By SHAWNA BURRESON Special to the Palisadian-Post While Dr. Susan Reynolds spent much of her life treating sick patients as an emergency room physician, shifting her focus to healing businesses and organizations has led her to become an author. In her debut book, ‘Prescription for Lasting Success: Leadership Strategies to Diagnose Problems and Transform Your Organization,’ Reynolds goes beyond simply treating symptoms of illness by using a system based on her own experiences in both medicine and business. ’It applies the physician’s model to organizations as a way to look beyond the chief complaint,’ said Reynolds, a Palisades resident since 1986. By using the ‘4 Ps’ of Purpose, Passion, Planning and People’all terms used in business’the inside-out approach is designed to pinpoint the source of dysfunction within a company, organization or even individual. The former White House healthcare advisor successfully navigated the transition from doctor to organizational development consultant without shedding her medical training, instead relying on it to assist floundering organizations make the transition into viable entities. As creator and CEO of the Institute for Medical Leadership that services more than 700 hundred hospitals in 38 states, Reynolds frequently travels around the country to participate in speaking engagements and retreats, which she prefers to call summits. ’Why do people retreat when they’re really trying to move forward? A summit means reaching new heights,’ she explained, adding that summits are also what world leaders conduct when trying to resolve important issues. ‘Strategic planning retreat sounds a little boring. I like to transform.’ While Part 1 of her book clearly lays out the model for transformation and Part 2 teaches how to apply it, readers can go further by contacting her institute to ‘send people who can guide them’ through the process. ’The 4-Ps model is important, but you have to apply perseverance to make it last,’ Reynolds said. In Chapter 9, she illustrates the spirit of perseverance by chronicling the multitudinous challenges facing President Abraham Lincoln, including deaths of loved ones, failed business ventures and defeats on the campaign trail. ’Lincoln overcame so many obstacles,’ Reynolds said. ‘That’s why he’s always been my hero.’ As she describes techniques developed on the front lines of patient care, Reynolds expertly weaves in wisdom garnered from her own painful setbacks’such as the closing of the Malibu Emergency Room and Family Medical Center she built and subsequently owned for a dozen years. The practice was unable to recover after the Northridge Earthquake and other calamities, including fire, flooding and mudslides, devastated the Southland in 1994. ’The four natural disasters in Malibu transformed my life,’ said Reynolds, who coped by ‘spending a lot of time at the Self-Realization Fellowship.’ When she decided to launch herself as a headhunter for the executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles, Reynolds realized her inside-out approach was applicable to the world of business. ‘I think it can appeal to a much wider audience than just the medical field. It can work for your gardening club or Rotary club.’ Or even corporate giants like Apple which, as Reynolds discusses in her book, has been successful not only in transforming the way people all over the planet communicate, but at demonstrating how the ‘4 Ps’ work in balance. She breaks down purpose into spirit, creativity and service to others, and planning into vision. ‘Steve Jobs was a great visionary,’ she said. On the other end of the spectrum, Reynolds recalls the San Francisco Medical Society as an example of what can go wrong when an entity forgets its purpose. The organization contacted her in 2005 to request a summit in response to dwindling membership. What Reynolds encountered was a medical society focused not on doctors, but on maintaining the beautiful but aging Victorian property it owned by renting it out for events. They even employed their own chef, sous chef and catering staff. ’They were supposed to be helping doctors do well in addressing health issues, such as AIDS, but all that had taken a backseat to their thriving catering business,’ Reynolds said. Despite the success of the side venture, revenue barely covered operating costs of the building itself. When a business loses its way, it’s not usually overnight, said Reynolds, as was the case with the SFMS. ‘They slid into this.’ After Reynolds helped them revisit their purpose and passion, the medical society sold their building and refocused on the needs of their doctors, leading to increased membership. The catering business would probably have failed in the 2008 recession, and along with it the SFMS, the organization’s accountant later informed Reynolds. Ironically, however, the business of medicine presents the most common cases of organizational illness, according to Reynolds, who cites a changing medical field as the source of the problem. The transformation from individual practices to large companies that’s occurring on a national scale is particularly hard on older professionals, who see themselves as small business owners, she said. Among numerous career highlights, and challenges, Reynolds credits as her biggest success, her son Chris Root, who has also been a great teacher. A former Eagle Scout from Troop 400 in the Palisades who attended Brentwood School, he is now a paramedic in Brooklyn, New York and is following in his mother’s footsteps by taking pre-med courses. ’He taught me that laughter can change your entire physiology… that changes in emotions lead to biochemical changes, and quickly too.’ ’Prescription for Lasting Success’ can be found at Barnes & Noble or on The Institute for Medical Leadership’s Web site, medleadership.com
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
