Long term success in life is rarely achieved by perpetual crisis management and the ability to work around the clock to meet a deadline…not that great leaders and successful individuals don’t have that ability and need to deploy it from time to time! One of the keys to sustained success is balance. Balance should not be viewed as a goal that is attained; rather a dynamic state in need of frequent adjustment…like a see-saw.

Plenty has been written about time management and work life balance, each method with its own merits. If you have taken some of this published advice and it has brought you success, don’t change a thing. If you continue to struggle, I urge you to read on.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

In this episode on helping digital startups sell their solutions, I want to focus on the issue of implementation. It is certainly important to have a wiz bang digital solution. Equally important is how to implement the solution and manage the changes it causes. All startups should understand the concerns the hospital C-suite has around the implementation process. Specifically, the startup must be prepared to answer the following:

1. Is the company going to take responsibility for all the administrative hurdles including the IT security approval? Customers want assurance that the company is going to answer all inquiries and assist with completing documentation. Additionally, customers will want the company to track the progress of all approvals and follow up as necessary.
2. Does the company have previous experience with change management? Although the hospital may have a performance improvement team skilled in change management, it is important for the company to have people who also understand this complex process in order to work collaboratively.

Read the full list.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

In my last blog post I discussed the challenges digital health startups face when trying to sell to hospitals and health systems. In this post I suggest some ways to overcome the hurdles and succeed in building a client base.

Startups need to be realistic about where they are in their product life cycle. As I mentioned previously, hospitals are risk adverse with tight budgets. These organizations want proof that your solution is actually going to have the impact you claim. Early on it is beneficial to look at smaller organizations for “proof of concept.” Ambulatory settings, such as ambulatory surgery center or multi-specialty clinics are often good places to alpha and beta test a new solution. These organizations are often nimbler, and as a result, more receptive to innovation. Smaller healthcare settings may present easier access to administrators and clinicians who can help get your solution implemented. Additionally, the information security requirements may be easier to address in smaller settings.

As a startup in healthcare you must understand the economics of the US healthcare system.

There are two key questions you need to answer as you build your business model.

Read full article.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

The pathway to success for digital health startups is challenging. Hospitals are often looked at as the point of entry for digital startups. Trying to work with large hospitals can pose challenges for early stage start-ups for several reasons:

1) Hospitals often are a part of larger systems. As a result, there are multiple layers to the approval process with multiple decision makers prolonging the sales cycle. In my experience as COO of an academic medical center the time from initial interest to contract can exceed two years. Furthermore, complex deployment processes add to the timeline for pilot implementation.

2) Hospitals and health systems have narrow margins. Most hospitals have margins of 2-4%. The Congressional Budget Office has forecasted that up to 50% of hospitals may face negative margins by 2025. There is competition within the budget for both new and replacement capital. Furthermore, there is reluctance to add ongoing new expenses to capital budgets. Read the complete list here.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

Good operations is good strategy. Operational excellence. Blocking and tackling. Within health systems, the ongoing importance of good operations should be highlighted as a foundational element of every strategic plan. Good operations is a “no lose” strategy that positions a health system for success regardless of the many external forces providing new challenges. Value-based contracting, risk-sharing and Medicare break even strategies are all dependent on the fundamentals of sound operations. Operational Excellence requires strong and improving performance across a broad spectrum of metrics related to safety and quality, customer service and cost efficiency.

Safety and quality. Our consumers have historically assumed that a healthcare system – especially one with brand recognition – provides a safe environment and good clinical quality. They have had little information to guide decisions related to safety and quality. Health systems must compare performance against top quartile performers and make the changes necessary to achieve this level of achievement consistently. And make the information available to the public in a discernible manner that is meaningful to consumers and motivating to caregivers. Safety and quality must be embedded within any strategic plan.

Read full article.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

Focusing on joy, especially in work, is gaining momentum. It has my attention! It is clear to me that the mindset and habits are exactly what great leaders have and do and what developing leaders should concentrate on.

It is very tempting for any leader, especially those in healthcare, to focus on what’s wrong, what needs to be fixed. It’s time to view the situation through a different lens…we need to focus on the meaning and purpose of our work. This is a distinct advantage for those of us in healthcare, our mission is making peoples lives better. Joy is not in things, it is in US. IHI describes pride in workmanship as a fundamental right; having the connection to meaning and purpose promotes such pride and is the basis of joy.

