← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Navigating Healthcare's Future with Talent, Technology and Transformation
00:14:49
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- [00:00]
A
Hello, everyone. This is Erica Spicer Mason with Becker's Healthcare. Thank you so much for tuning into the Becker's Healthcare podcast series. So today we're going to talk about navigating healthcare's future with talent, technology and transformation. And joining me for this conversation is Shannon Libert, senior partner at Kingsleygate. Shannon, thank you so much for being with the podcast today. I'd love to learn a little bit more about you and your work in healthcare if you'd share with our listeners.
- [00:26]
B
Thanks, Erica. It's great to be here. I've enjoyed my time at Becker's thus far, as always. And I am Shannon Libert. I am the senior partner and global health care practice leader at Kingsley Gate. We are a global executive recruiting firm. We have about 300 people and operate in 33 countries. My background is HR, human resources and consulting. So I'm not only a search consultant, I've actually been on the other side of the table as a chief human resource officer. We call them chief people officers now at a little company called Studer Group that was quite successful. Successful. And I've been in executive search for about 10 years. And I have been in the healthcare industry my entire career, which is upwards of 25 years, but we won't go there.
- [01:09]
A
Shannon, it's great to learn more about you and I think your robust experience in healthcare HR on both sides where you're looking at executive search, you were formerly on the hospital health system side. You've been in healthcare for your whole career. What great perspective you'll bring. And we know that the national center for Health Workforce Analysis is predicting pretty major shortages across the healthcare workforce in the years to come. So from your standpoint, what skills do you think are most critical for today's healthcare CHROs and CEOs?
- [01:37]
B
Yeah, the statistics are really interesting. Ache has some statistics as well. We used to talk about nursing shortages back when I started my career in 1998. I was recruiting nurses at a hospice. And it was the case then and it's still the case now. But it goes well beyond nursing. And so, you know, the skills that are necessary for any leader, any executive leader, and really any frontline leader in healthcare, I believe are pretty transcendent and pretty consistent. You know, skills such as change management, tolerance for ambiguity, really cultural aspects. You know, we talk about the technical skills and most CEOs, CHROs have kind of those basic foundational leadership skills. But what's really challenging are those soft skills and being able to really communicate, build trust. Today, the healthcare workforce has five generations and so managing different generations are really key. There's some great research coming out around generations. There's a new book that'll be launched soon that is called genfluence, which I think will be really interesting. But again, that tolerance for ambiguity and change management, I think are pretty key. And the leaders who connect with their teams, I think find much more success than those who are sitting in their corner office and trying to manage through operations. Of course, those foundational hard skills are really necessary, but those soft skills, which really aren't easy, are what differentiates the best leaders across the board. And as a former chro, it used to be, you know, we were back in my day called personnel, which is a term that most people shudder when they think about. But now it's really understanding the operations and understanding all parts of the organization and how to connect with leaders and the best leaders. Also, Erica lean across the aisle, they if I'm a clinical leader in an organization, I need to have an understanding of finance so that I can have a meaningful conversation with my chief financial officer. And if I'm an operational leader, I better engage the clinicians because that's how the best work gets done in health systems. And I'll just close with this around chros. We need to enable chros to take care of the people who are taking care of our patients and health systems. So healthcare is still a very human business. So that connectedness is really key.
- [04:07]
A
Yeah. Shannon, the overview has been so helpful and so much of what you said actually really resonates with a panel that I was just on yesterday. And for listeners who may not know, we're on site right now at Becker's CEO CFO Roundtable. And a panel was talking about just the this exact concept of how much more dynamic the healthcare leadership or the C suite needs to be right now. You need to have the best of both worlds, essentially. You have to be emotionally intelligent, but you also have to have that operational savvy. And something that also came up in that conversation was the importance of leaders being able to be vulnerable. That is a skill now that hospitals and health systems seem to be actively seeking out and some of their executives. So, so interesting. And I'd love to know, too, to go a little bit deeper there. What executive roles are you seeing most in demand and what does that signal about where the industry is headed?
