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Rita B. Allen
Associates, Gatti & Associates, and Northeastern University’s
College of Business Administration hosted their annual Executive
Breakfast Forum “Best Companies – Best Practices: Keeping
the Competitive Edge.” Celebrating its five year milestone, the
event was well attended by Senior Human Resources and Line Executives.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, renowned for excellence in patient care, biomedical
research, teaching and community service, and IBM, a global leader in
the invention, development and manufacturing of advanced information
technologies, were this years featured panelists. Both of these
organizations recognize that their people practices are among the most
critical elements necessary for them to retain their leadership
positions in their respective industries. Presenting for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center were Lisa Zankman, Senior Vice President of
Human Resources and Paul F. Levy, President & CEO. Representing IBM
was Mike Wing, Vice President of Strategic Communications. The focus of
this year’s forum was effective change management strategies and
transformation.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is recognized as one of the
nation’s top hospitals in the US News & World report
“Best Hospitals” edition, placing among the leaders in six
clinical categories. With over 5,000 employees, it hosts nearly three
quarters of a million patient visits each year and is the official hospital
of the Boston Red Sox. Yet in 2001, BIDMC was in dire straits and close
to being sold or closing altogether. In this bleak atmosphere, Paul
Levy became the new CEO and promptly began to communicate directly with
employees, physicians, patients and the community. Paul Levy initiated
and fostered a culture that was built around open communications
reaching out to all levels of the organization. He crafted a
“transparency” initiative and open dialogue with all
employees in the organization and created a strategic plan that put
BIDMC back on the road to fiscal stability, expansion and respect in
the health care community. This initiative resulted in high morale, low
turnover and patient satisfaction creating a work environment built
around employee engagement, innovation and development.
IBM is a $91.1 billion global organization with 329,373 employees
throughout the world and a recognized leader in information technology
for decades, yet just recently went through the process of examining
their core values for the first time since the company was founded.
Given the realities and expectations of the workforce in the 21st
century, their strategy was not to dictate these values from the top
but to engage ALL employees throughout the entire organization in a
“values jam” on their global intranet. In the end, the
IBMers determined that their actions will be driven by three major
values: Dedication to every client’s success; Innovation that
matters for the company and for the world; and Trust and personal responsibility
in all relationships. Their culture was transformed into one that was
led by their values. IBM’s journey from dominance during the
mainframe era of the 1960s-80s, to near collapse in the early 1990s, to
reinvention for a radically different age is already the making of
business legend. Throughout, the most difficult and important challenge
has been the required transformation of IBM’s storied culture.
Mike Wing discussed this journey as the leader of IBM’s global
online “jams,” an initiative engaging tens of thousands of
IBM employees, creation of shared best practices, facilitation of a
merger, undertaking mass-scale collaborative innovation and even
reshaped the company’s core values for the first time in a
century.
The common theme of creating an enacted culture that cultivated open
dialogue and communications throughout the entire organization within
two entirely different industries resonated with the audience. These
were extraordinary stories both resulting in increased profits, growth,
innovation, development and employee/customer satisfaction. The session
concluded with an active question and answer period, moderated by Len
Glick, a Professor in the College of Business Administration at
Northeastern University. Other participants from Northeastern
University included the Dean of the College of Business Administration,
Tom Moore, as well as Carolyn Boviard and David Abdow from the College
of Business Administration, and Fred Hoskins from the Office of
Corporate Partnerships.
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