Take the Joy Quiz.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

This is Part 3A of this three-part series.

Read part 2.

This Part 3A briefly reviews four change methods and Part 3B will compare them

“I have no idea how to change anyone. But I carry around a long list of people in case I ever figure out how.” - Anonymous

Eliminate four billion dollars of waste from a large healthcare system next year. Increase the CMS TPS (Total Performance Score) for a hospital from the national average of 38.1 to 60 in two years. Reduce maternal, child and infant mortality in Nigeria by 50% in three years. These are large-scale improvement goals – at healthcare system, hospital and population health levels, respectively.

Improvement at the community, organization and individual levels are all connected: improvement requires change and all change is personal. An organization is a group of people with a common purpose; and a community is a group of people with the potential for acting together (Taylor). While communities and organizations are made up of individuals, how they evolve and change is not merely an additive process of how each individual changes. Societies and organizations are complex adapting systems and their advancement matures through their disciplined movement.

Read Full Article.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

“Stand alone” hospital presidents provide a great deal to admire.

I was the lead in a recent strategic retreat and the CEO was incredibly impressive as I watched her interact with her board, her physician leadership and her administrative team. Once again it rekindled my awareness of how small hospital CEOs have to do it all. They are the engaged in the community, lead in the facility, influence the physicians, head Human Resources, know all the staff by name and can even be involved in the revenue cycle, IT and compliance departments. There is very little this CEO isn’t aware of from governmental changes to the one physician or nurse who leaves unexpectedly. There is no cushion. There is no room for error. It is a pure survivability issue. They must know everything and be involved in everything. As they look around them, there are few, if any, people to delegate to within the organization. They have the community depending on them as one of the key employers if not the largest of their city. System CEOs on the other hand have delegation capabilities and can look to corporate for support and capital. While a smaller hospital CEO bears the brunt of this responsibility.

Read Full Article.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

All leaders will openly admit that they could not do their job without their team. However, as humans, I’d bet that most of them, in a moment of frustration, have thought “it would be easier if I just did it myself.” Why? Because influencing people is a gradual process, not simply a decision with immediate results.

Accepting the reality that no matter how brilliant or hard-working you are, you will always need your team which means you need to learn how to influence them.

Master the following attributes and you will be well on your way.

10 Leadership Traits that Drive the Ability to Influence Teams

Grateful Attitude - As a leader you are always on stage and therefore need to possess and portray a grateful attitude. Start your day with a ritual that grounds you; whether this is prayer, meditation, exercises, reflecting on loved ones, etc. When your day gets tough, reflect on, or re-enact your gratitude ritual.

Read Full Article.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

This is Part 2 of a three-part series
Read Part 1.

“Help! I need somebody! Help! Not just anybody. Help!” – The Beatles

When a cry for help begs a response, how do we assure that productive help, not just good intention, actually happens?

When faced with failure, what does a responder do? As an expert/advisor, you have a choice: correct the specific failure or strengthen the system (Taylor, Just and Lasting Change). To make this decision, it is critical to discern: is this an event-induced “disaster” – Ebola, Tsunami, Hurricane – or is it a chronic, systematic, or lifestyle-induced failure? In medicine, the difference is how a physician treats a patient with emergency trauma vs a patient with a chronic disease. The global relief vs development challenge has a healthcare leadership parallel: rescue or strengthen.

Why does it matter?

Diagnosis before treatment. This sounds simple, but when immediate relief is needed, the help reflex to correct or fix seems obvious. Yet, the best intended responses vary greatly in their effectiveness. Because often what helps in relief now, hinders development later – having the opposite of the intended effect. When dysfunction occurs, the temptation to intervene with mandated action may be warranted, but it can also compromise an organization’s culture or a community’s ability to evolve. This is a core dynamic of social change if local energies are to be harnessed. Read Full Article.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

Enhancing our own leadership development along with the novice and advanced leaders on our teams is mission critical in healthcare today. The environment that we are challenged to be successful in is very harsh — increasing the cost of technology and pharmaceuticals, the ever-increasing cost of labor, on top of declining reimbursement.

