Five Quick Questions With Richard Woods

I started as a human resources advisor with Calloway Partners, Warbird Healthcare Associates’ predecessor organization. Over the next two years, I became increasingly passionate about the company and its team – some of whom are still leaders with Warbird, like our CEO, Mike Draa – and our mission and vision, so I decided to transition from my consultant role and become a full-time employee.

That was more than 20 years ago. I know our full story: who we are now, who we’ve been, how we’ve gotten here. We’ve reinvented and evolved from a CFO shop to a full suite of healthcare services.

And I’ve evolved alongside our firm. Now, even though my official title is Executive Vice President of Transitional Leadership Solutions, I call myself the operational crosswalk guard. I handle the sticky stuff, the details in our team’s overall work and mission, and I’m a catchall who fills gaps and directs people when they’re unsure of their next steps.

I put down professional roots here because I believed in what we were doing. And all these years later, we’re still doing it.

“Oh, to see ourselves through the eyes of others.”

A previous boss said that to me early in my career – right before he threatened to fire me if I didn’t change my management approach. I was being too critical with my team; every time they did something well, I pushed back with criticism.

It’s one of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned in leadership, to be aware of yourself and how others perceive you. It introduced me to the concept of emotional intelligence (also called EQ), which transcends that sense of self-awareness to include empathy and, with continued leadership maturity, the ability to manage relationships, communicate effectively and, in time, cultivate those same social skills with your team.

After my near-firing, I went home and wrote my boss’ advice in big letters on my bathroom mirror. It became a journey in my life. Even though that journey’s never fully finished, when we transitioned Warbird Healthcare Advisors out of Huron Consulting Group, I asked my boss at the time if she saw me as a critical or harsh person. She said no, and I nearly cried. Because I knew that I had succeeded in changing myself for good.

We all get stuck in habits and rituals, and people don’t always realize how tough it is to break out of them and build healthier ones.

Developing leadership skills is no different.

There are a lot of training programs, books, courses and ostensible experts that purport to make people stronger leaders. It’s time to look beyond traditional learning, though.

So now, at Warbird, we’re opening a different doorway to growing leadership maturity. Instead of an academic model, with individual leaders as students, we work with an empirical process that approaches development from an organization-wide perspective. It’s a collective analysis that creates a direction and language around which everyone, at all levels of the enterprise, can align and pursue higher performance. The approach flips training-style programs in lieu of an outcome model that achieves sustainable results – for organizations and individuals.

It’s a game-changer. Not just for Warbird’s clients, but for its potential perpetuating effects throughout our industry.  

American, free-enterprise healthcare is quite possibly the most difficult cash-to-order industry in the world.

It’s challenging from every angle, for clinicians serving on the front lines, leaders and administrators managing the business, the payors and legislators who try to develop appropriate policy and, of course, the patients and communities who need care. And there are no simple solutions.

The general public doesn’t always realize how tough it is to lead a healthcare organization and achieve sustainable performance results. It’s especially hard in rural areas, where there’s a heavier burden to attract and retain clinical and operational talent.

What’s exciting, though, is what the Warbird team can affect and transform. The work we’re doing with high-EQ leadership maturity can make a profound difference, especially in our current climate – 45% of healthcare CEOs are planning job changes in the near future. That poses an enormous risk to the stability of their organizations, which are already pressed to run on 3% operating margins.

The innovative approaches Warbird is taking in this space, though, are poised to start a chain reaction in leadership capability and operational sustainability, especially in the rural market.

In a broad view, we help healthcare providers sustain economic performance in a way that supports ongoing improvement.

On an individual level, my role with transitional leadership and resource engagement builds transformation and sustainability. But with every service line, our team comes to situations and makes them better, and we make the changes last.

We believe in our work and champion it, because what we do really makes a difference. This work matters. Our clients matter – so many of them are the sole hospitals in their communities, and closing is not an option.

The turnarounds we accomplish change lives, patient care and outcomes. And that is how we accomplish our mission.