Innovation
Guided by principles
How Angela Braly leads WellPoint based on clear goals and a strong sense of purpose
By Kristy J. O’Hara
Smart Business Akron/Canton | September 2007
Angela Braly faced one of the biggest challenges of her career
when she joined Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Missouri in 1999 as
general counsel. The company was struggling to compete and
faced litigation, but in the end, she worked with regulators to
address these issues, and it resulted in creating the Missouri
Foundation for Health, a $1 billion fund to address health care
needs of uninsured and underserved Missouri residents.
That drive and dedication guides Braly today as president and
CEO of WellPoint Inc., the parent company of Anthem Blue Cross
and Blue Shield. She’s the only female CEO of a Fortune 50 company and says that passion is critical to successfully leading a company in today’s business world.
“Nothing could be more important than being passionate about
your organization’s mission and values,” Braly says.
It’s important that your organization have a clear vision and set
of goals for everyone to understand and work toward.
“When thinking about an organization’s vision and goals, it’s
important to start with the questions, ‘Why are we here? What is
our role?’” Braly says. “Answering these questions creates the road
map that then leads an organization to defining its strategy and initiatives.”
Anthem’s mission is to improve the lives of the people it serves
and the health of its communities. Two years ago, Anthem’s leaders went through a thorough process to create a road map for turning that mission into specific, actionable steps people can take to
ultimately achieve it.
“It has been a very valuable, strategic framework for everything
we have done since,” Braly says. “It was important for us to create
a powerful, inspirational vision, but it was just as important to
develop very specific measures to determine whether we’re meeting our expectations.”
In all, she and her team created 29 different metrics for everyone
to work toward.
“That has helped us feel a sense of urgency around accomplishing
our goals,” Braly says.
It’s easy to make goals and have metrics, but it’s another story getting employees to buy in to those initiatives. When Anthem created
a system that tracks 20 different clinical indicators relating to the
health status of its 34 million members, it was just one initiative
important to improving the company, but there had to be a way to
get people to care about this and other changes.
“We have taken the additional step of tying the compensation
incentives of our associates to improvements in it,” Braly says.
Taking that step shows employees that Braly and her management
team are serious about the new goals and metrics, and it also makes
employees more interested in succeeding because of the direct tie to
their bonuses.
When rolling out a mission, vision or goals, it’s also important that
the communication is effective. Otherwise, there’s no point in communicating.
“Effective communication takes the complex and makes it simple,”
Braly says. “I believe in being straightforward, honest and transparent
at every level.”
For example, it’s easier for customers to understand a document
called “Your health statement” instead of an “Explanation of benefits.”
Things like this make communication clearer, and she wants to continue these initiatives. Since becoming CEO in June, she’s met with
hundreds of customers, associates, brokers, agents, investors and
members, and she pledges to continue these meetings to ensure communication is efficient, clear and honest.
On top of Anthem’s overall mission, she also uses personal values to
guide her decision-making, and she says that’s equally important to
succeeding in business.
“Good leaders have a very strong set of values,” Braly says. “They
know who they are and what they believe. They have a strong
sense of what ‘True North’ means to them. Every day a leader is
faced with important choices — some small and some larger —
and the best leaders always fall back on their core set of beliefs
and values in guiding them to decisions that are best.”
In addition to the company’s mission and personal values, Braly
stresses that in order to have continued success you have to constantly be improving yourself and learning.
“Good leaders are also lifelong learners,” she says. “It is important
to be curious and inquisitive about the needs of customers, businesses, organizations — their needs and interests are always evolving. A good leader recognizes this and understands that she never
has all the answers. With that awareness comes humility and a commitment to growth and process improvement.”
HOW TO REACH: WellPoint Inc., www.wellpoint.com or (317) 532-6000