The formula for success appears simple enough, but the challenge (as always) is the execution. Clearly, educating leaders and enhancing their skills will yield great outcomes; yet the material that must be mastered is not intuitive, and the skills must be practiced over and over to be mastered.

One of the first lessons to be mastered is abandoning time-tested strategy, focusing on maintaining current productivity and volume levels, and being content with the fundamental processes currently in place. In other words, leaders must be comfortable being uncomfortable, embracing the feeling of being unsettled. Read Full Article.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

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.

As leaders in this new matrix and/or multi entity models, we are challenged to rethink our leadership style and model into a much more collaborative and creative approach to be successful. New relationships, business or otherwise require us to lead together, build upon individual and team strengths and become much more resilient to change. In my experience, I’ve had the opportunity to both model and observe what I call best practices when leading in a highly complex and matrix environment:

Read Full Article.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

There are likely more articles, books, blogs and seminars pertaining to Leadership than any other subject. In addition to our formal education and training as a leader, we have learned leadership traits from mentors, bosses, and other leaders over the years; we’ve learned what aspects of leadership we admire, and consider motivating and successful, AND...WHAT ASPECTS WE DON’T.

As a leader, leadership is not about you. Leadership is about those you serve and support, those you impact around you. I’ve learned over my career that command and control may yield short term gains in performance, and in emergent situations may be needed. However, if the goal is to create and sustain a high performing, forward thinking and dynamic organization and one that attracts the best talent, managing through fear and intimidation will not cut it. Relationships, trust, loyalty and truly caring about people, will build a resilient, loyal, high performing organization. Read Full Article.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

Healthcare executives are discovering numerous reasons to turn to franchise ownership. In growing numbers, they are becoming entrepreneurs, whether they are new to healthcare or grizzled industry veterans. Healthcare leaders are fulfilling important personal and career goals by investing in franchise opportunities; here we’ll discuss the most common:

1. Providing Additional Security

The healthcare industry evolves rapidly, and there's no end in sight. The industry's future remains murky with ongoing talk and political steam of substantial healthcare reform. Franchise ownership is appealing as it can provide a secondary source of income independent of your employer. If there’s a sudden change in your organization or the industry overall, you won’t have all your eggs in one basket. Whether you’re planning on continuing in healthcare for the long haul or wanting to bridge out of healthcare in the coming few years, owning a “manage-a-manager” franchise model and scaling the business over time can provide added family income to rely on and enjoy. The number of people with a business on the side is growing rapidly, and few side gigs offer the earning potential or predictability of franchise ownership.

2. Helping to Build a Nest Egg

Franchise and business ownership is also a great way to diversify your investment portfolio and prepare for retirement. You can enjoy a reliable income while building a valuable future asset that can be sold for a premium or passed as a legacy to your children. By following in the footsteps of other successful franchise owners and reinvesting profits into additional locations, you'll grow your net worth exponentially faster than putting all your savings in a mutual fund.

3. Offering a Fresh Start

Most new opportunity seekers are pleasantly surprised to discover the wide variety of franchise opportunity choices spanning 90+ unique industries. It’s definitely more than just French fries. A hefty majority of new franchise owners choose a business in a completely new industry, not related to healthcare or the sector where they’ve been employed. Your diploma and your resume do not limit your options. Many people yearn to pour their strengths and energy into a fresh, new challenge. Strong franchise opportunities with a proven business model and streamlined training systems are the bridge for thousands of new entrepreneurs to blossom in new lines of business with much less risk. It’s a vehicle to succeed at something, gain more control over your destiny, and enjoy more flexibility rarely found in a corporate executive’s lifestyle.

No matter your reasons for considering franchise ownership, you don’t have to look far for success stories. Take Carey Winkel as an example. She spent 70 hours a week working as President of Commercial Operations for Sunrise Medical before switching gears and buying a cleaning franchise. In her first four years, her region won the company's national growth award three times!

Brian Foster is another great success story. He worked as a healthcare executive for over 30 years for the Illinois Hospital Association. After contemplating his future, he met with FranNet and was introduced to the idea of owning a franchise. He’s fallen in love with being his own boss, with a thriving business that’s poised to earn income for many years to come.

