What one "Real Housewife" is teaching me about leadership and business
First, I love Bravo. It's my guilty pleasure and go to show when I want to watch something mindless (and I do love the drama). Bethenny Frankel is one of those polarizing cast members from the Real Housewives of New York City, but I have always been a fan. Bethenny actually broke out of the "Real Housewife" stardom and is famous for many other things such as her Skinny Girl cocktail brand and being a judge on Shark Tank. She has always had a business mindset. Somehow I discovered her podcast which she launched about a year ago - "Just B with Bethenny Frankel." The nuggets of advice and insight from this podcast have been pretty incredible. Each week she interviews someone famous, many are women in high level leadership and business roles (which initially attracted me to the podcast) and they share how they got to where they are today.
This post may seem pretty different than what I've shared previously - and you might be asking how this is related to healthcare. Now that I've covered some of my background and the Administrative Fellowship process, I'm excited to start to share some of the other things I've been listening to/reading about that inspired me to write this blog. I have always been interested in reading about leadership skills and continuing to grow a leadership mindset. There are so many resources out there that may not mention "healthcare" or "hospitals" specifically, but that still 100% apply to the work we are doing as healthcare leaders. Healthcare is also a business and it is an industry that has a lot to learn from other industries that move and innovate at a much faster pace.
The episode that drew me in was Bethenny's interview with Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and Founder of LeanIn. Sheryl discussed her decision and process to join Facebook as the #2 (not the #1) working for a much younger boss (Mark Zuckerberg). She also discussed one of the greatest recruitment stories she had when the candidate said to her - "what is your biggest problem and how can I solve it?" This is something that made me think and I now do my best to discuss with leaders when getting involved in a new project or even when looking for new roles or growth opportunities. I wrote this down and keep it with me because I think asking this question - when you truly mean it - goes a long way and shows the drive and dedication to get the job done.
However, my biggest takeaway is the following:
Sheryl shared how you need to have structure and rules in any business and it is important to know the things you cannot mess up - the places you can take risk from the places you can't.
She was at a dinner next to the CEO of major airline and recently had an experience where she had three flights delayed due to catering and luggage. Sheryl asked the CEO about this and said something along the lines of (I'm paraphrasing in all of the following), so much can go wrong with the airline industry, but how come all of the delays are catering and luggage?
The CEO said - I have a business and in a huge part of my business, there is no room for error. Planes have to take off and we cannot have mechanical or maintenance problems. All of the delays and errors SHOULD BE catering and luggage.
If you think about this as a passenger on the plane, even though it is frustrating, I would absolutely prefer the errors and delays to be catering and luggage versus a mechanical error.
As she shared on the podcast, this made Sheryl think, and has made me think - what is the plane maintenance and what is the catering and luggage for each unique business? What does this mean for hospital operations and healthcare? Were can we take the risk? Is our plane maintenance providing quality, safe patient care with zero harm? Saving lives? Should it also be ease of access and simplified billing? What is our catering and luggage? Is this scheduling? Where can we (and should we) innovate and take risk? Where is the room for innovation or potential "errors" that do not sacrifice the care delivered to patients.
What are your thoughts? What is healthcare's plane maintenance and what is the catering and luggage?
Much more to come from this podcast!
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