Set the tone
Opening the lines of communication is vital to creating and
maintaining a culture. Feinberg starts by meeting his customers — the patients.
“The business that we’re in, we have to remember to stay
focused every day that we’re here just to take care of those
patients, and I meet as many of them as possible,” Feinberg
says.
That commitment to meet with people is something that he
knows not every leader will make, but Feinberg insists it
makes all the difference in setting an example for his culture.
And, whether it’s patients or customers, you need to make that
a priority so they can understand what is going on at the
ground level. That means Feinberg makes a conscious decision to schedule a great deal of his time for speaking with
patients.
“I spend 40 percent of my time not at the bedside but literally
on the bed,” he says. “I introduce myself to the patient. I say, ‘I’m
the director here, how are you feeling, how’s your care, have we
communicated to you in a way that you understand? Here’s my
card, give me a call if there’s anything I can do to help you.’”
While most leaders would be concerned that those kind of visits lead people to come to them with more trivial matters, that’s
exactly what Feinberg wants. When he hears how the little
things are going with patient care, he can work on the core
problems with the system and see what’s working.
“Whether it’s that leukemia patient who calls my office to say a
TV doesn’t work, to a patient who says, ‘I want you to compliment this nurse,’ to me, that’s our business, so I see that as my
No. 1 job,” he says.
With so much of his schedule purposefully tied to these meetings, Feinberg sets an example for the culture at UCLA — after
all, if the CEO makes time to sit with a patient, so can a nurse.
“It’s incredibly rewarding to have that direct connection with
patients and families where we are literally changing their
lives,” he says. “That’s why our 7,000 employees come to work
every day, so to be able to do that shoulder to shoulder with
them provides an inspiration to them. Despite the many challenges of the business, if you can be out there to help them
remember why they come to work every day, it makes it much
more rewarding.”
When you are pushing a culture that promotes an emphasis on
people, the ability to talk with those on the front line can give you
the greatest asset of all: a good story. For Feinberg, talking with
patients means he gets examples of nurses and residents who did
things right.
“When a mom says to me, ‘We’ve been to four hospitals; no
one got it right, but we’re getting the right answer here,’ or
somebody says to me, ‘We wouldn’t go anywhere else; this is
our hospital,’” he says. “Those things come to me and I’m able
to share them with everybody. I’m fortunate that those come to
my office. They’re not about me, they’re about staff, but that
energizes me, and I’m able to take those stories with me and
share them with the staff.”