“I think as the president of the organization, my work is done by walking the shop floor.”
— Mike Heenan, President, St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton

Mike Heenan knows how to lead change and innovation in health care.

The president of St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton has an MBA and a PhD in Business Administration Health Policy Management from the DeGroote School of Business, a wealth of experience and a unique perspective on the evolving environment of the health-care system.

Heenan spoke with the DeGroote School of Business about people-focused leadership, the “aha” moment that drew him to health care, and the disruptive forces at play in the industry.

Here is an excerpt from that interview, which you can find in full at the DeGroote website: Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.

Why is being a leader important to you?

Being a leader is important to me because I get a chance to influence change, and it allows me to really help staff.

The number one role of a leader is to take care of their people.

Seventy per cent of our budgets in hospital are related to salary. So if you take care of your people, you can take care of your organization.

How do you define leadership?

Leadership is understanding the operations of your people, setting a vision for the organization that people can coalesce behind, and at the end of the day, delivering results.

That’s why I appreciated going to DeGroote. When I did my PhD, it taught me that there are three things: leaders, managers and administrators. We all want to be leaders, but we need good managers, too.

We need people who can manage, take an initiative, implement it, measure it, fix it and pivot when they need to. Too often we think that we need more leadership, but we actually need more managers.

I think that’s the DeGroote advantage, it’s not just about leadership, it’s also about management—and that’s an important skill set—especially in my world. I have nurse managers who didn’t grow up thinking that they would be managers, and now they run units. They have hundreds of staff members, multiple million-dollar budgets and oversee quality, client customer relations and patient concerns.

What skills or attributes do you feel are most important in a business leader?

To be a business leader, you need to understand operations.

You can’t create strategy unless you understand the day-to-day work of your frontline staff and customer, which in our case is a patient.

How do you go about learning more about the day-to-day experiences of your frontline?

I pop down to the clinical units like the emergency department and just talk to people, whether it’s asking the frontline staff, “What can we do today?” or by talking to patients. For example, I walked a patient to diagnostic imaging the other day and he was able to tell me about the good and challenging parts of his experience.

The second way is doing formal rounds. In my first year as president, I spent every Friday on at least two units, meeting with staff and asking them: What systems and processes do they want to fix? What tools or equipment and training do they need to do their job? What anxieties do they have in coming to work that as leaders we can address?

I think as the president of the organization, my work is done by walking the shop floor.

What is the most important lesson you have learned in your career?

I had a leader once say to me, “As long as you make an ethical decision, if you fail, people will continue to follow and support.” It’s the greatest lesson I ever learned.

You make an ethical decision, and if it ends up not working out, that’s okay, because it was based on values.

What inspired you to get involved in the health care field?

My early job out of school was working as a political aide to the health minister. I sort of fell into my role.  We held an event, and the minister attended, announcing $28 million for a children’s rehabilitation centre.

A 14-year-old girl got up, holding onto her walker, and said, “With your investment today, I’m going to be able to walk without this.” It was at that moment that I realized there’s a social impact to this work.

Understanding that hospitals are businesses is what inspired me to pursue this career path. I have a budget of $800 million and 5,000 employees, so I need to make sure I have the infrastructure around them to support care delivery.

That is a business-related matter, but what motivates me at the end of the day is that I deliver a social service that has an impact on someone’s life. I think this shows that even if you are not a clinician, you can make a difference.

What are some of the disruptive forces you see occurring in health care that we need to prepare for?

There are two disruptive forces, the first one being consumer choice. Considering convenience, I think people will become less patient with wait times. People may access and do everything on their phones, but we cannot do so when receiving care; we need to be mindful of this.

The second disruptive force, which I have a great passion for, is physician and staff safety. Every morning, I read through each staff workplace violence incident that has been reported in the organization. About five staff incidents are reported to me daily.

People are frustrated, anxious and don’t know what is wrong with themselves, which can manifest into behaviours that put staff at risk. We need to not just physically protect staff; we also need to protect them from verbal abuse that includes derogatory remarks about race or LGBTQIA+ status.

It is important to keep our workers safe. Allowing caregivers to go home feeling proud of their work for the day and knowing they will be safe to return to work the following day is an important priority.

Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2 of Mike Heenan’s full interview, where he also offers advice for students and speaks about the leaders who inspire him, the future of health care, and the unforeseen fallout of the pandemic.