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Michael Carrese: When two teams merge, whether that's two departments or two organizations, successful integration requires a merging of cultures, which presents a variety of challenges. Today on McLaren Leadership Podcast, we'll be hearing advice on how to accomplish that and overcome other challenges that happen when mergers occur from Clarence Sevillian. He's Regional CEO of the Northern Region of McLaren Healthcare, also President and CEO of McLaren Bay Region. I'm Michael Carrese. Mr. Sevillian, let's start with that culture question. What are some key steps to merging cultures successfully?

Clarence Sevillian: I would tell you that that's always a tricky word, tricky feeling overall when you talk about merging cultures as to say to something to talk about, but at the end of the day is the kind of can be a challenging thing to blend cultures or to decrease anxieties that may exist by trying to integrate and trying to break down [inaudible] itself. And I guess, you know what I would say is probably one of the keys to being successful with this is that you have to create a culture of transparency. I'm just sharing with folks what it is that you're really doing, what you're attempting to do, involve them in that process overall. And you'd do that through a variety of different ways. First and foremost is like I shared, is that you want to be transparent about what the goal is, the sharing and helping to understand the why. By doing that in a variety of different forms. It could be town hall meetings, it could be newsletters, it could be information sharing at departmental meetings and just sharing the why, I found to be very helpful and very educational. And quite honestly, when folks truly understand the why, they will rally behind, they will be the ones that are promoting it as well because they too not only understand the why, but they understand what their role is of making those things happen. So a tremendous amount of time is needed on that front level. And that is, how do you educate and make sure that people understand that why.

Host: And in the absence of that, the old cliché is people fill the vacuum with concerns and rumors and anxieties. Right?

Clarence Sevillian: Well that's true. And that's the key to it is if you don't give them the why, if you don't help them understand their role in that, they jump to their own conclusions and that's what you try to avoid.

Host: So obviously sometimes it goes pretty smoothly, sometimes it doesn't. So if you do discover that there is a conflict in trying to blend cultures and it's affecting performance, particularly what are some steps you'd take to start unpacking that?

Clarence Sevillian: What you end up doing with that, sometimes you have to have those direct conversations. You do that obviously intelligently. You do that with a certain amount of collegiality that goes along with that as well. Because that fear is there. People are uncertain as to, you know, what does this mean for me? You know, am I going to lose my job? Are you going to take more away from me to corporatize things itself? And most often that's not the case. What you need to do is to truly let folks vent, let them share what their thoughts and concerns are. And nine times out of 10, you'll be able to work through that. You'll be able to help them to understand that it's not necessarily about taking things away from them, but adding additional resources, helping them through that to make them more effective. And at the end of the day is going to make them more successful. So I think a big piece of that is that you have to be direct with individuals. You have to help them understand that, you know, these are the things that we're having to do for not just what we've always done in creating these silos. And it's individual success. It's actually what it means for it to be a part of a corporation that also will help, quite honestly, it will help build our communities and strengthen our communities as we deliver healthcare.

Host: So you have that understandable employee anxiety, but there's, it also can be happening in the community too. If there's a merger of organizations, is my local hospital going to change? Are they going to lose focus on us and be more focused on being part of this larger entity now? What are some thoughts about managing those sorts of concerns?

Clarence Sevillian: Well, and it's an absolute concern. We had some most recent acquisitions here in the Northern region with McLaren Carroll now, was Carroll Community Health Centers, which was a critical access hospital in Carroll, Michigan. Then you had Huron Medical Center, which was in Paddocks, Michigan, and with the addition of those two, when they become a part of a larger organization, especially being in a closer proximity to a larger organization, oftentimes they think, are you taking healthcare away from us? Are you not having that local feel? Are you trying to streamline things and consolidate everything into a larger organization? And that is a natural fear. That's what people think. They don't know what this big entity is coming in and what they're going to do to our communities. Kind of the same lines of what I was speaking about with what we would do with that not so engaged employee or that anxiety-driven employee itself, is that you have to take that time and improve yourself that look, McLaren, we're not trying to take healthcare away from our local communities.

As a matter of fact, we're trying to do just the opposite, engaging and involving those board members of helping them understand the why, but that there are active participant in being the voice, the eyes, the ears of our communities to understand what we truly need in our communities and that we're proving that, that we're keeping that in the local communities themselves. We look at that community health needs assessment and we're investing, we're putting resources there. There's certain things that is why individual smaller organizations tend to join larger organization and that is that they need more resources. So if we're investing those resources back into the local communities, that could be financially, that could be bricks and mortar, but it also could be resources such as a staff or physicians. And if we're bringing those things through the local community, you relieve that fear, you decrease that anxiety. And that's what we have intended to do. And so again, it starts with sitting around the table and understanding what the needs are in our communities, in those local communities, but then proving that we're investing and putting back in. And that will over a period of time starts to decrease that anxiety. And that's what we've proven to do.

