On October 12th, Samah will serve on the panel “Lessons from the Blockchain – Who are the Key Stakeholders and Why does it Matter?” at Becker’s Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference. As part of an ongoing series, Becker’s is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place October 9-12, 2019 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Samah’s session, click here.
Question: What is the No. 1 principle you uphold and practice to effectively lead a team?
Samah Alafeef: I always focus on the involvement of the team members. The success of the work relies on the commitment, spirit, and engagement of the human resources who are carrying out the work in order to survive and thrive. While employees’ disengagement costs the organizations a lot, in terms of lost productivity and turnover, having a fully engaged and an agile team that is working in a decentralized manner will definitely have a precious impact on business success. Especially, when we are talking about the E-Health projects, I have invested in motivating, and empowering my team. Despite that roles and responsibilities for the team members were already assigned, the involvement of all team members in the planning and decision making added their expertise to the process and strengthened their emotional commitment to the work.
Q: As a leader, how do you stay connected to the actual work that is being done – and not just by watching others execute, but by executing yourself? If so, how do you balance between leading and executing personally?
SA: Well, during my years of experience, I have tried different leadership styles. While I was moving from “Micromanagement” toward being “completely detached”, I have realized that the best station to stop is somewhere in the middle. Being a “Hands-on” leader is the best style I have adopted. I am getting more respect from my team when I execute with them jointly to achieve the business goals and day to day processes. The main challenge to me is to keep myself involved without falling in the trap of micromanagement. It helps me to learn about the business and how everything works. Yet, this practice allows me to develop closer relationships with my team. I learned, from my own mistakes, that, at a certain point, I need to step back and allow my employees to perform their work.
Q: What does healthcare need more of? Less of?
PW: This is a very exciting question, I have performed risk assessment studies on E-health projects to capture the needs, challenges, and risks associated with it. The results imply that the very basic need of the modern IT empowered Healthcare is a technology-equipped and trained tech people who are able to speak both languages, the health, and the IT language. Healthcare professionals also need to be updated, aware of the latest technological advancements, and keen to listen to the tech people, trust them and cooperate with them.
It requires a well trained and cross-functional agile team to build an optimal healthcare solution that makes people lives easier and save the cost and resources spent by governments and organizations. Today, automation and artificial intelligence are no longer new and fancy terms. The world is already accelerating. Without an eager multidiscipline and empowered teams, it can’t be achieved.
What contributes to better conversations between a health system’s financial and clinical leaders?
At Becker's 4th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable, taking place November 2–5 in Chicago, more than 1,500 hospital and health system executives tackle decisions that determine whether organizations thrive or merely survive: protecting margins under cost pressure, choosing where to grow, renegotiating payer relationships, stabilizing the workforce and proving real ROI on technology. This is where leaders work through them together, face-to-face. Apply for complimentary registration now.