People, vision essential to navigating operations in COVID-19 era
Mitigating the effects of operational disruptions caused by COVID-19 requires an ongoing focus on communication and organizational vision, according to a panel discussion at the virtual Octane MedTech Innovation Forum.
“You often have times where things go bad at work. Sometimes things get crazy at home, but I don’t remember a time when the world was crazy, home was crazy and work was crazy,” Annette M. Walker, MHA, president of City of Hope Orange County, said. “When we address the people who work with us, this is the platform they’re dealing with.”
Diane J. Nugent, MD, medical director of pediatric hematology at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, also pointed out that people cannot focus on work when there is uncertainty regarding dependent children or parents, so leaders need to communicate to mitigate fears.
Staff enact a company’s vision, but doing so requires consistent realignment, particularly during COVID-19.
“The bigger you get, the more effort you have to put into making sure, on a man-to-man basis, that people really understand the vision,” Nugent said.
Stacey Pugh, senior vice president and president of Medtronic Neurovascular, noted the importance of vision realignment to an organization.
“If you do it well, the debate and discussion that happens in that alignment helps you move up the scale as an organization,” Pugh said.
Another critical component of enacting vision is decision-making, particularly due to the wide scope of changes caused by COVID-19.
“We set out the year with a lot of goals, and they went out the window,” Diane Gomez-Thinnes, worldwide president of Mentor, a Johnson & Johnson medical device company, said. “We have to move quickly. We have to make decisions quickly.”
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DiMario L, et al. Women leaders in life sciences and MedTech in Orange County. Presented at: Octane MedTech Innovation Forum; Oct. 28-30, 2020 (virtual meeting).
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