Host: So let's go back inside the organization at the employee level and sometimes these changes means changes in reporting relationships and organizational structure. So sometimes you have individuals who were peers and now they've got a reporting relationship and that can be a little awkward. Right? So what are some words of wisdom for leaders who are trying to manage those kinds of changes?

Clarence Sevillian: It is an interesting phenomenon where I would share with you that I was in the same boat. We as a system, McLaren had to be seven, maybe seven years ago or eight years ago, decided to, you know, the CEOs of each of those subsidiaries reported up to Phil Ankaronati, which was our corporate CEO. And at the time, McLaren was growing. McLaren was truly trying to develop more mergers and acquisitions and it took Phil away from that through the day to day operations. So they developed a corporate COO role. And so the CEOs of each of the subsidiaries reported to the corporate COO, which was myself. And you know, it was an adjustment because Marco Hal at the time was the CEO at our McLaren McComb facility, was a peer of mine and now we're reporting to him. And Mark did a lot of great things and I would just share with those that you know, have done the same thing under this new arrangement or organizational structure for me.

They were my peers, colleagues, and still are but have a different reporting relationship. Is that hopefully what we, you know, same thing that I did is the same thing that Mark did is that sitting down and helping understand it, not trying to take away your autonomy. It is a different reporting relationship. You still have a voice, we still need you to drive your ship and all we're looking to do is to gain or give additional support to you, help remove barriers, and allow you to be more effective. And you do that through again over a period of time where just as you would do when you come into an organization, you want to stop, look, listen, not make immediate reactions. You tend to do that with your CEOs. Cause these are some bright individuals. These are folks that truly have added true value to the McLaren system and we just need to help them. And the better that they understand that, the more that they understand that, the better the working relationship would be.

Host: So what happens though, if you do have resistance or pushback or turbulence from a leader who was formerly a pear and now reports to you, what techniques do you use in that situation?

Clarence Sevillian: Kind of what I was sharing with you, where the employees themselves may kick back a little bit and not believe in the change or what have you. You first again help them understand or you've listened to them, you're listening instead of talking and demanding. But you know there are certain, you have to understand, I always step back to what is our mission as an organization. We understand what our mission is with McLaren is that we want to be the best value as defined by quality outcome in healthcare, is defined by quality outcomes and cost. And that is it their goal, is it what they want as well? And if they see the vision, if they see where they fit into helping achieve that vision itself, then you kind of help kind of develop that game plan and strategy for them. Do you want to take it to another level? Are you looking to grow within the organization? Are you looking to have a higher role in the organization? And then I can be a mentor to you to be able to establish that, develop that. Sometimes, most times that's going to work, sometimes there may just, it may not be the right fit for an individual and you try to help work through that as well. It's not that they're bad people, it's not that individuals just, they're meant to be stubborn. It just may not be something that clicks with them and you have to have that direct conversation as well. We're all goal driven. We all have goals that we tried to achieve and at the end of the day we want to be the best that we can be for McLaren, but you have to kind of walk through those cycles and most times it works. Other times you just may not.

Host: As we come to the end of our time here as I'm listening, hearing some keys about being transparent and communicating, explaining the why, focusing people on mission and the shared vision. What else would you add to that as really key pillars of making a merger work?

Clarence Sevillian: When you do a change like this and kind of as we described it in terms of understanding our why. One of the things that we know about healthcare and you'll hear it all the time, is that healthcare is changing. Gone are the days of doing a three year strategic plan. It's more like a three day strategic plan now. How are we changing within that? If you look at McLaren, how we've come together, we came together hospital at a time and everyone had their own best practice and everyone did it the best. This is the only way to be able to do that, but when you come together as a system, you're trying to break down those silos so that we can be as one. We can act as one. And the new regional structure that we've developed is really intended to do that. And I think that we've had tremendous success by truly sharing best practices, truly trying to reduce our variability so we can become that top percentile performing institution. And the more that we're able to create the structure to partner, to share visions, I would suggest that it's going to, you know, position McLaren Healthcare in a much better state five, 10, 20 years from now.

Host: Right. Well that's a good note to end on. We're going to have to leave it there, but I want to thank Clarence Sevillian, he's Regional CEO, Northern Region McLaren Healthcare. He's also President and CEO of McLaren Bay Region. Thanks for being our guest today. Thanks very much.

Clarence Sevillian: Thank you so much.

Host: You've been listening to McLaren Leadership Podcast. Thanks for joining us.