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Learning
by Doing
Chapter 1.1 (Foundation)
Draft 04.01.09
"Leadership is
an action, not a title.” – McGinn’s Second Law of Leadership
Dr. Bob Heyssel was CEO of the
Johns Hopkins Hospital from 1982 to 1992 and was responsible for re-building it
into the world-renowned organization it is today. Hopkins had had a proud history, but had slipped in stature
before he was named President.
Through his leadership, Bob helped the organization achieve its current
position as the premier academic medical center in the country. I worked for Bob from 1990 until his
retirement in 1992 and learned from him what it means to have a propensity for
action.
I still recall my initial interview
with him when I was a candidate to become VP for Human Resources. Hopkins, at that time, had an awful
reputation in HR circles. There
had been a revolving door for HR department heads; average tenure was less than
12 months. So I asked Heyssel
about that. He smiled at me and
said, “I guess I’m just the George Steinbrenner of Human Resources,” comparing
himself to the NY Yankees’ owner famous for firing his managers. His humor was disarming, and I found
myself accepting the VP position when he offered it. I didn’t regret it, but did discover that Heyssel had
compared himself to the wrong Yankee. When it came to how he led the organization, he was no
George Steinbrenner; he was a Babe Ruth.
A review of baseball history will
show that during his playing days Babe Ruth held many of the most prestigious
of baseball’s pitching and batting records. He holds a few even today and consistently ranks among the
greatest players ever in many of these categories. Babe Ruth also struck out prolifically; his strike out to
home run ratio was almost two to one.
Babe Ruth swung for the fences and was not intimidated by the prospect
of missing. Bob Heyssel also swung
for the fences, and he was not intimidated by the prospect of trying things
that others were not doing. When
Bob made a mistake, it was often because he was ahead of his time. When he made a misstep in planning or
execution, he took corrective action and forged ahead.
Bob Heyssel had a bias for action,
the passion to do things, not just to watch or worry. As a consequence, he was constantly learning – as were the
people around him.
One day, in one of my regular
meetings with Bob, I took the opportunity to bemoan the structure of employer
health benefits. As VP for HR, I
was responsible for designing and administering the program for our 7,500 employees
and their dependents. In my
opinion, benefits were unnecessarily costly for both employer and employee and
were poorly designed as well. I
complained that the problem was based in the history of employer-based health
benefits stemming all the way back to World War II. Bob asked me a few questions of clarification about causes
and possible alternatives. I
handled those questions easily, but then he asked a deceptively simple, final
one. It was also very
profound, and it stopped my whining in its tracks.
“If that is how it is,” he said, “Why
don’t you do something about it?”
Until that moment, that option had
not occurred to me. Whining had
occurred to me. Philosophizing had occurred to me. Incremental adaptations and adjustments had occurred to
me. But taking direct and
immediate action to correct the underlying problem had not. Bob’s question reflected his belief in
the inherent worth of constructive action. It impelled me to fix my thinking and move from commentating
to acting. I shifted from focusing
on obstacles to implementing my ideas.
Within months, we had introduced a
comprehensive new benefits program that included all standard immunizations,
well-baby care, and a host of other cost-effective benefits aimed at keeping
people healthy. The program not
only had long-term benefits, it also cut costs immediately for both employer
and employees and created a significantly higher level of employee satisfaction
than did the preceding, more expensive plan.
It had other long lasting benefits
as well. It taught me a lesson
about doing versus talking. It
gave me a first-hand sense how a leader like Bob Heyssel risks taking action
rather than waiting for others to prove that a course of action is safe. This particular initiative worked out
well, but I also learned that actions don’t have to turn out well for benefit
to be derived. Developing the
understanding that action is fundamental to leadership and gaining the
confidence to try things were two lessons that boosted my professional growth
from that point forward. I do not
think I would have succeeded later as a CEO myself had I not acquired a bias
for action from Bob Heyssel’s model.
Application: Test yourself.
If you are talking when you could be acting, take a risk. Try swinging for the fences. You won’t learn much from talking
around problems. Your ideas will
become much sharper when subjected to the test of implementation.
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