Why Innovations Fail and the Blueprint for Getting Them Right

This week’s podcast features an interview with Regina (“Regi”) Herzlinger, the Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. (She was the first woman to be tenured and chaired at Harvard Business School.)  She initiated the courses in healthcare at HBS and was the first faculty member to be selected by the students as their best instructor. In 2018, she was awarded the prestigious ACHE Honorary Fellowship, which represents the leaders of America’s hospitals, and was one of the 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare—World Edition by Grupo Midia. 

Her new book, Innovating in Healthcare (Wiley, May 2021), focuses on how the healthcare industry (from hospitals to start-ups) can better implement new solutions that lower costs while increasing quality and access. 

(The first 100 people to email Quint will receive a copy of the book. Email [email protected].)

As one of the world's leading authorities on healthcare innovation, Dr. Herzlinger explains how innovation is the key to solving our biggest problems. Healthcare accounted for 18 percent of the 2017 GDP and will likely reach nearly 20 percent by 2025, while hospital-induced deaths have skyrocketed, and tens of millions of people remain uninsured. She says we need innovations in healthcare that can meet these needs.

She talks about why many past innovations have failed to cut costs or solve our biggest problems and why we have to rethink how we view innovation, and she provides a ton of real-life stories to showcase her point. She gives the framework for how to tell a good innovation from a bad innovation and provides a tool kit for how to successfully innovate (either a product or service), including the right questions to ask before you even get started.

This is a must-listen for healthcare execs, providers, students, or anyone interested in how to successfully innovate in any industry.

This week, Quint talks to Kevin Reichard, the publisher of August Publications, which does several sports, business, and active living websites. They are probably best known for publishing Ballpark Digest. Kevin unfolds the story of his wildly unpredictable career, the lessons he learned, and how some risky decisions he made paid off. (Luckily, he didn’t realize they were big risks at the time.) He showcases how every experience you have sets you up for the next chapter, as long as you make a point to learn from it.

This was a tumultuous year for baseball. The year 2020 was supposed to be a banner year for new ballparks, and they were excited to be covering it. While they missed out on that and on the award season, Ballpark Digest reports that visitors are up 26 percent (even with no games being played this year). The fact that they are a trusted brand, provide good (and diverse) products, and are known for excellence in their practices has allowed them not just to survive but to thrive. When times are hard, a history of excellence helps you manage change and weather storms.

Kevin also talks about how important it is to find your passion. While he didn’t grow up as a “baseball kid,” he got into it as a way to pass the time while he was traveling for his job. But it’s one of his breakout projects at August Publications that reflects his true passion: YellowstoneInsider.com. This site and the Yellowstone Insider for Families book helps visitors plan to have the best experience at Yellowstone National Park. It’s a great example of something that doesn’t seem to “fit” with the rest of his product offerings, but because he is passionate about Yellowstone (and the service journalism it provides), it has been very successful.

How to create the Disney Experience inside your organization with Jake Poore

This week Quint welcomes Jake Poore to the podcast. Poore spent nearly two decades at the Walt Disney World Company in Florida helping to recruit, hire, train and align their 65,000 employees toward one end goal: creating memorable experiences for individuals. He has taken what he learned there and now teaches hospitals (and companies) how to create an incredible patient/customer and employee experience.  His book, 99 Lessons Learned from Disney To Improve The Patient Experience, is full of great ideas.

Poore is best known for helping organizations with easy-to-implement basics that lead to a first-class operation. On the podcast, he talks about how to weave safety, compassion, courtesy and excellent service into everything you do. He says the best way to do this is to ask your employees for ideas, as they are often masters of creativity and innovation. They are also close to patients and customers, so they see how the little things we hardwire can make a big difference. (Poore has great ideas on how we can show people we are happy, even though they can’t see our smiles behind our masks!)

As for leaders, he really drives home how important it is to stay connected to employees, patients, and customers with a good, solid communications plan and a good scout (who keeps you close to what’s happening in your organization). This not only keeps everyone informed in a highly fluid, stressful situation, but it also relieves anxiety. He says to treat your efforts to stay connected like a morning talk show.

Poore also talks about how he used 2020 to make his own company better. He’s a master at creating simple, easy to implement ideas and tactics that create big impact.