- [04:57]
B
Yeah, I thought about this when I was sitting in a session yesterday and they were talking about succession planning. And so how do we prepare our organizations for the future and what roles are going to be Necessary. And the question that the moderator posed was what. What roles will be obsolete? And the reality is we still, in our work, see a number of roles across the board. I would say we do a lot of HR search because I've been at a chro and so I'm pretty skilled in that because I know what it looks like. However, the clinical roles are still pretty prevalent as well as just organizations that contact us for help are the organizations that maybe haven't done as good of a job in succession planning. We have one client that we work with that does 90% of their promotions from within. So if we're doing promotions from within, we need to be really certain that those leaders have the foundational skills that they need to take the organization to the next level and really rise up. And it's wonderful if you are able to cultivate that talent within. It's a. It's really a business imperative to be able to do that. But again, to. To the specific roles, I think we see a broad spectrum and I don't see evidence of change in healthcare really slowing down.
- [06:17]
A
Yeah. So interesting. So sounds like for each organization, it's pretty unique, what the needs are in terms demand for role type.
- [06:25]
B
Yes, Erica, it does. It does vary based on the organization, but I think those clinical and operational leadership roles are still in high demand.
- [06:34]
A
Yeah.
- [06:35]
B
Yeah.
- [06:35]
A
Thank you, Shannon. And you know, we'd be remiss if we had a conversation right now and didn't talk about technology. And I know in the HR space, this is quite relevant. AI is of course, a strategic and a financial priority for a lot of healthcare organizations. But I'd love to talk more about the role that you're seeing it play in, you know, transition, succession planning, executive development. You know, how are executive teams approaching AI not just as a tech investment, but as a leadership and a talent challenge or maybe even an enabler.
- [07:07]
B
Yeah, I love that word enabler, because I think healthcare is still human. And we've talked a lot in the past couple of days about AI and ambient listening and all kinds of different transformational changes that are coming to our industry. I think keeping the people at the center is key. And what technology can we leverage that makes caregivers able to spend more time with patients, that enables leaders to spend more time with the people. Incredible and meaningful conversations because I think we're always going to have challenges with time and too much. I've heard the term administrative burden a lot as well. And how do we relieve the administrative burden so we can have that interaction? I think it's really key. And I think there are some great technologies out there, but technology is only as good as the organization's willingness to adopt it. And how do you use that will be a game changer and a differentiator for those organizations that want to transform. And I've heard transformation quite a bit over the last, probably 20 times in the last 24 hours. But it's not transformation for transformation's sake. It's transformation to build sustainable outcomes. And at the end of the day, in healthcare, that means our patients.
- [08:27]
A
Absolutely. And based on your experience and what you're seeing at hospitals and health systems, do any examples come to mind that really highlight that shift of using AI or technology as an enabler?
- [08:39]
B
Yeah, I think that, I mean, there are a number of different, and I was in a session yesterday, there are a number of different platforms that can be used to help, as I mentioned, the administrative burden. Relieve the administrative burden. We're even using it in our firm to help with the summary of our notes of interviews to find better leaders for organizations. But it doesn't replace the human, of course, you know, it is in addition to and an enabler of. But I think, you know, the way we message the technology and the way we build those conversations around it are really important. I was with a leader not too long ago on a panel and she was talking about HR and how the HR department in that particular organization was quite nervous about jobs being eliminated in recruiting, for example. That conversation, what she did, which I thought was pretty powerful, was took the entire team off site and said, here's our day to talk about AI and how we're going to use it and how we're going to leverage it and what it's going to mean for our organization. And again, ultimately, the people who are taking care of those people at Kingsley Gate, we use AI not to replace human judgment, but to replace how people might make decisions and how they might actually fit within the culture of an organization that we are working on their behalf.
