Drive your initiatives
Thanks to old and new employees, internal and external benchmarks and lots of data, Hallman identified six initiatives he wanted InSight to tackle under his guidance. But articulating those wasn’t the hard part.
“It’s easy to communicate in an outbound way,” he says. “What’s difficult is ensuring that the message is received. It’s very difficult to know whether you’re getting through to 100 people or 1,000 people. So I have to rely on making sure that my team gets it and that they’re talking to their team. And hopefully their team gets it and those folks are pushing it out through the organization.”
Focus on your management team first. Because you keep closer and more frequent contact, you’ll have more opportunities to reiterate the goals to them.
Hallman meets with his team at least once a month. In those meetings, they review and update their individual goals for the quarter. He hands out sheets that list each one’s tasks next to the corresponding initiatives, visually aligning their short-term goals to the long-term vision.
“The mandate was set forth that if what you were doing didn’t some way or another drive one of these six initiatives, you probably should think twice about doing it,” Hallman says.
Of course, you risk losing that alignment in a game of telephone as the message trickles down. So as you communicate the goals to your direct reports, remind them that consistency is crucial.
While you depend on them to relay the message to their reports, do your part to keep it consistent by communicating to those managers yourself. For example, Hallman organizes a conference call with 100 of his managers to give them progress updates.
He also reaches out to the 150 or so employees at the corporate office by bringing lunch for small groups of them every couple of weeks. He reiterates the goals and answers questions while telling jokes to set an informal tone.
To touch the employees in the field — the majority of his work force — Hallman says that the secret is variety. The more ways you can get your message out, the more opportunities they have to pick it up. In addition to spending time at other locations, Hallman uses the company’s biweekly newsletter as a reminder.
Consider new ways technology can propel your message to employees more efficiently. Hallman is exploring the use of audio and video on the e-mail newsletter. He’s even contemplating tweeting quick updates on Twitter.
In your communication, repeat the goals as a reminder but also give examples of what you’re doing to achieve them, keeping employees updated throughout the journey.
By the end of Hallman’s first calendar year, InSight reduced denial rates by a third. EBITDA has also stabilized in the $40 million range since Hallman took over. The recently released fiscal third quarter EBITDA margins are at 18 percent, which are double last year’s third quarter results and even up from the previous 12-month margins, which were 14 percent.
“While we’re not out of the woods yet; we are clearly moving very rapidly in the right direction,” Hallman says.
How to reach: InSight Health Corp., (949) 282-6000 or www.insighthealth.com