This week Quint talks to Jill Miller, president of Bethesda Inc., a Cincinnati, Ohio-based organization devoted to transforming health and healthcare. Their focus is on vulnerable populations, the ones likely to be left behind and disproportionately impacted by events like the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In this podcast, you’ll get an insider’s view as to how they effectively utilize grants to leverage assets, promote collaboration, and drive innovation with healthcare partners in various communities. They aren’t looking for quick fixes, but high-impact projects. Jill talks about their decision to invest in multi-year, multi-million-dollar projects, because they know it takes a while to get programs off the ground.   

Bethesda doesn’t just focus on healthcare delivery; they have a real interest in the social determinants of health. According to Jill, around 20 percent of your health equation is tied to healthcare delivery. The other 80 percent is tied to pieces like genetics and behaviors. But at least 50 percent is tied to those social determinants of health, where you work, live, play, learn. They know that in order to transform healthcare, they can’t just focus on what goes on inside the hospital walls; they really have to look at issues beyond that and work in partnership with the community.

Jill shares about their latest focus: integrating behavioral health into primary care. Experts say that a behavioral health crisis is on the heels of this pandemic—and they’re doing all they can to prepare for it and alleviate it.

What happens when two baseball lovers get together? They talk about how to run a better business! This week Quint talks to JJ Cooper, the executive editor of Baseball America. This is THE information source for baseball lovers. It covers baseball at every level and is currently published in the form of a bi-weekly newspaper, five annual reference book titles, a weekly podcast, and a website. 

This has been a tough year for baseball, and many of the things they normally cover were canceled. JJ talks about how Baseball America has become adept at managing change and how 2020 forced them to get even better.

JJ has a lot to teach business owners through the lessons he has learned in his position. He talks about what it was like to navigate the transitioning of the magazine to new owners, what it took to merge the two cultures, and the importance of transparent communication in his journey.

He also discusses the role of culture and process in baseball and how it really defines an organization. The same is true inside a company. He talks about how easy it is to do long term damage to your culture, tearing down in five minutes what took five years to build. The culture of caring is so prevalent in great organizations. Many of the people who work in baseball are incredibly passionate, often working long hours. As long as they know the people at the top value their work and care about them, they will do virtually anything.   

JJ’s take on how Baseball America stayed strong during COVID and the baseball shutdown was especially interesting. It’s a subscriber-based business and the product it focused on was gone. Yet they continued to deliver a good product and traded on their strong sense of community. In fact, in some cases loyal fans would donate a subscription to someone who could no longer afford it. When you stay true to what you do well, you can weather almost anything.

Caravan Health helps clients align their efforts in three key areas: clinical needs, operational execution, and business realities. In this podcast Quint talks with Tim Gronniger, CEO of Caravan Health, who unveils his company’s highly successful model for helping healthcare organizations thrive in an incredibly tough environment. 

His company shares the expertise and best practices clients need to navigate the complex Accountable Care Organization (ACO) system while reducing administrative risk and freeing themselves to do what they do best: practice patient care. Not only does Caravan help create the ACO, they stay with clients long-term and offer ongoing guidance. Tim explains how players of all sizes can better understand and leverage their data and implement survival strategies like sharing resources, expertise, and technology…while reaping the benefits of scale.

When Peter Mougey at Levin Papantonio decided to utilize the employee engagement survey with his department within the law firm, he knew it was a good investment. He thought he would learn how motivated and engaged his employees were and how they felt about their work experience and the firm in general—and he did learn. The big surprise was all the other insights revealed by the survey. 

In this conversation with Quint, Mougey delves into the deeper truths the survey revealed about his firm: its strengths and weaknesses, where communication shortfalls lay, the flaws in how performance was assessed and progress gauged, and more. He also talks about how they used the findings to revamp their processes, create great new tools, and build a stronger infrastructure.

The culture that grew from this survey is one where people are more aligned and engaged, where collaboration happens on a deeper level, where performance and progress improve year after year. The changes have allowed the firm to work successfully on some of the biggest, most complex cases in the country. And as a bonus, Mougey has become a much better leader in the process.

If you’ve never considered the benefits of seeking real and honest feedback from your employees, this podcast will convince you that it’s a true game-changer.

Tiffany Pham’s grandmother was an entrepreneur who built companies across Asia. As she ran newspapers, restaurants, and resorts, she worked hard to provide others in need with information and opportunities. She was an incredible role model. On the day her grandmother passed away, Tiffany made a promise to her that she would spend the rest of her life working toward the same goal and mission…helping others.

