Former Henry Ford CEO Nancy Schlichting looks for talent outside healthcare

In an era of vertical integration of and external disruption to the industry, it’s not surprising to see an executive leading a department or organization with little to no experience in healthcare. But that wasn’t always the case. Former Henry Ford Health System CEO Nancy Schlichting recalls how her bold move to find colleagues from outside of industry was first received a decade ago.

WHAT WAS YOUR RISKIEST DECISION? Hiring a hotel industry executive with no healthcare experience to be the CEO of our brand new hospital in West Bloomfield, Mich., which opened in 2009, during the financial crisis.

WHY WAS THAT MOVE RISKY? We were building a hospital that cost $350 million in a very competitive market. We had about a $60 million drag on our earnings and we were hiring 1,200 people with no revenue. In healthcare we tend to often think alike, so I wanted someone with a very different vision, who viewed a hospital as a center for health and well-being for the community. So in 2008 I hired Gerard Van Grinsven who had opened 22 hotels around the world. And he did in fact change the game for us.

WHAT WAS THE RESPONSE FROM THOSE INVOLVED? Some people were immediately supportive. Others were quite skeptical. In fact, our competitors ran ads around the time saying, “We’re not a Ritz-Carlton.” But we were immensely successful and other hospitals, including the one that ran the ad, eventually hired someone from Ritz-Carlton to help improve their customer service.

ADVICE TO EXECS IN SIMILAR POSITIONS Welcome people into your midst who don’t think like you do. We hired the chief human resource officer from the automotive industry, and I think we won the Baldrige National Quality Award because she brought so many metrics of performance and a whole host of things that we didn’t have before. Then we established guardrails to set them up for success. 

Leaders need to create an environment that allows people to speak up and be heard. When Gerard first started, I met with him every two weeks for the first six months to help him assimilate, have him bring me some of the situations that he was facing, help him think them through and understand the perspectives better. But there were also times when I said, “I don’t think you’re moving in the right direction,” and provided coaching and feedback on why I didn’t agree with a particular decision that he was about ready to make.

You have to stay close to the situation and coach. You have to create guardrails for people but also encourage them and help support them through change. You can’t bring in people with very different backgrounds and just turn them loose. I don’t think that works.

DESCRIBE YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE  I give people a lot of latitude to lead. But I also pay attention. I’m not somebody who just delegates and walks away. I check in, not only with that person, but I check throughout the organization to see how things are going. I always had a lot of people who were very comfortable talking to me. In fact, the whole organization was pretty comfortable with that. So I think I set open access, was available, strategic, very focused on the future and creating a good vision that people understood.