays across the country, college football creates a spirit and excitement unto itself. This was a particularly poignant game for me because my undergraduate Alma Mata, Ohio State was playing my graduate Alma Mata, Nebraska. While it may seem that I pick colleges on the basis of football powers, that was, perhaps, a coincidence. Regardless, rather than compromise I went with the Big Red of Nebraska for cheering purposes.

The first half of the game did not go well for Nebraska. Ohio State controlled the line of scrimmage and dominated play heading off to a 20-3 half time lead that jumped to 27-6 early in the third quarter. At that point, for some bizarre reason, I started thinking about my resilience model and how would (or could Nebraska) bounce back from their biggest halftime deficit in school history.

Remembering that the three mechanisms of resilience—preparation-navigation and bounce back comprise the opportunity levers for being resilient, I began to wonder if some kind of preparation that Nebraska does would create an opportunity to shift the momentum of the game. Just that actually happened at the midway point in the 3^rd quarter when Nebraska defensive player Lavonte David literally stripped the ball from OSU quarterback Braxton Miller. As the sportscasters described it later, “…Another millisecond later and Miller would have been on the ground and David’s strip of the ball would have been nullified…” But the turnaround had begin and by the end of the day, Nebraska won this game 34-27 and all was good in Lincoln.

Sporting events are great metaphors for thinking about resilience. Part of the benefit of using sport is that it is time limited and when they are over, they are over. Not so with our work and personal lives and that is what makes having a resilient mindset and good navigation skills even more important. Here are some reminders about navigating challenging situations:

· Focus—Take a look at the picture above and you can see that Lavonte David is definitely focused on getting that ball into his hands. You can’t be focused every moment, but you can be aware of what you are trying to accomplish

· Discipline—I have no doubt that Nebraska practice “strip drills” where they work on taking the ball away from other players. That is about preparation so that when the moment is ready, so are you

· Being agile—Agility means that you can change from one direction to the next. No doubt Nebraska coaches were emphasizing some changing ideas at half time and one of them was to break out of your standard play mode and make something happen.

Being in stressful and challenging situations happen every day and being able to respond to them effectively is more than just hoping they will go away or that we can “manage” them”. Think of your day as a sporting event (maybe multiple events) and look for the chance to turn a good situation into a great situation. Even if you are down 27-6 early in the 3^rd quarter, remember there are still plenty of plays ahead.

Posted in Being Efficient, Resilience, Stress | 1 Comment »

Bring Talent To Your Organization

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

Talent Management speaks to the strategic role that companies are now taking to maximize the value of their employees.

If we look back over the past 100 years in business what we see is that we have gone through three major transitions in how the workplace has dealt with people. The first was the industrial age. In the industrial age employees were expected to be obedient and diligent. They were expected to do their job, keep their mouth shut, and follow the rules and regulations. This was actually a critically important phase since products were being produced and specific parameters and guidelines had to be followed to ensure proper manufacturing. Additionally, employees were seen as a cost.

In the late 20th century we moved into the knowledge era. In the knowledge era what we saw was that knowledge and intellect was vital. We were relying on our people as an asset to take the information they possessed and to create new ideas that would increase profits. During this period, businesses moved from. manufacturing things, to creating ideas. Employees are seen as an asset to the business and not just a cost.

Today we have entered the talent age. In the talent age what is important is creativity and passion. People are seen not as costs, not as assets, but as talent that brings value to the organization. Employees engage with the organization and their focus on bringing their best to the workplace creates greater efficiency and effectiveness.

Unfortunately, many companies haven’t made that leap to the talent management era and most employees have not made the leap to recognizing how their talents can create a better and more effective workplace. Both parties oftentimes still operate in either the industrial age era or in the knowledge age era and so both sides tend to think of themselves as just being there to get a job done rather than as a key element of their workplace strategy.

Whenever you talk to leaders in the workplace and ask them, “What is your most important resource?” Most companies will say, “Our people.” But when you ask the follow-up question such as “what strategic role do your employees provide and how do you garner them most value from them, they have no idea. Employees are seen as a tactical resource. Here are a couple of questions to ask related to how you are seen in the workplace:
• Involve the people who are doing the work to find out what makes their job critical to the company and what they can do to increase value.
• Keep your organization’s business objectives front and center and remind everyone about these goals as you determine the best ways to deploy your employees.
• Communicate and educate your staff about the strategic role they play in the organization. Make them create the definitions of how they contribute to the success of the company.

Posted in Talent Management | No Comments »