EducationNews.org

An Interview with Kurt O'Brien: Extraordinary Leadership

 

Michael F. Shaughnessy - July 2, 2009
Senior Columnist EducationNews.org
Eastern New Mexico University
Portales, New Mexico

 

Kurt O’Brien is Manager of Organizational Development and Training, University of Washington Medical Center. In this interview, he responds to questions about his recent endeavors in search of excellence and quality.

 

1) First of all, how did you first get involved with this project and this book?

 

The Organization Development & Training team at the University of Washington Medical Center, weren't satisfied. The Medical Center was consistently ranked among the top dozen medical centers in the United States as rated by U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Hospitals" and near the top of all medical schools in federal research funding.

 

But many of the medical center's leaders felt compelled, in the midst of healthcare's ever-increasingly competitive landscape, to take their operation to the next level.

 

"Being an academic medical center, there is a strong desire here to learn," says Kurt O'Brien, manager of organization development and training. "There is also the realization that if we want to keep improving and getting better, we need to provide our leaders with the necessary skills and tools.

 

Moving the entire organization forward would require leaders who were up to the challenge and a leadership development program that could help get them there. Leaders had been talking about specific concepts for several years, and they now saw the opportunity to actually put them into practice.

 

When O'Brien's team, whom he describes as a creative group always willing to try new things, discussed what would be required, they agreed they wanted a leadership development program with these three components:

 

·         a competency-based model

 

·         a research-based, valid and reliable 360-degree feedback

          instrument

 

*         a systematic approach to leadership development

 

 

A consultant working with O'Brien had been impressed by Zenger Folkman's Extraordinary Leader(tm) approach. She talked with other clients (Boeing,

Weyerhaeuser) about the programs they were using and came back to O'Brien with several options, but continued to recommend Extraordinary Leader.

 

It met their three criteria and further appealed to O'Brien, and later to the medical center's executives, because of "the research behind the product," he says. The program relies on decades of research and over 200,000 detailed statistical profiles from more than 25,000 managers in a wide range of companies and industries. The course is based on the book, The Extraordinary Leader: Turning Good Managers into Great Leaders by Dr. Jack Zenger and Dr. Joe Folkman.

 

UW Medical Center's first Extraordinary Leader workshops took place in the fall of 2005. Participants included the top eight executive leaders in the organization-the CEO, CFO, and others-and the next level of senior leadership, about 50 people in all.

 

After achieving leadership buy-in, the program is now offered four times annually. Employees attend from all parts of the medical center, including food services, environmental services, patient care, nurse administration, and physicians in leadership roles.

 

O'Brien, who is a certified Extraordinary Leader trainer, and his team have developed their own delivery schedule of the material. They begin with a two-and-a-half hour session that introduces leaders to the Extraordinary Leader concepts, and makes the case for using 360-degree feedback to improve leadership skill, and prepares them for participating in the process.

 

Facilitators take care to emphasize that the primary focus is to build on their strengths as reported by the feedback. Three weeks later the participants gather again to interpret their feedback, meet with a professional coach, and create a development plan. Feedback reports are emailed to each participant two days prior to this second workshop, which, according to O'Brien "gives people the chance to have their reaction, get two nights' sleep on it, and then come to the workshop a little more prepared to start talking about their feedback and understand what it all means."

 

In response to open-ended evaluation questions, participants often cite the results of their 360-degree feedback as eye opening. Most are pleasantly surprised, such as the individual who wrote, "I didn't realize my team thought so highly of me." Others were candid about learning that their performance as perceived by others didn't match their own impressions.

Raters also hailed the emphasis on building strengths.

 

"People remember the fact that it is really trying to get them to focus on building on a strength instead of focusing on a weakness," O'Brien says.

"This focus also translates in response to open-ended evaluation questions, participants often cite the results of their 360-degree feedback as eye opening. Most are pleasantly surprised, such as the individual who wrote, "I didn't realize my team thought so highly of me." Others were candid about learning that their performance as perceived by others didn't match their own impressions. Raters also hailed the emphasis on building strengths.

 

2) In medical school and research, people's lives are at stake, so one must have uncompromising standards. How do you make sure these leaders have those standards?

 

We rolled out the Extraordinary Leader program at the UW Medical Center and have not yet expanded it to the School of Medicine.  We have had several physicians participate in the workshop and all of them have had a positive experience.  Many of the residency programs are now looking for ways to incorporate aspects of leadership development into their curriculums, and I suspect this will continue to grow.

 

3) Let's face it...there are always costs---what are the costs to one's friends, family and loved ones when one becomes a great leader?

 

Our belief is that as leaders develop greater self-awareness, their growth positively impacts all aspects of their lives.

 

4) How is this program different from say Steven Covey's books or Denis Waitley's Seeds of Greatness?

 

What separates "Extraordinary Leader" from other leadership principles

and theories is that it is research based.   The fact that it is a

strength-based assessment helps change people's perspectives and mental models, and they end up having a more positive experience.

 

Zenger Folkman's research (and experience) shows that outstanding performers are not distinguished by any absence of weaknesses. As a result, we focus program participants on selecting and building a few existing strengths to the extraordinary level - not on selecting and "fixing" their weaknesses as most assessment and development programs do.

 

The Extraordinary Leader course is now a core component of the University of Washington Medical Center's training regimen. "It takes vision to institute a program like this, and a lot of credit has to go to Cheryl Hawley, our former manager, for seeing what was possible. I expect it to be part of the medical center's training program for a long time to come," says O'Brien, who is now exploring how to sustain the learning among those who have already completed the program. In looking forward, he cites a familiar refrain for the always-improving medical center: "Now our effort is focused on taking it to the next level. That is our next challenge."

 

For more information about The Extraordinary Leader book and workshop visit, wwww.ZengerFolkman.com