Tiffany spent some time in the corporate world, learning everything she could and building her skill set. She also had a few side hustles to help fill in the gaps, all the while wondering how she could ever follow in her grandmother’s footsteps. Then the idea came to her. She taught herself to code at her kitchen table and started Mogul. Within a few weeks, she knew she had found her passion, so she quit her super safe corporate job and took the risk of a lifetime. It was that day that began fulfilling that promise to her grandmother and creating a company that is on the forefront of helping others, particularly women. 

Tiffany doesn’t just long for diversity, she creates it! Mogul is now the premiere platform for connecting companies to diverse talent. By joining Mogul, you get access to a supportive community, job opportunities from Fortune 1000 companies (along with a methodology match to make sure you are a good fit), access to events all the world, workplace research and a Learning Library where you can further develop your skill set. They serve entry level to the most senior-level women worldwide and long-time clients include Amazon, IBM, Intel, Deloitte, Stanley Black & Decker, Nike, McKinsey, Bain, and more. Mogul has been praised by Sheryl Sandberg and referred to as "the perfect business" by Melinda Gates. 

Tiffany is also the best-selling author of You Are a Mogul. In this podcast, she talks about the journey of taking risks (Note to self: live cheaply so you can afford to!), attracting world class investors and mentors, and being able to grow a company around something you are truly passionate about.

In 2008, Harold Dawson, Jr. was at the top of his game professionally. He was managing three quarters of a billion dollars in development and had nearly 40 employees. Then came the crash of 2008 and everything changed. He lost nearly everything, dropped down to three employees, and had to totally remake himself in the business world. 

In this podcast, he talks about that journey, what he learned about himself and success, and how he used the circumstances to take a long, hard look at whom he had become. 

Now with COVID-19 and the loss of a best friend and business partner, he’s experiencing his second great awakening. He talks about giving up the illusion of control and predictability; how to find the opportunity in adversity; and why he believes the ability to learn, unlearn, and relearn might be the greatest skill set anyone can have.

Join Harold and Quint as they talk about how to get off autopilot and really engage in life and work; how to manage bitterness, anger, disappointment, and fear; and why this quote from Viktor Frankl changed his life: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” 

 The podcast is filled with resilience hacks, necessary mind shifts (new ways to think about things) and tactics to help manage the uncertainty and change we are experiencing and begin the personal transformation to help create a life worth living. 

Harold can be reached at [email protected]

Resources:

Mindfulness Practice/Training
Resources: Calm App; Omvana App; Emotional Intelligence Mindfulness Handbook Harvard Business Review (2017)

Gratitude Practice/Training
Resources: Happify App; Forbes July 2016 Article; Lifehack.Org

Stoicism Practice/Training
Resources: Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations (Translated); Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic And The Obstacle Is The Way

In this interview Quint Studer talks to hospital CEO turned trauma expert Diana Hendel. After experiencing a deadly workplace shooting, Diana began studying how trauma impacts individuals and organizations. In assessing COVID-19 she quickly realized it has all the hallmarks of a traumatic crisis. This surprises people because they think trauma is a single horrific event. But the pandemic is traumatizing employees, leaders, and entire organizations—and all of us, collectively, as a nation.

Diana says it’s vital to make the distinction between stress and trauma. With short term stress, employees can usually power through. But once we cross over into trauma—and the duration, intensity, and frequency of change we face now makes this far more likely—we must treat the problem differently. Coping and building resilience is very important but insufficient alone in dealing with trauma that affects an entire organization. (Not that they don’t work.) 

In this interview Diana reveals some of the ways trauma manifests in individuals and companies. And she discusses some tools and tactics that can help leaders of all types of organizations navigate through traumatic crises and periods of intense change. The good news? Not only can your organization survive trauma it can thrive on the other side—growing into a stronger, better, more unified version of itself.

Diana will be a keynote at EntreCon 2020. Click here to learn more.

Diana Hendel, PharmD, is the author of three upcoming books. One, Responsible, is a memoir about leading a major medical organization through a deadly workplace shooting. The other two, published by Harper Collins, are coauthored by Mark Goulston, MD: Why Cope When You Can Heal? helps healthcare workers deal with the trauma caused by COVID-19, and Trauma To Triumph guides leaders in navigating their organization through change and traumatic crisis.