Joey Wahler (Host): Anne Morris will be one of the keynote speakers at ACHE's 2026 Congress on Healthcare Leadership-- it's happening March 2nd through the 4th in Houston. To learn more and to register, please visit ache.org/congress-- and is a leadership strategist, award-winning co-host of the TED Podcast, Fixable, and bestselling author of Move Fast and Fix Things.

So, we're discussing how leaders can do just that. This is the Healthcare Executive podcast from the American College of Healthcare Executives. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm Joey Wahler. Hi there, Anne. Welcome.

Anne Morris: Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here.

Host: So as they say in cable dramas these days or in the movies sometimes, you're a fixer, right?

Anne Morris: I am in good dramatic company these days, yes.

Host: So, can you describe a little bit about your journey to leadership coaching and speaking, which really began overseas, right?

Anne Morris: Yeah. I started my career in public health, in global health, mostly in Latin America. I was drawn to the work, the chance to work cross-culturally, the very mission-driven nature of that entire sector. I got really captivated by leadership because there was a lot of variability in impact across organizations. And it seemed clear to me after spending a fair amount of time in the sector, that leadership was this huge variable in determining the outcomes and impact that teams and organizations would have. And it wasn't a big focus. And so, I decided to go back to school and learn about it. And MBA programs were the places that seemed to be taking leadership seriously.

Came out of that, I was interested in starting businesses. I did that for a while. I started my own company in the biotech space. And I realized kind of humbly along the way that I was a better coach and advisor and observer of patterns than I was a CEO. I was an okay CEO, but I had a chance at being great at these other things, which also meant I could have more impact. And so, I crossed over to the dark side of advising and coaching. But I think I will always have the heart of an operator.

Host: Interesting. So, how did you realize that your concepts can be useful for business leaders and beyond?

Anne Morris: Yeah. Leadership is such a huge part of our lives in any sector. I actually spent a little bit of time in the public sector too, and there were these patterns that were holding regardless of the environment. And I was really interested in those patterns and whether I could understand them deeply, describe them simply in a way that could influence people's behavior.

And so, I started down the path of writing about these ideas, talking about these ideas, yapping about these ideas as my 16-year-old would describe it. And the challenge of being able to draw people into a conversation about small changes in behavior that would make a big impact on their daily experience of work and the experience of work of the people around them. That became just a super motivating challenge for me.

Host: And in trying to impart those small changes to make a big difference, as you just said, as an expert in workplace culture and transformational change, when coaching leaders, what are some of the most common challenges there and how do you work with them to find solutions to those?

Anne Morris: It's a great question. It is the question. We tried to answer it in the form of a book recently. We recently published a book called Move Fast and Fix Things. And there are five main patterns that have emerged in our work as really areas that can make a huge difference in accelerating impact, but can also get in your way. So, I'll run through those five and happy to pull any thread that's interesting to you.

But one place where leaders can get stuck is in diagnosing the wrong problem. So essentially, a playbook has come out of our work for how to move fast and fix things, and where we invite people to really start is to make sure that they're solving the right problem. One pattern we see in organizations is a lot of leaders solving the symptoms of problems, but not pausing to really dig down to the root cause. So, that's area one.

Area two is also not pausing to really run smart experiments before scaling solutions. And a lot of those experiments, we would encourage people to really think about them through the lens of trust. For any problem you're trying to solve, there is a stakeholder at the center of it who is feeling some amount of pain. And if you look at it through the lens of trust, what could you do tomorrow to build more trust than you did today? So, this act of experimentation, this act of building trust quickly repairing relationships, it is a really essential function of leadership and we tend not to think of it that way. So, that would be number two.

Number three, we would say, you know, making new friends. As human beings, we all really like people who are really like us, and we tend to fall back on what we call the usual suspects for solving problems and partnering with us to lead organizations. So, we really push people to say, who are the unusual suspects that need to be at the decision-making table? And then, how do you create space for them to come into the room, pull up a chair, and really influence outcomes. So, that's number three.

Number four is how do you tell a persuasive change story. Often leaders will figure out a plan, run forward, look back, and then realize, you know, not everyone's behind them. And so, we invite people to pause and really think about what is the narrative that's going to allow people to understand what you're trying to do and get on board with it. And then, finally, just moving fast enough to have the impact that you want to have.

Host: I want to ask you about numbers one and two, because from my experience working for some very big companies, I think that they kind of go hand in hand. And since you're the expert, I wanted to get your thought. You mentioned oftentimes leaders diagnose the wrong problem. And separate from that, they also need to build trust and relationships with those working for them. I find that often it seems managers, executives are focused on the wrong thing because they're not getting into the weeds, so to speak, and talking enough with those in all parts of the company to get feedback from the people in the trenches, so to speak, about what the problems really are or how to really fix them. And so, oftentimes, it seems like they pay very close attention to all the things that don't need fixing as much as some others do. And it's because they're not listening to the people that could give them those very answers. What's your thought?

Anne Morris: I hundred percent agree with everything you said. The thing that is really going to help you out in figuring out what your real problem is, is curiosity. So, your job in this moment is not to have the right answers. It's really to ask the right questions of the right people. And that's not typically what we're asked to do in the rest of our work lives. And this is why this can be really hard for executives, because they're used to coming into rooms and having the right answer and being in advocacy mode, and defending the plan.

