Becker's Hospital Review

56 THOUGHT LEADERSHIP Living like a leader: A day with CHI CEO Kevin Lofton By Leo Vartorella B etween clinical objectives, financial concerns, patient needs and complex payer dy- namics, there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day for health- care executives to address the di- verse set of organizational goals they are tasked with accomplishing. Kevin Lofton, president and CEO of Englewood, Colo.-based Cath- olic Health Initiatives, spoke with Becker's Hospital Review for our "Living like a leader" series, which examines influential decision-makers' daily routines to offer readers an idea of how they manage their energy, teams and time. Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity. Question: What do you do first when you wake up? Kevin Lofton: I'm always dealing with a lot of conflicts and time-sensitive issues at work. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with a thought about how to solve some of these problems, so I keep a little writing pad on my night- stand. Some of my best thoughts come in the middle of the night. When that happens, I get up to work. It helps me get some clarity around issues I've been thinking about. I have the gift of being able to fall back to sleep pretty quickly and still get a good night's sleep, but those nighttime work ses- sions help me have an actionable day when I get to work. I have a pretty consistent routine when I wake up to take care of body essentials. I do some stretching and just a little bit of exercise. I have a regular routine of weighing myself and taking my blood pressure. I think healthcare executives need to model that type of behavior for our employees and cus- tomers. I prefer to do a full workout later in the day — my morning stretch is just like when you have tapas to hold you until dinner time [laughs]. Q: What do you do before you get to the office? KL: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and your body simply won't work without it. It helps to get your metabolism going and feeds your body all day. Instead of doing work before I get to the office, I kind of go in the exact opposite direction. I will either watch morning news as I get dressed or "Family Feud" with Steve Harvey. He can always make me laugh and the people on the show are real peo- ple, which I enjoy. It's lighthearted, mindless trivia that always gives me a good laugh before I get to work. Q: What's the first thing you do when you arrive at work? KL: Generally, I check in with my assistant and make sure there's nothing I'm not prepared for. Then I get online to catch up with millions of emails, and once I'm caught up I love taking a peek at the mountains. From my office on a clear day I can see all the way to Pikes Peak, which is about 90 miles away in Colorado Springs. Gazing at the mountains kind of gives you a fresh lease on life. After that, I take a look at my schedule and go through preparatory materials for my meetings over the next couple days. One of the other things I really enjoy is, as a faith-based Catholic healthcare system, the employee-led interdenominational prayer services on Monday and Wednesday mornings. If my schedule allows, I always participate in those. Q: How much of your time is spent with direct reports? KL: It varies by the week because between myself and my senior team, people travel at least 30-40 percent of the time. Some of us, including myself, travel 60 to 70 percent of the time, so a lot of our meetings are teleconferences. The se- nior-most executive team at CHI is called the President's Council, and we have two sets of meetings each month where everyone knows they have to be at the office. We meet for a day and a half and then have another set of meetings about two weeks later for two days. For one of the meetings every month we bring in our senior vice presidents of opera- tions, who are our market CEOs. They have operations meet- ings that lead into the President's Council meeting, and then I have half a day where the President's Council also meets in person with the CEOs. That's kind of the monthly routine. When I do meet in person with my direct reports, I hold what are called performance management meetings where we cover a wide range of topics. We each come in with an agen- da and after every meeting I personally type up a summary including to-do lists, what's next for them and timeframes. It's a way we stay connected and clear on what was said in the meeting and it cuts down miscommunications. I find it's a great vehicle to make sure everything's clear. Sometimes I'll write something up, and it wasn't how they understood it. When they get the minutes from me they'll point that out. It's a great way to communicate with a corporate executive staff that travels so much. It's something I probably started about 10 years ago when the dean of a business school worked with us to improve our management effectiveness. Time is precious, and these notes take out the guesswork and clarify what we agreed upon so the investment of time is more valuable. It saves us effort on the back end. "I love taking a peek at the mountains ... Gazing at the mountains kind of gives you a fresh lease on life." — Kevin Lofton, CEO, Catholic Health Initiatives

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