Developing the Tools to Embrace Change
Lynne Ferrari, medical director of the operating room and chief of perioperative anesthesia for Boston Children's Hospital, knew that her nearly three decades of clinical experience would not be enough to help the hospital build on its success. Wanting to understand how a large, successful organization can change and grow, Dr. Ferrari enrolled in the Program for Leadership Development (PLD).
How did your fellow participants enhance the learning experience?
In my PLD class of 103 people, there were just three physicians. It was so valuable to hear the different perspectives people brought from their own industry, business, or country. When a hundred-plus people spend several weeks together, incredibly tight connections develop. Everyone who has gone through PLD says they made a hundred new best friends.
How did PLD provide you with insight into your own skills?
The 360-degree feedback exercise was unexpected and very helpful. Physicians come from a culture where the doctor is the authority, so it was scary at first to ask for opinions from others. But it's very, very helpful to receive positive and negative feedback, to learn how your leadership style affects other people, and to identify which elements are most or least effective. As part of that exercise, we also received excellent coaching that was truly tailored to our individual needs.
How will you apply what you learned in the hospital environment?
We tend to think that the field of medicine is different from other industries. In PLD, we learned that some frameworks can be applied to all organizations. Whether you are running a hospital or an auto manufacturer or a bank, the principles at the highest level are the same. For example, templates for mapping out a business strategy have been very helpful for mapping out the strategy and processes for an operating room.
What impact has PLD had on your organization?
A dozen or so of our physicians have completed PLD. When we sit at a table together, we share a common language and know what we need to accomplish. We're in different parts of the clinical environment, but our objectives are the same.
PLD has also given us a more institutional perspective on how we approach challenges. In the past, we might ask, "How is this going to affect my practice or the way I deal with patients?" Now we say, "What does the institution need and how do we mold physician behavior so that everyone can still deliver excellent care in ways that further the institution's other goals?"
How is PLD helping you and fellow PLD participants manage change at Children's Hospital?
We need to take a very large organization full of very independent-minded physicians and develop a shared understanding of the changes we need to make. This is not something you learn how to do in medical school. In PLD, we gained the tools needed to engage our physician colleagues, disseminate information, and get buy-in at all levels. We learned that communication must flow in both directions. Leaders need input from the front lines, and people need to understand the rationale behind a change.