Bill Considine has an unfinished suncatcher in his office. It catches the rays of the sun and reflects them through its colored glass to brighten the room.
However, this suncatcher has a deeper meaning for Considine, president and CEO of the Akron Children’s Hospital.
Angie, a girl who died at the hospital after a courageous battle with cancer, made the suncatcher. She loved painting suncatchers; it was something she picked up as part of the hospital’s art therapy program. After Angie died, her mother wrote Considine a letter that praised the hospital and its staff but noted that there were several things that could be improved.
Considine met with that mother, and through those initial conversations, a Parent Advisory Committee and a Parent Mentoring Program were created. The two initiatives were designed to make
communication easier between the organization and those it serves, and they have been a testament to the power of collaboration.
Shortly after the advisory committee began meeting, Angie’s mother presented Considine with one of the two suncatchers Angie left unfinished, and kept the other to remember her daughter.
“To her it represented the unfinished nature of her being a mom,” Considine says. “And to us, that suncatcher represents the unfinished nature of our work. Our work will never be done.”
Providing quality service and adapting to the needs of the community has been a challenge the hospital has faced since 1890, when it first opened its doors. Considine immediately appreciated
and understood the mission and culture of the hospital when he was named president and CEO in 1979.
“We try to polish the jewel that has always been here and have the light of that jewel shine brighter so it reaches more and more children and families,” he says. “There’s nothing new about that,
but there are new, innovative ways to do that, given the advances in technology and the new challenges we face. The vision of this place couldn’t be any better.”
Here are Considine’s keys to leading a diverse organization to new heights.
Humility and focus
One lesson Considine learned early in his career is the importance of humility. The knowledge that running an organization is not just about the person in the big office is something that cannot
be overstated.
“If you can’t be humble, you’re not going to be a leader in my mind,” he says. “Someone told me long ago, ‘Don’t get too enamored of yourself.’ You can become a legend in your own mind. That
can be one of the traps of the CEO office.
“I’m in a role that really has changed my life, yet I know that when I leave this role, there’s going to be someone else here. I don’t want to downplay the contribution I make or that others make
in leadership roles, yet I have seen organizations where people lose it when they think they are irreplaceable.”
Considine also warns of losing track of the core essence of the organization you are leading. At the hospital, which had 2005 revenue of $278 million, the mission has not changed in 107 years:
Service above self.
It is something Considine has personally ingrained in each of the organization’s 3,000 employees during their training by telling new hires about the rich history of the hospital and its culture.
The feedback he receives from the trainees shows his message is getting through.
“They say, ‘If he’s taking face time to do this, it must be important,’” Considine says.
He also rewards employees who live up to the “Service above self” culture.
A hospital employee took 10 minutes to help a flustered family find its car in one of the parking decks, for which she received a “Spirit of Service” card that entered her name in a raffle for prizes.
She also received recognition in the hospital’s newsletter.
“The 10 minutes she spent with that family probably had more impact on them than the whole amount of care they received for their child while they were here,” he says. “Those little things
make a huge difference, and we celebrate those kinds of things. We work hard trying to catch people doing good things, rather than catching people when they screw up and kicking their behind.
That’s how we try to keep the culture alive.”
For the whole of its existence, the hospital has worked toward the same mission. Considine says a change of course would be unthinkable.
“If I tried to take this organization somewhere else other than those kinds of values, it would be a mistake,” he says. “Don’t try to make an organization something it’s not.”
The importance of getting away
Any leader can start to feel trapped if they try to influence every decision made in their organization. Considine has learned that taking a break can actually be quite productive in the long run.
“Everybody has their own ways of dealing with stress,” he says. “If I’m getting overwhelmed by the stuff coming over my desk, I try to have the discipline to push back and go out to one of the
units and talk to a family or talk to a staff member. Those things make a huge difference.”
Different things relax different people. For some, it is time with friends or family. Others have a hobby, such as fishing or golf. Considine says it is important to find the time to do your chosen
activity to charge your batteries. The benefits will show up in your work.
