Shake a few thousand hands
While Feinberg appreciated the lesson on staying single-minded,
he notes another tidbit he got from his father as even more important.
“The most important thing that he taught me was to have integrity,” Feinberg says.
Applied to business, that means if you say you want employees to be happy so they’ll take care of people, you need to have
the integrity to prove it. Feinberg has to show the same commitment to that effort that he does to leading the charge in taking care of patients. He shows up at events that are important
to the staff and makes his presence known by engaging in conversations. He says that if employees see you, it will be easier
for them to feel comfortable coming to you with a problem.
“I invite 10 people to lunch once a week randomly from different
departments,” he says. “As I’m walking the floors meeting patients,
I meet with departments. I attend as many ceremonies as possible,
I attend memorial services — any of the things where the staff is
coming together. I go on rounds with the medical team. I try to be
out of my office as much as possible because I’m 100 percent
about the relationships.”
If you want to make employees care about others, you have to
make sure they know someone cares about them. When Feinberg
was the medical director at Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital
before being promoted to the head of the hospital system, he knew
all 400 of his employees by name and made it a point to know
something about their family lives. He can’t do that now with his
7,000 employees, but he sure tries.
“When I took on this role, I made the commitment that my efforts
are to meet all 7,000 people,” he says. “Now, I can’t tell you I remember everyone’s name, but I can’t imagine anything more important
than those people who are so important to what we’re doing having access to me and to others in the executive suite. That’s why
we’re here is to make sure those people do the job that we’re supposed to be doing.
“Now, obviously, I can’t listen to every single employee, so the
whole leadership team is set up to have open lines of communication.”
Creating communication lines by having other senior leaders at
company events or mixing with employees at luncheons, titles can
be removed and opinions can be shared. Those conversations,
mixed with Feinberg’s intense front-line work, help him see smaller, day-to-day changes that can help employees.
Feinberg’s leadership team did an employee satisfaction survey last year to address any gaps, trying to avoid letting one
opinion slip through. While he knows that UCLA is afforded
the technological luxuries of the field, he ensures that his leadership team follows up on employee happiness in other areas
by responding to that survey. In showing that you care about
the little concerns of employees, Feinberg notices that morale
goes up — and that can be tied to patient care.
“We have focused very heavily on making sure our people felt
on top of their game and the morale was good,” Feinberg says.
“All my communication is around how to improve the patient
experience — while connecting to the idea that we’re going to
continue to take care of our people and we’re going to get the
best support systems for them.”
Creating avenues for employees to feel supported is something
that you have to stay on top of every day, but if it’s a priority to
connect the mission with employee happiness, you will see the
results in the efforts they put in to take care of people.
“I believe in the servant model, where the top of the organization chart is the bedside nurse, the residents are at the second level and the very top level is the patient,” Feinberg says.
“I’m really at the bottom of the chart. My job is to support
those that are taking care of those patients. When you think
about the offering we deliver, it’s a very people-intensive
process, so we have to make sure that our people feel heard
and feel part of the team so they can stay focused on that offering.”