Hire and empower doers
OK, so you’re trying to empower people. But you can’t be a personal cheerleader for every employee and you can’t spend months on every hire to make sure new people are entrepreneurial. What Creem has learned through the years is that you need more self-starters in your management team to start the process.
“I’m looking for people who I feel are ‘doers,’ people who can actually get things done,” he says. “You come across a lot of people who know theory, know management theory, know what’s happening in an industry, but you really need people who can take and translate good management ideas into action and can do that through delegation and getting their people behind them. That’s a trait that’s really important to me: people who can get things done and then they also have to be good people people who can motivate, manage and inspire their subordinates to reach new levels of performance.”
Putting those thoughts into practice is something that Creem has worked on over the years, and the first step to finding a doer is about taking the time to get to know someone.
“It is hard on paper to do it,” he says. “I make sure that I meet with them at least two, if not three, times and I try to get past the first interview where I feel like we’re both really selling each other and, in particular, I’m trying to sell them on the organization.”
But anyone can do multiple interviews. At USC, Creem makes the most of his second or third chances with a candidate by focusing on how people handle real-life situations that call for action.
“I can see more about the person and ask them questions about how they would handle certain situations and what would they do in this particular job and give them some scenarios to work through with me on how they would approach it,” he says. “Have they had similar situations, and what have they done in similar situations?”
He’s not looking for a perfect answer, he just wants to see the person taking charge of the situation. Further, a doer will show a flash of that trait by flipping the interview back to you.
“I can see it by questions they ask me,” Creem says. “How would I support them, how much latitude do I give them, how much autonomy. And then I give them examples of situations and how would I handle it, and I can get a strong sense of whether they can get things done or not get things done, and I can also get a better sense of their technical competency.”
Along the way, Creem also puts people through his personal litmus test: putting them in a room with an established doer or two.
“It’s also important for me to have them interview with other folks that I feel are doers, and I ask these people to tell me frankly whether they think they’re a doer or not a doer,” he says. “Are they a doer or are they a theorist?”
Once you’ve hired some doers, you have to let them do. When you have motivated managers, they’ll want to have a heavy hand in decisions for an organization’s direction. You have to let that happen.
“A good leader has to be very thoughtful and open-minded about the decision-making process,” Creem says. “Particularly in the environments where I work, it’s very complex environments and visions that I make can often have profound implications on patient care or patient service.”
But, of course, there’s the old leadership paradox that comes with inclusion: You still have to make decisions in a timely fashion. Creem does that through his managers. He can’t be at both hospitals 24 hours a day, so he congregates a core group of managers to design and implement the big-picture things.
That’s tricky, because having 40 empowered people in the room will lead to 40 strong opinions. When it comes to big issues, it’s about having a smaller group. At USC, it’s usually six senior leaders: the chief financial officer, chief information officer, chief marketing officer, chief human resources officer, chief operating officer and chief nursing officer. When there’s a specific issue with compliance, marketing, etc., the heads of those departments are brought in. Once you have a small, focused group, then you can let everyone express his or her opinion.
“I try to drive people toward a consensus, and I often find that during that process I can get many different points of view on the table at the same time,” Creem says. “I can create a sense of participation and transparency in the decision-making process, and I find that as long as everyone is involved, they’re less likely to be upset with the outcome if it’s not theirs if they feel they are part of the process.”