Russ Williams is the senior vice president and chief operating officer at Seattle Children's Hospital.
Mr. Williams will serve on the panel "Best Strategies for Children's Hospitals in 2023" at Becker's 10th Annual CEO + CFO Roundtable. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference on Nov. 7-10 in Chicago.
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Becker's Healthcare aims to foster peer-to-peer conversation between healthcare's brightest leaders and thinkers. In that vein, responses to our Speaker Series are published straight from interviewees. Here is what our speakers had to say.
Question: What is the smartest thing you've done in the last year to set your system up for success?
Russ Williams: The smartest thing I've done was truly ensure that all right people are in the right seats on the proverbial bus. Making changes is always uncomfortable and somewhat disruptive, but having the right people doing the right work is even more critical now than ever.
Q: What are you most excited about right now and what makes you nervous?
RW: I am most excited about all the potential we have to facilitate the connection between research and clinical care to get much better and faster. What makes me nervous is just how unstable the financial landscape is right now. A recession brings so much painful change for providers, patients, team members and organizations.
Q: How are you thinking about growth and investments for the next year or two?
RW: Keyword is prioritized — we have to keep growing as we are not serving our patients the way we need to, but given financial pressures, we have to be much more careful about where and what we grow.
Q: What will healthcare executives need to be effective leaders for the next five years?
RW: Our team members expect much more of us beyond the work time. How we balance the needs and demands of different factions within the workforce, who want very different things, will be so vital as we continue to have a lack of necessary workforce.
Q: How are you building resilient and diverse teams?
RW: I'm building it through open communication. We talk about it frequently. We get together in small groups to discuss what has worked for people and what challenges they face that we may be able to help with. It is no easier at the leadership level. People feel so committed to what they do that they often do not take care of themselves. I watch vacation use more closely than ever before to ensure people use it! I have also tried to role model and be much more open about what I am doing for myself as well, in hopes that it will give others the "informal permission" they often quietly seek to do the same for themselves.