Ken Cohen on Healthcare Leaders and Leadership

07 Nov Ken Cohen on Healthcare Leaders and Leadership

Synergy founder and CEO Kenneth R. Cohen, Ph.D.

This discussion of what makes great healthcare leaders is the next in a series of posts that will appear regularly in this space. Authored by The Synergy Organization’s nationally-recognized founder and CEO Dr. Kenneth R. Cohen, the series reveals insights into executive performance that Ken has gleaned in three decades of executive search service to the healthcare industry.

Ken invites your comments and will share many of them in future articles. You can reach him at ken@synergyorg.com

Significantly decrease hospital and health system costs, reduce risk, and increase productivity and profitability

In my first several posts we looked at many of the findings from three decades of our organization’s research with top healthcare CEOs.

In this post, we’re going to focus on why evidence-based executive search is the most cost-effective, efficient, and highest quality service available in the industry today.

It works because it combines seven key evidence-based components:

1. Proven science and proprietary psychological testing.
2. Formal national leadership “best practices” research, which integrates the results into both leadership selection and retention criteria.
3. Comprehensive Needs Analysis.
4. The proprietary Synergy Screening System®, which objectively evaluates the overall match of prospective candidates against a position’s unique needs.
5. Related Experience Charts with objective performance metrics
6. Targeted, behaviorally-based candidate interviews, and
7. Application of nationally-recognized performance excellence standards to ensure world-class, quality, service, and results.

To get a better understanding of why this approach is so successful, let’s explore Key Component #4, our proprietary Synergy Screening System® in a little more depth.

This is an evidence-based, three-step, value-added approach to executive search, job analysis, and talent assessment, which has been proven to:

• Significantly decrease hospital and health system costs,
• Reduce risk, and
• Increase productivity and profitability

Progressive healthcare organizations us our evidence-based Synergy Screening System® because evidence-based executive search stops the revolving door on leadership hiring.

Here are the five key ways evidence-based search makes a difference:

1. Selection Assessments help select the best option among both internal and external candidates.
2. Developmental Assessments help leverage leaders’ strengths and facilitate their growth.
3. Succession Planning builds the caliber, continuity, and cohesion within a leadership team.
4. Job Analyses apply best practices and science to define an organization’s most critical needs in both newly-created and existing leadership positions (where no one can afford guess work).
5. Validated Pre-employment Testing accurately and cost-effectively selects the right talent for both leadership and staff positions.

That’s it for now. I hope you’ll stay with us in the weeks ahead as we continue to look at what makes top healthcare executives successful.

Ken

NEXT TIME:
Don’t miss Ken’s next post in which he’ll discuss why The Synergy Organization has been called “the eHarmony of healthcare executive search.”

MORE INFORMATION:
For more information about The Synergy Organization’s unsurpassed track record in healthcare executive placement, please visit us at synergyorg.com.