The 21st Century Leader: Creating a Healthy Engaged Workforce and Community
| Date: November 8, 2007 | Location: Naples, FL |
The Members’ Meeting at the beautiful Ritz-Carlton Beach Resort in Naples, Florida, has been the most inspiring and invigorating event to date for the Center for Health Transformation.
By bringing together transformational thinkers across various industries, our members had a unique opportunity to network and discuss innovative solutions that will impact the way we view healthcare in America.
We were honored to have as our special guest speakers a panel of experts in their respective fields. First, we heard from Jim Clifton with Gallop. His presentation on effective employee engagement clearly illustrates that engaged employees make the difference in a profitable corporation. Perhaps his best illustration of employee engagement levels was a discussion based on his own personal experience at a large bookstore. Intending to purchase a recent magazine featuring an analysis of law schools for his son to choose from, he went to the store only to find the racks empty. Upon inquiring with an employee about more copies, he was met with a rather disgruntled, uninterested and unhelpful individual. Ready to depart without spending any money, he was approached by what he refers to as an “actively engaged” employee. This young man asked if he could help him. Mr. Clifton then explained he had come to purchase a roughly $10 magazine on schools. This engaged employee quickly directed him to book that provided even more useful information than what the magazine, Clifton’s original intended purchase was to be. Now, he was purchasing a more expensive item; in all, spending $50 on this particular visit to the bookstore. The actively engaged employee went on to ask if there was anything else he could assist with, thereby opening the door for even more purchasing opportunities. In all, Mr. Clifton left spending more money than he had set out to do, largely because of one actively engaged employee. The entire experience at the bookstore made Mr. Clifton think. If you extrapolated the cost analysis of the entire interaction, once by focusing on the disengaged employee and its financial metric = $0 and then once by focusing on the actively engaged employee and its financial metrics =$50, he recognized that if the entire bookstore system was affected by transactions such as his, it would be a $15 million dollar difference just because of employee engagement and the power of the personal touch.
Our next speaker was a particular honor to host, as we were staying at his hotel, The Ritz-Carlton Beach Resort. John Timmerman provided clear lessons on how service impacts every division of an organization. He structured his remarks around the fact that leadership drives service and personal responsibility is critical. He stated emphatically that values cannot be delegated but personally owned. With values in place, “repetition, repetition, repetition,” was essential to a fluid and functional system. Mr. Timmerman had installed this line of thinking at the flagship Ritz-Carlton Beach Resort in Naples years before, and we were able to witness firsthand his process in action.
Our final speaker, Mike Morrison of the University of Toyota discussed the methodology of lean thinking. Not only is the Toyota Company considered extremely efficient and profitable as an automaker, but it is also leading the way on educating their employees, and now others, on how to be managerial gurus. An in-house training center, the University of Toyota provides momentum toward business principles that are applicable across industries including law enforcement, construction, and yes, especially healthcare. His quadrant display of opposing philosophies of possible/actual and impersonal/ personal illustrated how corporations must acknowledge in which of the four quadrants their company currently exists. Then, they must identify the challenges and decide which improvements must be made to truly transform. He reminded the audience that it is possible to move from operational excellence to collaborative innovation. We can always improve. This requires personal leadership at all levels, learning to cut waste out of daily activities, and above all, consistency.
With the conclusion of our three speakers, Newt led a panel discussion that incorporated the unique perspectives of each speaker and their subsequent impact on healthcare specifically. The robust conversation concluded with a round of Q&A that was both interesting and educational. The conversation was continued and further explored in our charter member advisory board meeting, which took place immediately following the general member meeting.
Many of our members told us that they thought this was the best member meeting to date and encouraged us to consider returning to the same location next year.
