Life's Bulldozer Moments by Tramuto Donato;Black Chris;

Author:Tramuto, Donato;Black, Chris;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Hamilton Books
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Collaboration and Integration

The term Collaborative IQ was coined by Mike Leavitt, a former three term governor of Utah who served as head of the Environmental Protection Agency and Secretary of Health and Human Services during the administration of President George W. Bush. His role at the top of the federal agency responsible for health care policy gave him a sweeping and unique vantage point over the entire system and allowed him to see both the strengths and weaknesses. During the first decade of the 2000s, rising costs and access were the most compelling political issues facing the health care industry in the United States. He concluded that there was only one solution to all those problems: that is, all the players, including physicians, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and patients, needed to work together to meet shared goals. Long before I heard the notion of Collaborative IQ from Secretary Leavitt, I strongly felt that the health care industry put too much emphasis on innovation and not enough on integration. Collaborative IQ took the ideas of collaboration and integration to another level.

Collaborative IQ is critical to the success of any business. It entails seeking the opinions of others, giving them the chance to be creative and innovative, and allowing them to be part of the solution. Implicit in the notion of collaboration is lifelong learning. If you are not open to the opinions of others; if you cannot begin by knowing that someone else will always have a better idea or better approach; if you cannot be eager to learn new things, you are doomed to failure. This is an important characteristic in yourself as well as in the people whom you hire for your business. The individuals who continue to learn are invariably more likely to achieve consistent success because conditions and times change. The lifelong learner is aware of the potential for change and is eager to be abreast and ahead of those changes.

The Collaborative IQ approach resonated with me. After Protocare was sold to two different buyers, one of the new owners, Constella Health Strategies, helped me sponsor a one-day symposium at my home in Maine. The idea came to me late one restless night. I got up long before dawn at about 3 a.m. and walked outdoors. In the late winter months, a canopy of stars crowns the coastline of Maine. The air is still very cold and the sky carries a distinctive crispness that allows each star to stand out with great clarity. As I looked up at the shining stars, I thought again about the lack of trust between the different players in the health care industry. Just as the stars shine so brilliantly in the sky but are distinct and separate from one another, the players in health care were also distinct and separate from one another. But like the stars, they were part of the same universe. Health insurers distrusted physicians and physicians did not trust pharmaceutical companies and resented the second guessing by the insurers.

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