Edward Mirzabegian may be a
perfectionist, but he doesn’t let that slow him down. On the
contrary, the CEO of Antelope
Valley Hospital was once chastised for going too fast.
Years ago, a former employer
had to remind him that he could-n’t expect perfection from those
around him if he didn’t take the
time to set forth clear expectations in an articulate manner.
Mirzabegian has since adopted
a charismatic style of face-to-face communication to get the most out of the health care
provider’s 2,100 employees. By
sharing the organization’s goals
in person, he says, you’re much
more likely to get buy-in and
shed light on the little things
that only like-minded perfectionists may notice at first.
Since Mirzabegian took over
as CEO last June, he’s helping
Antelope Valley Hospital continue its upward revenue trend,
as it posted 2007 revenue of
$251 million, up from $243 million the previous year.
Smart Business spoke with
Mirzabegian about how to make
yourself visible when communicating, even if you’re not physically present.
Articulate your expectations face to
face. The first thing you have
to do is make sure that people
around you have your expectations. You have to let them
know your vision and ideas
and where you’re coming
from. They have to be really
given the goals and given the
direction. They have to know
who you are, how you think
and where you’re going.
What works best is [communicating those expectations]
face to face. A lot of companies that are very big corporations usually do it with memos
and directives and all that. But
honestly, in order to really
know who you are and understand your direction, face-to-face [communication] is the
best. It can be one on one or
you and a group of them.
I go around the hospital in a
lot of staff meetings, also. Once
a month, I go to staff meetings
to just let them know where we
are going, who I am and what
my expectations are from that
particular group.
You can get their buy-in more
with face-to-face. Why? You can
see their body gestures. You can
see their facial gestures and animation. That will give you feedback if they’re on the same page
with you or no. If they’re not,
you can sell them [on your
ideas] more. If you sell them by
memo, you don’t know when
they read the memo what their
reactions are.
Make yourself visible. Executives should be visible as
much as possible. Visibility
improves trust.
If you are an executive or a
CEO of a bigger company and
you have five branches in different states, you can’t be there all
the time, but just being visible
[to some extent] helps you to gain trust and understanding
and helps things move overall.
Pictures do wonders, also. I
do a lot of small flyers where
we communicate our goals, and
we communicate our accomplishments within the organization. Having a picture there
with your message, it improves
that letter. They know who you
are, and if they see you in the
hallway, they know, ‘OK, there’s
the guy whose picture is on that
particular newsletter.’
So if it’s not totally possible to
be visible in person, pictures
and videos and all that will help.
For instance, if we have a town-hall meeting with a very important message that we want to
send, we have meetings at 7 in
the morning and 10 a.m. and
lunch and 3 o’clock and 8
o’clock. But sometimes, people
who work at night will not see
the message. Sometimes, we
will video all of these meetings,
and we just [set up a television
and continue to replay it] in
their break room, and people
will see and hear the message.
Using media is the best way if
you can’t be physically visible.
Stir up competition. The status
quo is a killer in any organization. I don’t care how successful that organization is.
If you just keep it the status
quo, that organization, in the
long run, will fail.
Competition is a good way
to keep people on their toes.
Competition is good if everybody competes against the
competition, which is outside. That ultimately is going
to make or break the organization.
Benchmarking is the best tool.
You always have to benchmark
yourself with competition, good
or bad. You always want to
know where you’re standing.
Communicating that benchmark, regardless of whether it’s
good or bad, is an excellent tool
to boost people’s energy and to
push them to the right direction.
A lot of people really respond
to that. Nobody wants to be a
loser. When you show the
benchmark, when you look at
similar organizations and what
they’re doing, that creates a little bit of competition and
makes people’s temperatures
go higher.
Use incentives to motivate. Stirring up that competition is not
the only way. Rewards are
very important.
Just like you have to deal
with mediocrity, you have to
acknowledge the good work,
also. You have to acknowledge
the people. You have to
reward people.
This reward can be a pat on
the back or a present or recognition. Sometimes, you just
mention somebody’s name in
your speeches, in your writing
and in your memos. That goes
a long way.
When you incentivize people
and they reach their goals and
you reward them, it always
makes the employee happy.
The happier they are, the better they work.
If you really emphasize
those rewards as a group, it
works even better. A group
of people can get together as
a team and really work for a
mutual goal.
HOW TO REACH: Antelope Valley Hospital, (661) 949-5000 or www.avhospital.org
