RAKESH SURI: You know, it's interesting.
In health care, we all thrive on energy, happenings, challenges,
and crises, actually.
You're part of the solution.
And that's what makes it so satisfying.
It's why many of us went into medicine.
When something of the magnitude of the COVID pandemic
becomes a reality, just jumping to action
too quickly without understanding
is a cardinal error.
And therefore, the algorithm we put in place
is stopping the mind, slowing things down for just a moment,
gathering your senses.
Take a deep breath, and really assess the situation.
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You wake up one day, and you had a business plan.
You had a scorecard.
You had a strategy.
And by the way, COVID has made it irrelevant.
There's a fog.
You don't know what tomorrow will look like.
Moreover, you cannot possibly imagine what a month,
or ascertaining what a year, will entail and the need,
as a leader, to be able to put some structure around what
you're doing now, what you're going to do tomorrow,
and what you're going to do for the weeks and months to come.
If this wasn't as bad as people said it would be,
what would that look like?
If this was worse than anybody imagined,
what would that look like?
Then you almost set a mental map for yourself.
And then you peg where you are on that map virtually
every day.
And then you have to start to align everybody
that you're interfacing with-- your leadership
team, your organization-- around a common worldview.
It's very important through a crisis like this
to be clear about leading with vision, clarity, and purpose.
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The quickest way to disempower your leadership
team and your executives in an organization
during a crisis like this is paradoxically
to be working, quote, "harder."
In this particular COVID crisis, showing up
at work when you're worn out, physically depleted,
your immune system is down, you haven't slept,
you haven't eaten nutritious foods,
is a surefire way to get sick and become
an ineffective leader.
Being a pace-setting leader and outpacing everyone
else as a badge of honor, we know, is the wrong thing to do.
And by the way, it's not effective.
Obviously, work days can go long.
I also know, paradoxically, the longer I
stay and don't rely on one of my team members
to take over for me when I'm exhausted,
the worse the decisions that we make
and paradoxically the less we're able to be
effective in our roles.
So by about 7:00 or 8:00, I need to be eating dinner, calming
my mind, finishing up calls, personally or professionally,
and then winding down by about 10 o'clock to get in bed
and have a solid six to seven hours of sleep.
So a combination of sleep, exercise,
mindfulness, meditation, a healthy diet,
leveraging colleagues, and having a social interaction
with colleagues, friends, and family,
that, in essence, is a package that
is absolutely essential for any human being
but particularly human beings and leaders who
are particularly stressed during any crisis.
A leader adhering to those things
is going to be an effective leader.
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We empowered those who were willing to step up and take
on the leadership role in the COVID task force.
And these were some seasoned leaders,
some less-seasoned leaders, and some nascent leaders--
people who had never led before.
But they were passionate, and they
wanted to make a difference.
And indeed, that's been the case.
They have stepped up and really made an impact
in helping us tackle this pandemic from our vantage
point.
Listen, we don't have the answers at the boardroom table.
I mean, we're not in these positions
because we have all the answers to every situation.
But amongst 6,000 caregivers who are
some of the most brilliant, empowered, ambitious,
thoughtful, and caring people that I've ever met in my life,
we knew they had the answers.
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