“You need that getaway time,” he says. “If you don’t have that balance and you’re all loaded into the work side, your work isn’t going to be effective any more. You’re not going to think as clearly; you’re going to get worn down and tired. It’s a vicious cycle. That recreation will make you better at work.”
Through the years, Considine has tried to understand what he needs to do to have inner peace. The calm that comes from being at peace with himself helps him make clearheaded decisions, and it
is something executives must learn for themselves.
“You see those guys that are at the foul line and needing to make a basket and the place is going crazy?” he says. “They’re able to tune out all the noise and concentrate on the basket. They don’t
hear everybody yelling at them at all; they’ve got a kind of inner peace. That’s something you can develop in management, too. If you don’t have it, you have to think about how to get it, because
it makes you better.”
A clear head helps you focus on the long-term prospects of the organization.
When you’re the top executive, the pressure to succeed is something that comes with the job. That’s why it is important to step back and take the long view.
“The expectations are enormous,” he says. “You can get too close to the forest to see the trees. One of the expectations is to have the bigger vision, to be able to think out in a generational way. I’ve
worked hard at trying to be a better generational visionary.”
Considine says any leader at the helm of an organization with a lengthy history should aim to be a generational visionary, one who sets the course for years to come.
“It’s not thinking about what we’re going to do next year but thinking about when I’m gone,” he says. “Do we have the foundation to allow this organization to thrive 20 years out? Have we put
things in place that will build on strengths of the past but be the strong foundation of the future?”
Keep things positive
In any workplace, arguments are going to happen. Rather than try to eliminate them, Considine wants his employees to turn their frustrations into positive energy. It may sound corny, but eliminating negative energy is an important part of the organization’s culture.
“We all know how we feel when we’re around negative energy and have a bad experience with somebody who really sucks the sap out of you because of the way they’re behaving,” he says.
“You’re really drained. But if you’re around people who are upbeat, who look at challenges and don’t get sourpussed about them and ask, ‘What can we do to solve this?’ you feel buoyant.
“We’re not being corny; we’re on to something that works, and it’s part of the culture. If you’re part of a team that feels good about what you’re doing, you want to come back to work the next
day.”
Considine says a positive attitude is absolutely imperative for those in management roles.
“If there’s somebody who is mean-spirited, you’ve got to flush that out,” he says. “We just try not to tolerate it, because there’s no place for it. If you allow it to be sustained, it’s going to grow and chew
you up.”
Considine says the best way to remove negative energy before it spreads is to have your employees do self-assessments. Ask them to answer questions such as, “How are you perceived?” and
“Are you a person who passes rumors on, or steps in to quash a false rumor?”
Then management can step in to find out what is causing the negative energy and fix it.
Great leadership doesn’t happen overnight
Several years ago, Considine noticed something during a roundtable discussion with several managers and frontline employees.
Because the organization tended to promote from within, many managers got their roles because they were good technicians. However, being a skilled lab tech or an experienced pharmacist
doesn’t necessarily make a good manager.
“All of a sudden, they were now supervising people,” Considine says. “They hadn’t hired anybody in their life, and now they had to hire, fire and evaluate. They had to understand
budgets, handle payroll. They needed to work with plant maintenance.”
They were good employees, they just didn’t know how to lead others. So after hearing the frustration, Considine worked to develop a leadership academy for new management trainees. However, he didn’t want it simply to offer the nuts and bolts of management.
“I know some very good managers who are Internet-savvy, they’re great with numbers, graphs and analysis, yet for them to be a leader, it’s a huge stretch for them,” he says. “We wanted something that would not just develop managers, but leaders.”
Management trainees go through several modules, focusing on things such as emotional intelligence, communication and compromise, and the ability to distance yourself from the fray or be a
calming influence in a heated argument.
“It’s important to have good managerial skills,” he says. “But when you can match those up with leadership skills and have that emotional intelligence base there, Katie, bar the door, because
there’s nothing that can stop you. That’s when you can really start moving organizations forward and make the impossible possible.”
HOW TO REACH: Akron Children’s Hospital, www.akronchildrens.org
