I may be slow. It took two hits about Sergio Marchionne before I got him on the blog. The impetus to take the leap came when Business Week published the April 2 article, How Fiat's Marchionne Can Help Chrysler by Carol Matlack. But I will take credit for noticing (and not forgetting) when I first read about Marchionne and thought he had something to say health care leaders. That was after reading the Harvard Business Review's Fiat's Extreme Makeover in December of 2008, which was authored by Mr. Marchionne himself. Read the HBR piece first, for its strong focus on leadership culture, to see why Marchionne may be able to teach Chrysler - and health care leaders - a few things.
Finding Leaders by Walking Around
Sergio Marchionne is a highly effective, innovative, and clear thinking leader who has been unafraid to do things differently. He is an industry outsider surprised the industry by being effective in getting the moribund Italian auto maker Fiat off of the trash heap - an accomplishment of leadership rather than of operational or business sleight of hand. In his own words: "My job as CEO is not to make business decisions--it's to push managers to be leaders."
Marchionne took on the task of a crusader against the centralized decision making that had sunk Fiat. Not only did he enable existing managers to make accountable decisions, but by being visible and observant in the field he was able to identify and promote promising leaders who had been unnoticed by their own managers: "At first, I found these people myself. I brought forward people who had impressed me in meetings and whom I'd met on my walkabouts." In my consulting work, I consistently note that the health care leaders who walk around hospitals, practices, and universities are particularly effective, respected, and "in touch" with managers and staff at all levels.
Turning Finds into Keepers
Marchionne followed up his talent identification by ensuring that those with leadership talent and energy were nurtured, coached, and supported in their roles. He accomplished this through close performance management, feedback, and accountability to goals. What particularly distinguished Marchionne in my mind was his personal role in unstructured but highly effective mentoring: "Our engagement is mostly very informal. I'm always texting my people or calling them at odd hours to talk about the business or about their careers. They know that I care about what happens to them." As physician leaders and health care executive leaders we are well positioned to mentor this way. But do we?
A Culture of Leadership
The HBR article goes on to describe the key elements of the culture of leadership Marchionne created and to which he attributes Fiat's success. The components include directness, clarity of goal setting and accountability to results, informality of style, creativity, and a willingness to adapt the ideas of others to success within the organization. Not unlike the passion Kouzes and Posner describe in To Lead, Create A Shared Vision (reviewed in this blog in the March 16 post) Marchionne made it happen by recruiting workers and managers to an appealing vision of their roles at Fiat:
Being a leader at Fiat is a lifestyle decision. It's not the Buena Vista Social Club. Most of the management meetings are held on weekends, especially when I travel. Because of the magnitude of the tasks ahead of us, being a leader at Fiat requires an extraordinary commitment of time and resources. But if you like being truly engaged; if you like big, bold objectives; if you don't mind taking risks, this is the perfect place to be.
Think about what we could accomplish in health care by leading this way.
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