- [09:58]
A
Wow. What a way to build trust among your team as well. I mean, you're really. That sounds like a very transparent effort, something that will help not just educate staff members, but gain that trust and that buy in. And I think trust is a really important component of recruitment and retention as well. So I'd like to talk about the qualities that you see. Distinguished leaders who are best prepared to guide their organizations through disruption and hold on to that trust. And if you had one piece of advice for leaders that are balancing short and long term planning, what would that be?
- [10:32]
B
Gosh, one piece. Yeah, I know. Tricky.
- [10:34]
A
Two parter. We can take the first part, right?
- [10:37]
B
Well, I will say trust is the currency that leaders have to spend. Right. And so the best leaders are the ones who are cultivating that trust every day by the way they show up in organizations. The data suggests that the more organizations that cultivate that trust in senior leadership, so middle managers are having conversations that position senior leadership in a positive way, the stronger the organization is at being able to drive those outcomes for the patients at the end of the day. So our job in healthcare is to find leaders who have that added skill. We talked about the skills earlier in the podcast, that added skill of trust building. And I think if we can think about it in kind of three Cs. Three Cs being clarity, courage, and connection. So. So for clarity's sake, I think leaders need to have transparency and be able to explain to the people in the organization what's. What's really happening. And also to show up consistently. Yeah, so maybe we'll add a 4C there. Courage. You mentioned earlier, Courage to question the status quo. And we don't want leaders who are just yes people. You know, we want people who show up and ask the hard questions, ask about, you know, things like AI and how this will impact people and how the people in the organizations may be nervous about the influx of AI that's being used, and how does this impact me and my family and my job, honestly? And so courage to. To also make hard decisions when it's unpopular. You know, I think leaders need to. To show up authentically and continue to drive meaningful outcomes based on that cultivation of trust and then connection. You know, how do we demonstrate that we care for our employees? How do we demonstrate and create meaningful opportunities for people to live their best lives, not only in general, but at work? And that old question from Gallup, do I have a best friend at work? You know, that's really important for. For an organization to establish those connections. I was in a great session yesterday with a woman from Children's Hospital of Orange county, and she talked about, you know, are we creating those connections so.
- [12:51]
A
Important, especially again, tying this back to recruitment and retention. You know, folks are only as happy at work as they feel safe and seen and understood. So I think that those are really great pieces of advice. I'll remember those three Cs. So thank you for sharing that with our leaders. And as we close today, you know, any final pieces of advice that you'd share with our listeners or any final thoughts that you have.
- [13:16]
B
Yeah, I will say it's. It's a very exciting time in healthcare. And I was on a panel a few months ago as well, and somebody said, this is the best time ever. And people sort of rolled their eyes. Are you kidding me? Like, things are happening faster. You know, there. There's all this change, there's all this ambiguity. There are all these new technologies, but it really is an amazing time to be in this industry. And what's personally really gratifying for me to see is. Is when we match people with organizations, and they say, this is the best thing that has ever happened to me. And I feel safe and connected, and I feel like I've been here for two years, and I've been here for two months. And so that's the thing. It's. It's about culture, and it's about finding organizations and people who align from a value standpoint.
- [14:03]
A
Yeah.
- [14:04]
B
Because again, you know, the soft skills are in many ways much more important than the technical skills. I can look at 10 resumes of CHROs, and they look fairly similar. But what differentiates people is the way they show up in organizations and build that trust. Yeah.
- [14:20]
A
I love how you brought that full circle from the beginning of our conversation. Shannon, it's been a real pleasure talking to you today, hearing your expertise in this space. I think our listeners have a lot to think about as they're listening through this episode, and I just want to thank you again for the time.
- [14:33]
B
Thanks for having me, Erica. It's been a lot of fun.
- [14:35]
A
Yeah, it's been great. And of course, we'd also like to thank our podcast sponsor, Kingsleygate listeners. Be sure to tune into more podcasts from Becker's by visiting our podcast page@beckershospitalreview.com.