Becker's Hospital Review

25 WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP 25 CEO / STRATEGY 'Good Morning America' anchor Robin Roberts joins Mayo Clinic board By Kelly Gooch T he Mayo Clinic board of trustees has elected TV anchor Robin Roberts as a public trustee. Ms. Roberts is an award-winning anchor of ABC's "Good Morning America." She also has been vocal about health issues, including her diagnoses of breast cancer and myelodys- plastic syndrome. Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo said Ms. Rob- erts' efforts to raise awareness about health issues have included working with nonprof- it organization Be the Match to inform the public about the need for more bone mar- row donors, as well as publicly talking about her healthcare journeys. The journalist also has been recognized by the Susan G. Komen Foundation and Congressional Families Cancer Prevention Program. "Robin is a remarkable person and journalist who has a tremendous gift to connect with mil- lions of people through storytelling," said Gi- anrico Farrugia, MD, Mayo Clinic's president and CEO. "She will bring invaluable perspec- tive, given her incredible ability to overcome her own health adversities to become a lead- ing voice and advocate for others." The Mayo Clinic board also reelected Sec- retary Kenneth Salazar, Randolph Steer, MD, PhD, and Anne Sweeney on Feb. 21. Addi- tionally, the board elected internal trustees Roshy Didehban and Sarah McLaughlin, MD, to four-year terms. Four emeritus trustees — Linda Alvarado, Steven Buskirk, MD, Mary Sue Coleman, PhD, and Paula Menkosky — were also recognized and honored. n "Robin is a remarkable person and journalist who has a tremendous gift to connect with millions of people through storytelling." - Dr. Gianrico Farrugia, Mayo Clinic Management studies are often flawed: How to evaluate their claims before upending strategy By Emily Rappleye C -level leaders need to be more aware of the rigor and validity of management studies, according to Strategy+Business. The report cites Dennis Tourish, the author of Management Studies in Crisis: Fraud, Deception and Meaningless Research, who wrote, "It has … become evident that various forms of research malpractice are common in our field." He believes the field is too full of research based on faulty data and poor statistical analysis, or oversimplified conclusions. In particular, he denounces popular management concepts like authentic leadership theory and evidence- based management theory. While Strategy+Business suggests not all management research needs to be tossed out, leaders simply need to be more critical. It suggests leaders take a more critical look at studies, cut away jargon and zero in on the design and findings. It also cautions leaders to look out for "p-hacking," when researchers selectively present data that appear statistically significant. n Another way is to make sure people debrief separately, so you don't end up with a group- think mentality. Especially in a panel or committee where people are silently voting. Q: If you're an aspiring leader who is a woman and/or minority, what can you do proactively to resonate with a predominantly white, male selec- tion committee? DP: I've prepped a number of candidates for that situation, where I'm going to be the only other woman in the room when we're there, and I don't get to vote. Part of what I say to aspiring female executives is even when you're in a career and you've done this for years, you still need sponsors that are male and female. What you never want it to feel like is that the candidate coming in is going up against the enemy. It's also about really making sure that committee understands that their job there is to recruit, discern and bring the right talent, and everyone's trying to do it with the best intentions. Q: We're starting to see more diversity mandates. One example is Cal- ifornia, which mandated all publicly traded companies appoint at least one female board member by the end of 2019. Do you think diversity mandates are helping or hurting the cause? Why? DP: We can't move a committee or a slate forward without some representation. It's the right thing to do because it challenges the organization to continue to look. Mandates work as long as there's an ability to recruit more broadly and in an inclusive manner. My dream would be we don't have to have mandates because we just pick the right talent and we have representative slates and we've got a good mix of people. But we're at a moment where without it happening on its own, there are institutional mandates because we're concerned that just the right thing to do isn't going to stick. Q: Is there anything else you think is important to mention? DP: e other thing that comes up sometimes is pipeline percentages. Companies oen have mandates for 35 percent of a C-suite be diverse, for example. e thing I think we miss in those percentage goals is what constitutes the team; we'd like to see women gain greater representation across the board, including positions leading up to the CEO, the COO, the CIO, the CFO, and other roles in which they're really underrepresented. I think that's where true gender equity success lies. I don't want executive search as an industry to be content with percentages that don't unpack where we have representation in each of those pipeline verticals. n

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