John Noseworthy: Leadership
When It Really Matters
Part One: Transformation at the Top of the Industry
With John Noseworthy, MD, Former President and CEO, Mayo Clinic and board member,
AlixPartners, and Simon Freakley, Chief Executive Officer, AlixPartners
Why transform a successful business?
00:15 | Simon Freakley
So what we find, John, with our clients is that there's so much disruption now happening in
their industries that unless they're proactive in rethinking their own businesses, accelerating
the transformation of their own business, they're going to get left behind. And one has to really
take responsibility for driving one's own change, not just responding to disruptive forces. And
that seems to be exactly what you did at the Mayo Clinic.
00:37 | John Noseworthy
In the 90s and early 2000s, the increase year over year in healthcare spend in the country was
exceeding the rate of growth of the American economy, and it was approaching 16/17/18% of
the GDP. It was very clear nationally that was unsustainable. And so, our board of trustees
said: do you have a plan for 2020 because things are going to change?
We produced a report in 2007 and six weeks later Lehman Brothers disappeared, and we were
in the midst of a great recession, but we had a plan.
How do you implement change without destroying culture?
01:08 | John Noseworthy
They had to understand the bigger question. There are consequences to your decisions, and
as we refine those and drive out the waste and improve our outcomes, we'll have more funds
to invest in innovation and technology, recruitment, research and education.
When they said, you're going to ruin our culture, my immediate response was actually, not. We
together are going to use our culture of teamwork and our values to create a better future for
our patient. That culture is actually our secret weapon to make the company stronger.
01:41 | Simon Freakley
The culture of the companies is almost the currency that makes transformation possible. And
everybody wants to be successful, it's just that now, of course, with so much disruption, we
have to make that change happen on a schedule.