Tolerate cultural differences
If your doctor tells you that you need to have an appendectomy, you’d likely ask him or her to refer a surgeon, and you would likely call that recommended surgeon. Upon talking to that surgeon, you learn that you could have your surgery at one of two hospitals. Hospital A is a little further from your home and you hear that the care there is OK but not great. Hospital B is closer to your home, and you hear that the care there is great, so you choose Hospital B to have your surgery at.
“Not for one second do you say to yourself, ‘Who’s the giant corporation headquartered in New York that actually owns Hospital B?’” Karlin says “That didn’t even occur to you. All you thought about is the quality of care. You were focused on the quality of treatment by the surgeon, and does this hospital provide good quality care?”
Because that’s typically the focus for most patients when deciding upon a health care facility, Karlin doesn’t look to make everything the same as the larger CRC organization after he does an acquisition.
“The important thing is don’t go in there and say, ‘Everything you learned, I want you to forget about — we’re going to show you the right way to do things,’ because all you’ll do is you will destroy the very thing you paid for in the first place,” he says.
Instead, he says that CRC is accepting and embracing of cultural differences between facilities.
“What we don’t do is try to force every organization to have the same culture as the parent organization,” Karlin says. “We have honesty as an overall corporate culture, but we have a very high tolerance for nuances in culture, and that’s been crucial for us in acquisitions because people like to sell to us because they know that we’re not going to go blasting in there and try to shift the culture in a fundamental way. If the culture is completely different than ours and is incompatible, then we won’t buy in the first place.”
For example, Karlin says that some smaller facilities have more of a laissez-faire approach to things because that’s how the founders have been. In that situation, he would need to shift the culture a little bit to be more focused on accountability and responsibility, so he’ll put in place mechanisms for assuring true accountability in the staff. Another example is switching financial systems because all of the CRC facilities need to be on the same system.
On the other hand, perhaps a facility has a clinical approach that none of the other CRC facilities has taken, so it’s somewhat different, but it has proven effective. As long as it’s scientifically proven and meets his quality standards, he’s inclined to not mess with changing it.
“We might say, ‘Hey, it’s working, it’s helping people, we can see the outcomes, let’s leave it alone,’” he says. “Why change that? Why coerce them into changing what they do clinically that’s working well for their patients? There’s an example of an area that we have high tolerance. Now, if they’re doing some witch-doctor things, that’s different, but we wouldn’t buy them in the first place.”
Another example of tolerating differences comes in the name of the facility. While most leaders are quick to change the name of the acquired organization, Karlin takes the opposite approach and leaves the name as-is.
“I’m a huge believer in legacy,” he says. “ … Legacy is the quality; it’s the essence of the facility. You see, most facilities were founded by individuals, right? Not giant corporations. … The very essence of that facility is vested in the founders and has a lot to do with the culture.”
Instead, he takes a multibranding approach, so when you walk into the facility, in large letters on the wall, you’ll see the primary name of that business. But then in smaller letters underneath the original name, it will say, “A member of the CRC Health Group.” Karlin likens it to a car customer purchasing a Lexus.
“The brand you’re buying is Lexus, but you also know it’s ultimately owned by Toyota, so you get the benefit of both,” he says. “Same with us. The brand is the facility, which I preserve, but ultimately, there is a company called CRC behind that, which assures continuity and stability and assures that there are plenty of resources to make certain that that facility does things right.”
How to reach: CRC Health Group Inc., (877) 637-6237 or www.crchealth.com