If you’re trying to transition from your career as a healthcare executive (or any other career) to franchise ownership, let us help you. At FranNet, “creating success stories” is our motto. We match aspiring entrepreneurs to the right opportunities for their strengths, goals and needs. To get started, give me a call at 770-579-3726 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Leslie Kuban is a nationally recognized franchise industry expert, CFE (Certified Franchise Executive) and owner of FranNet in Atlanta; a locally owned and operated franchise consulting firm. Leslie and her team have helped close to 500 individuals and families achieve their dreams of business ownership through a no-cost, extensive educational and coaching process.

Connect with Leslie online or call 770-579-3726 to start the conversation today.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

It happens. The organization is off plan…by a lot; and it is not the first time. More than a modest correction or a “wait until next month.” Many factors were likely involved, but the relentless dynamics of the market have overwhelmed a longstanding management team. It is akin to a cyclist who has slipped back from the peloton due to chronic cadence deficit – and now the gap is widening.

When a leadership change is made while the organization is on plan, it is often political. When an organization is off plan, and a leadership change is NOT made, it is often political (or paralysis). But when performance is off plan and the board and/or corporate office makes a CEO change, what are the key considerations?

Read Full Article.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

As discussed in the blog, Success or Failure: Healthcare Can Not NOT Change, healthcare is a business. And, considering the economic contribution they make throughout their region, it is big business. With each hospital closure that hits the media, it is not simply the services provided that is at issue, but the financial impact to the community as well.

Serving as a consultant at a very impressive $40M health system, I dove deep into the Community Health Needs Assessment and each component of the strategic plan. My initial task was to meet one-on-one with each member of the executive team and department heads – of course my daily rounds (LBWA) meant I was meeting front line staff throughout the day each day – before reporting back to the Board of the Directors at the end of the month.

Meeting with the CFO, she was gravely concerned with the system’s operating margins, which were the narrowest they had been in her entire 12-years. She provided me with benchmark data showing the continuous decline over the last several years.

Read Full Article.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

Leading and working in healthcare has always been complex, never more so than in today’s healthcare environment. Increased regulations, government reforms, alternative based payment models, rising consumerism and expectations have come together in a perfect storm swirling around the industry. On top of this, the world economy has become a destabilizing factor as we realize now more than ever how interconnected we are to our world partners, almost a giant game of Jenga, where one false move by a world leader could topple the whole tower.

So how do we lead in an era of increasing complexity and more ambiguity than ever before? In previous articles I’ve discussed the importance of mission and a common set of values to ground the organization and guide our decision making, and this is foundational. However, in this article I would like to discuss the skills and the leadership maturity it takes to lead successfully in a complex environment.

I’m going to use the term “maturity” here, not necessarily the chronical definition of age, but the maturity that comes with leaders who have had numerous and diverse leadership experiences. Leaders who have seen enough, had their share of successes and failures to understand the important role they play in guiding the decision-making process.

Read Full Article.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

Authenticity is a part of your brand, it is being who you are. Taking a deeper dive into the word, I questioned what are the traits of authenticity? These top characteristics rose to my mind when I think of an authentic person or leader:

1. Self-awareness – A high level of courage and comfort with being in your own skin. You cannot be authentic, if you don’t love or respect yourself.
2. Confidence – The higher the self-confidence, the more authentic you can be as there is no “shame” in being you.
3. Vulnerability – Recognizing your imperfections as Brene Brown would say, accepting those and allowing yourself to feel emotions. It’s ok to be a leader and not have all the answers or know everything. That is why you hire intelligent people! As leaders we live in a fishbowl, but it is unnatural to keep all feelings bottled up inside and not expect the stress to build up. Carve out some safe “zones” of time, place or people to acknowledge your emotions and let them out.
4. Consistency – Your word means something, you are dependable. People learn to expect certain behaviors from you. Consistency builds trust that leads to authenticity.
5. Values driven – At the core of every authentic individual is their values. You need to know what you stand for and articulate it. Be willing to stand for those values and defend them. Build your vision around those values.
6. Passion – Another common trait that most authentic people seem to display is passion. True commitment to themselves and the people and things around them, and it comes through in their communication.

