A Change I Want to Share

I wanted to share some exciting news with you. In the coming days, I will be launching a new platform, www.leadingthechangewithjohncouris.com.

Leading the Change is a dynamic and exciting outgrowth of this blog which so many of you follow directly or via my LinkedIn profile. Over the last two years Inventing Health has expanded its focus beyond issues facing the health care field to explore topics in executive leadership, organizational culture, and motivational management, among other issues.

With this expansion came the need to develop a more robust platform. Leading the Change is being established to provide not only insightful and timely content from me on a wide-range of issues, but to offer a space to advocate for effective policies that ensure all Floridians have access to world-class care. Additionally, it will spotlight the innovative, cutting-edge work of Tampa General Hospital and provide a forum to feature other innovative leaders who are making a dramatic impact in the health care industry.

I look forward to continuing a thoughtful dialogue on not only today’s health care and how we can work together to improve care and outcomes, but to engage on management and executive leadership topics.  I can’t wait to share it with you. Stay tuned for information on how you can subscribe and join me in Leading the Change!

Curiouser and Curiouser

I read with great interest a recent article in the Harvard Business Review sent to me by GE Healthcare Account Executive, Jennifer Miller.  In The Business Case for Curiosity, Francesca Gino discusses the benefits to encouraging a “curious” workplace and offers some strategies to help leverage curiosity in driving your business.

As Gino explains, there are several benefits to cultivating curiosity in your organization.

1. Cultivating curiosity at all levels helps leaders and their team members adapt to whatever comes their way. When we are curious, “we tend to think more deeply and rationally about decisions and come up with more creative solutions,” Gino explains.
2. Leaders can drive curiosity—and improve performance—through subtle management shifts and organizational design.
3. Curiosity increases efficiency and helps minimize risk. It helps decrease decision-making errors as it forces us to challenge assumptions as opposed to simply assuming our assumptions
4. It helps contributes to workplace improvements as team members are driven to find creative solutions to challenges facing an organization and become conditioned to seek improvements.
5. Curiosity facilitates better communication and reduces group conflict as team members are better able to see different perspectives and work collaboratively to solve problems.

These all rang true to me, and I try to employ tactics to drive curiosity at TGH from encouraging learning opportunities and modeling curiosity in my own approach to problem-solving, as I have discussed in my most recent blog posts. I also try to encourage team members to ask questions and think about how they can contribute to the overall goals of the organization. 

It is fitting that it was Jennifer who sent me this article as our partnership with GE is rooted in curiosity. Today, Tampa General Hospital and GE Healthcare are partnering to create a new 9,000-square-foot care coordination center which will open next year. The center will use predictive analytics to help improve the experience and outcomes for patients, families and hospital staff. The center will allow us to be more efficient and shorten the time patients are in the hospital by better managing their care. This technology will also help to reach our goal of providing coordinated patient care after they leave the hospital.

It is true what they say, that you will never know where the next great idea will come from. We can all listen. We can all ask questions. When you make exploration an integral part of your organization, you will help drive creativity and innovation.  

Always Learning

I was fascinated by a recent article I read in the Harvard Business Review advocating the importance of creating a work culture that encourages ongoing learning.  In the piece, Four Ways to Create a Learning Culture on Your Team, authors Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and Josh Bersin encourage managers to prioritize their own ongoing learning—as well as that of their team members—as a way to remain vibrant and successful and help drive the impact of your business. 

The authors argue that the desire to seek knowledge, learn, ask questions and apply information in new ways is more critical than ever as our organizations are radically and constantly evolving in response to the ongoing digital revolution. Businesses that celebrate a constant quest for knowledge in its team members, they explain, will have a leg up on the competition. As the take away, they provide four tips to implementing a culture of learnability with your own organization.

• Reward continuous learning and critical thinking as a way to ignite innovation.
• Give meaning and constructive feedback to highlight “knowledge gaps” in order to promote learning and improvement.
• Hire curious people to build a team driven to problem solve and innovate new business.
• Lead by example when it comes to your own ongoing learning.

What has stayed with me from the article is the recommendation that leaders promote a culture of learning by practicing what they preach and leading by example. This makes perfect sense to me as I continue to be driven each day by the desire to learn new things and take what I have learned and incorporate it into the work I do.

It is this passion to continue to learn and seek opportunities to learn more, lead by example and the belief that there is always room to grow that has led me pursue a Doctor of Business Administration. In January, I will begin working towards a Ph.D. in Business Administration at the Muma College of Business at the University of South Florida. 

I have thought about getting a Ph.D. for years, but the timing has not worked until now. By entering the DBA program, I hope to build on my hard and soft skills and all that I have learned thus far in my over two decades of applied experience. The reality is that the health care industry is always changing and at a dramatic pace, especially as the paradigm of health care delivery moves from provider driven to consumer-focused. To remain vital, you must always be willing to learn, adapt and implement. I hope that what I learn as part of this program, will help better inform the work I do at TGH and out in the community. 

As I work towards my Ph.D., I will also continue to advocate for and encourage my leaders to pursue additional educational opportunities and degree programs. I will also be there to support them along the way. By prioritizing education, we will each not only realize personal and professional goals, we will continue to elevate the quality of work and services provided by TGH. We will build upon and implement all that we have learned and experienced to continue to provide the highest quality service and care—a win for us all.