And in this moment, when you're really trying to figure out what's going wrong, you need to do the opposite. And it's a much more vulnerable posture. And so, it does benefit people a lot to pause, choose a different emotional frequency, choose a different intention for conversations. We have fun with this. We think about it in the metaphor of a week, and there are these five steps. So, this really is Monday. So, the work of Monday is about curiosity, humility. And then, as you said, Joey, really being in dialogue with people who have the information you need about what the problem is and how to solve it.

Host: And at the end there, Anne, you led me beautifully into my next question, which is in your book, move Fast and Fix Things, you say that much change can actually happen within a week, right?

Anne Morris: Yes. We're being a little playful about it. But in our experience, when you are using your time very strategically. An extraordinary amount of progress can be made in a single week's time. And so, even as we're having fun with it, we are quite serious about thinking about the progress of work in relatively small increments.

In our experience, we often give ourselves too much time to lead change-- months, even years in some large and complex organizations, and we respect that complexity. But we want to invite you to really try on what it would look and feel like to really generate real momentum. And that feel part is a very powerful variable here because when people start to feel that things are changing for the better, a better version of you shows up, a better version of them shows up, suddenly there's a sense of possibility, increased confidence. It's really a beautiful flywheel of progress once you start taking those steps. And so, people will sometimes ask us, "What's the right time for any particular change initiative?" And our first answer is always, "What about now?"

Host: And so, to get that buy-in, you mentioned earlier the analogy of a leader sometimes running and then looking over their shoulder and realize not enough followers are behind them, is just making them felt heard the key to that?

Anne Morris: In our experience, the key to unlocking buy-in, absolutely. There is a piece here that is about building trust. And so, the key elements of building trust are logic, authenticity, and empathy.

Logic, that got to have a good plan. The plan has to makes sense. It has to be a rigorous and optimistic bridge to a better place. That's part one. Authenticity, people have to believe that what you are saying and feeling and doing is aligned. And number three, they have to feel like you are thinking about them and their interests in this process as well. So when all those three things are firing, you have a foundation of trust.

Now, when you are leading change, that is a building block towards the future. Another unlock that's really powerful on your way to get there is to craft a change story that is compelling to the people who you are trying to lead. You know, the core metric of leadership, it's very simple on most days. Are other people willing to follow you? And it can help tremendously, because we think in metaphors and learn through stories. For you to put your vision into story form, tell us how the past connects to the present mandate for change and then a beautiful better future for all of us. When leaders pause and really craft that narrative, it totally accelerates the speed at which other people are willing to get on board.

Host: Sure. I would imagine so, because it gives them something they can relate to personally. How about obviously this is an area of expertise in which you're not only very good, but very passionate. And so, what would you say most inspires you personally and professionally when you get up on the average day, what gets you excited about doing this kind of work?

Anne Morris: Oh, Joey, it really is the people on the front lines of organizations trying to make them better, trying to make them better places for the people around them, for their patients, for the stakeholder who the organization are touching in various ways. You know, the working definition of leadership that we use is that it's about making other people better. Doing it in your presence is how we traditionally think about leadership, but also doing it in your absence. So, creating systems and cultures and strategies that allow people you may never even meet to thrive as well. And the people who are deeply energized by those challenges are the people that inspire me to jump out of bed and be useful to the world.

Host: All right. A couple of other things before we let you go. As mentioned, you'll share how healthcare leaders can move fast and fix things at ACHE's 2026 Congress on healthcare leadership. So, what can the attendees expect to hear covered there?

Anne Morris: Well, first, I'll say quite shamelessly, I can't wait for this conversation. You asked about who and what inspired me and the leaders who are trying to make healthcare organizations work in 2025 or among the most inspiring to me, it is a incredibly difficult environment to operate in right now. But when you get it right, it has such profound impact on people's lives.

So, I'm going to have a deeper version of this conversation with the audience. And my goal is that people walk away being able to build more trust tomorrow than they did today, and being able to move at the speed required for the impact they want to have on the world.

Host: And in summary, and as the workplace continues to change rapidly along with the healthcare field, of course, what is the key, would you say, to leaders staying agile and open to that, even while it's kind of a moving target, if you will?

Anne Morris: Yeah, I think that the headline or the bumper sticker is to use the power that you have. People underestimate their power in most organizations, but especially in healthcare because it's designed that way, there's a lot of visible hierarchy. There's a lot of top-down decision-making. But if you are standing in front of a patient or standing in front of the people, standing in front of patients, you have tremendous amount of informal power, and I would invite you to use it to make their lives and your lives better.

Host: Well, great advice indeed there. And speaking of which, once again, we remind you Anne will be one of the keynote speakers at ACHE's 2026 Congress on Healthcare Leadership. It's happening March 2nd through the fourth, as we said in Houston. To learn more or to register, you can visit ache.org/congress. She says ask the right questions and you should get the right answers. Perhaps that one's a little bit too long for a bumper sticker, but worthwhile advice nonetheless, right, Anne?

Anne Morris: I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic we can get it to fit.

Host: All right. Well, keep up all your great work, Anne. Thanks so much again, and perhaps we can do it again down the road.

Anne Morris: I'd love that.

Host: Same here. And for more information, please visit healthcareexecutive.org. And if you found this podcast helpful, please do share it on your social media. I'm Joey Wahler. And thanks so much again for being part of the Healthcare Executive Podcast from the American College of Healthcare Executives.