Authenticity is a valuable leadership trait. In an increasingly complex and competitive industry, we are consistently making tough decisions. Being authentic to ourselves, our teams and our organizational values helps us remain grounded and navigate through challenging conversations and a fast-paced dynamic environment. Authenticity is also contagious. If you want to create an authentic culture, you certainly must lead by example. And as Brene Brown shares from her research, innovation and creativity stem from vulnerability and authenticity. So, let go of your ego and embrace your authentic self!

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

Leaders 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 Full Article.

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.

While in college, I agreed to meet someone at our church. No one else was at the building. It was 1:30 in the afternoon. I was able to let myself in, because I had a calling that required me to have a key. As I think back on it, I cannot remember who I was meeting or why; I just remember that this person stood me up. I sat for an hour in the foyer. Staring out at a gray, rainy sky, I thought, “What a miserable day!” I lived in Monroe, Louisiana where we would get a lot of rain. If every rainy day was a miserable day, I was going to have a lot of miserable days. I chose then to look for the beauty in that day. Everything looked clean and shiny from the standing water. I appreciated the different shades of gray. I saw bright sunlight peeking out through the clouds. I beheld that it really was a beautiful day, and my mood lightened considerably.

Frederick Longbridge said, “Two men look out through the same bars. One sees the mud and the other the stars.” Both are incarcerated. Both are in a bad place, yet one sees hope, and the other sees despair. One sees beauty and the other ugliness. Many people feel trapped in their lives, their work and their circumstances. They see so much of what is wrong and so little of the beauty that surrounds them.

The lens of seeing the good can be a powerful tool for anyone and especially for a leader. When we look for the good in people, we will find it. When those we lead know that we see good in them, they feel valued and respected. They want to prove that our faith in them is well-placed. They will often rise to meet our expectations. If we find concerns in their performance, we are able to weigh those concerns against all they bring to the table. We would not so blind our eyes to tolerate any kind of bad behavior. There must be accountability. Yet a strong tendency to look for the good is more likely to be right and to be effective in leadership than a strong tendency to look for the bad.

When we face great challenges in our organizations, we may see them as an opportunity to survive or perish. We should remember that the great men of history are made or revealed by the great challenges that have been thrust upon them or they have imposed upon themselves. Winston Churchill found his place in history because he was prime minister in England’s darkest hour and rose to meet the challenge.

In the movie, The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo says: “I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.” Gandalf answers him saying, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil.” Most organizations are faced with serious threats. We must not see these as our doom. These are beautiful opportunities to rise to greatness as leaders.

My own Christian faith is the source of my next thought on beauty. It occurs to me that Jesus Christ must see each of us as beautiful. I am certain that there are some expressions that He is not pleased to see, but I do not believe that He sees any of us is ugly. So, what makes us beautiful to Him? To answer that question, I want to take you to an assisted living facility in Rochester, New York.

It was the Christmas season. We had gone as a family to visit a beautiful, octogenarian couple we knew from church. We had with us three-year-old Abigail and infant Michael. Small children get a lot of attention in assisted living facilities. As we were leaving, we were invited into a public room that had the feel of a living room. In this exchange of laughter and joy, I captured with my camera a remarkable image of Abigail standing in front of a very old woman holding her chin with the tips of the fingers of her upturned hand. Each gazed on the other with a look of pure love. As I have studied the picture, it occurred to me that Abigail only saw beauty. I thought about all the grandparents and great-grandparents all over the world, many of whom are quite weathered and withered with age who are adored and are seen as beautiful by their perfect grand and great-grandchildren.

I am sure that you have known where I was going with this. We are seen as beautiful by Jesus Christ, because he loves us. This has caused me to realize that if I ever see someone as ugly, it tells me far more about where my heart is and should not be than it does about the other person. When we love people, they are beautiful to us.

So, a true understanding of beauty has brought us to love. The kind of love that I am speaking of is philia or brotherly (or sisterly) love. When we truly love, we cannot abuse. We seek the interests of others. We are as merciful as circumstances can allow. If hard choices must be made, we implement them as softly as possible. Love is one of the great and essential leadership qualities. Our ability to see beauty is a powerful indicator of our mastery of that love.

someone in their 80s

Connect with us on LinkedIn, join our Active Network Program and look at the other areas of connection we offer.