President and CEO, Jameson Health System
As a business leader, your
professional life — and probably your personal life —
is governed by a calendar. What
you can and can’t do depends
on whether there is any white
space remaining in those little
dated squares.
But when it comes to making
yourself available to your employees, Thomas White says the calendar has to go out the window. The president and CEO of
Jameson Health System — a
health care network that counts $95 million Jameson Memorial
Hospital as it centerpiece facility
— says that taking care of your
employees and listening to their
ideas and concerns isn’t something you fit in when you have
the time; it’s a priority.
If you have the mindset that
you are there to serve your
employees, then making time
for others is the essence of
your job. White says there is
nothing more important to your
company than enabling your
employees to do their best, and
they can’t do their best without
your involvement.
Smart Business spoke with
White about why your employees are your No. 1 priority
when allocating your time.
Remember that communication is
your job. Face-to-face communication is a key. In this modern
world of instant communication, the telephone and the next
wave was voice mail, then computers, e-mails, then the
BlackBerrys and whatever else
is out there, that’s all fine and
good, but there is no substitute
for face to face.
I don’t think it’s making time
for that. You have to have time
for that. What you make time
for are the other things, the dayto-day responsibilities you have
or your personal life. I’m not
saying you give up your personal life, but you have to have time
to talk to your people face to
face because, otherwise, they’ll
forget you or they’ll ignore you.
If you’re only coming around
when there are problems, they
have every right to say, ‘Where
were you when I was really having a problem?’ You have to
wander around. Management
by wandering around is an old
cliché, but I still think it’s workable. Even if you walk through a
department or a unit and make
an observation and people see
you, you don’t have to answer
any questions or make any decisions, but, at least, you have the
opportunity for informal banter.
You can ask someone about
their family — as long as you
know they have a family. You
can’t manufacture familiarity
when it’s not there, but in most
organizations, you have PR people or someone constantly feeding you information.
Listen, then listen some more.
You have to talk a lot as the
head of an organization, but you
also have to be a good listener,
then respond to whatever issue
there is, not letting it fester or
delay, or giving whatever the
issues there are a chance to run away from you.
We go through cycles as leaders. When we’re young and we
feel we have to prove something, we’re constantly talking
about it. Then there is a realization that talking about something is one thing but listening is
something else.
You learn to be a good listener.
I don’t think you walk out on
day one and say, ‘I’m a good listener.’ You acquire that skill, and
hopefully, you acquire it quickly
enough in your career that it
works for you all the time.
People very quickly know, not
only through your body language but your responses and
actions, whether you have really
been listening or not.
I don’t think there is anything
more demoralizing to someone that, after having given a dissertation, someone looks up and
says, ‘Oh, what did you say?’
No. 1, that’s just plain rude, but
No. 2, it shows that you weren’t
listening. You had better not
have any conversations if you’re
going to do that.
You really have to mature into
that frame of mind. But you
have to mature into it at some
point in order to be successful.
If you go into any situation with
the idea that you don’t have to
listen, you’re dead.
Show your employees the big picture. We all have assigned tasks
within an organization, whether
it’s the president and CEO or
anyone else. We all have assigned
responsibilities, and each carries
with it a defined expectation of how the outcome should be,
where we should be in terms of
progressive positioning.
We look at that and make
sure people know that they’re
accountable. Then, when they’ve
performed in the manner that
we expected, we reward them,
whether it’s monetary or recognition through the numerous
methods we have. Or, if they’re
not doing their job, that they are
similarly recognized, but that
would not be a very good form
of recognition, and we would
expect them to improve.
Get to know your employees. If
you are genuinely interested,
you learn details and other
things about people’s lives. You
listen at meetings when someone is talking.
My senior management meetings always conclude with a
round table. Any manager can
say anything they want about
operations, about any issue they
want. Through that, you’ll find
out that someone is in the hospital having a procedure. When
that happens, I write that down
and try to remember it.
When I see that person in the
halls or wherever, I’ll ask how
the procedure went. Or, for
instance, if someone has a new
baby, we post that. So you read
your postings in the executive
dining room. You may never use
it, but it’s there.
The more you do that, the
more people believe you’re
doing it sincerely. But if you’re
only doing it once a year, they’ll
walk away from you.
HOW TO REACH: Jameson Health System, (724) 658-9001 or www.jamesonhealthsystem.com