Becker's Hospital Review

68 THOUGHT LEADERSHIP Living like a leader: A day with AHA chair elect and Atlantic Health System CEO Brian Gragnolati By Leo Vartorella B etween clini- cal objectives, financial con- cerns, patient needs and complex payer dynamics, there seem to be too few hours in the day for healthcare ex- ecutives to address the diverse set of organizational goals they are tasked with accomplishing. Brian Gragnolati joined Morristown, N.J.- based Atlantic Health System as CEO in 2015. He previously served as senior vice president of the community division at Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Medicine, president and CEO of Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Md., and president and CEO of WellSpan York (Penn.) Hospital. In 2017, Mr. Gragnolati was selected to chair the American Hospital Association, a year- long position he will assume in January 2019. Mr. Gragnolati spoke with Becker's Hospital Review for the "Living like a leader" series, which examines the daily routines of in- fluential decision-makers to offer readers an idea of how they manage their energy, teams and time. Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edit- ed for length and clarity Question: What's the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning? Brian Gragnolati: I usually get up pretty early, and I like to exercise early in the morn- ing. I have some coffee and catch up with some emails while I'm stretching, and then I jump on my Peloton and do a spin. Aer that I grab something to eat and try to get through three or four different papers. I read e Washing- ton Post, e New York Times, and e Wall Street Journal as well as e Star-Ledger. Q: Do you get any work done before you get to the office? BG: We're always on email. Whether it's a good thing or not, the minute I wake up, I look at my emails. Right before I go to bed I look at emails. Emails are a constant thing. In that context I guess yes, I do some work — but you're always doing it, it's nothing unusual. Q: What time do you get to work usually? BG: It depends on my travel schedule. It's actu- ally highly unusual when I'm in the office every day. When I am in the area and not attending some sort of event or breakfast in the morning, I usually get here between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m. e way the AHA works — you spend a year as chair elect, then you spend a year as the chair, and finally you spend a year as the past chair. e time obligation is pretty significant and it's not just the travel piece, it's partici- pating in a lot of calls and making sure you're staying on top of the issues we're facing as an industry. In my year as chair elect, I'm on the road probably two to three times a month. Q: What's the first thing you like to do when you arrive at work? BG: I'm usually pretty scheduled. I spend a lot of time working with the folks who directly work with me, some of the senior VPs and some of our medical directors. I also like to spend time in our various sites of care. We have over 400 sites of care and almost 17,000 team members at Atlantic. Some sites are hospitals, others are phy- sician practices, ambulatory practices or support facilities. I try to spend some time every week out in a variety of sites, and I do that in a pretty deliberate way. Q: Is there anything unique about your office setup? BG: In our office we try to create opportu- nities for people to come together for both structured and unstructured teamwork so a lot of voices are at the table. It's not a liter- al office layout, but more of the philosophy about how we work together, and I think that's really important. Usually form follows function. I'm a big fan of people who work together, and when you put them in the same space they can't run away from each other. ey've got to run into each other every day. We also have worked hard to try to get folks on the same teams sit- uated within walking distance if possible, so they have a natural ability to communicate. Q: How much time do you spend with direct reports? BG: It depends on the nature of the work they do, but I spend at least 30 minutes to an hour individually with my most senior team every week. If I'm traveling, we try to do that by phone or email. We've got differ- ent levels of leadership teams, but the most senior leadership team gets together every other week as a group. I like to have a sense of an agenda, so we have a bit of a road map, but what's important to me is that whether it's free-flowing or structured, we build on the work we're doing. It's a combination of an agenda and open conversation. Q: How much time do you visit care sites and meet with clinical staff? BG: I try to concentrate my efforts, so if I go into a hospital I'm not going to every floor. I target a few areas depending on what that hospital president wants me to spend my time on. It gives me time to actually talk with our team members. What I don't like to do is what I call drive-bys, where you walk through, wave at people and say you've been there. I'd rather spend time talking to our team. Something else I do, which is a continuation of how I entered the organization almost three and a half years ago, is I try to meet as many people as I can. My guess is, in the time I've been here, I've probably met around 8,000 of our team members in different ways. When I first got here, I had an initiative called 5,000 Handshakes, and I spent my first month with a deliberate onboarding process that included spending a lot of time in the field getting to know our team. at was probably the most important thing I've done, and I've continued it through my time here. is doesn't just mean performing rounds; I just hosted my 80th meal with team mem- bers. We publicize dates for lunch and break- fast, and employees across the system sign up for them. I tend to have between 15 and 20 people in a session. It's just an hour to spend with our team members talking about what- ever is on their minds. I've gotten to hear some pretty amazing sto- ries about what our people have done and their interests. e other thing that struck

• Cover