A Career In Shared Services, Then And Now: Meet Robert White

We have tracked quite a few Shared Services careers over the nearly 15 years that the Shared Services & Outsourcing Network has been in existence. Many of these take the expected path: entry level transactional job, rising through the ranks, and evolving with shared services to a more global, process oriented, level. Once in a while, however, I have a less conventional conversation with someone who is new to shared services, albeit seems to have been living it all their life; someone like Robert White. Today, as part of Infoedge’s Florida-based solutions team, Robert advises customers on service delivery optimization models. He also recently graduated from SSON’s SSO Pro accreditation program in record time. In just 21 days (!) Robert fulfilled all 10 core sections and sub-modules, passed the test, and has the diploma to show for it. [Congratulations!] Most of the people who pass through this program take a minimum of three months and often up to a year to do the same, so I was intrigued and set up a call. It's an interesting story Robert shared – one that proves shared services thinking is the common denominator in any business improvement effort. Robert White started his career straight from university as an accounting clerk at Massachusetts General Hospital, the original and largest teaching hospital for Harvard Medical School and a breeding ground for leaders in health services across the US. Over the next eight years, he worked his way up to Interim Director for the Department of Anesthesia, managing people and systems and introducing changes along the way, specifically to the process and administrative support system. The rigid, scripted protocols that managed the interactions of the 200 physicians, residents and fellows were prohibiting the kind of creativity that Mass. General is otherwise known for. The hospital, having built its reputation on clinical capability, academic leadership, and research second to none, needed its departmental support processes to support and enable all three areas. As part of the team, Robert focused on aligning supportive services with these targets. His next posting, still with Mass. General, was within the department for Oral Surgery and Dentistry in a leadership role – part of a team leading the construction of a new dental unit. Here he leveraged what he had learned about process engineering to make the most effective use of precious resources [doctors] by designing a space and workflow to move patients through the office as efficiently as possible. After 15 years at Mass. General and having had enough of Boston winters, Robert accepted a position in Hawaii to lead an office launch for a young eye surgeon who was building up a brand-new practice. His brief was to create efficient business processes and patient flow-through as well as break into the Hawaiian market, which worked on a fixed referral pattern. The key differentiator the team identified was customer service. They came up with a novel approach, which they pitched to the area's leading doctors: "Send us five patients and if they are not absolutely delighted with our service you never need refer anyone again". The gamble worked, and with Robert designing the workflow so that one doctor, one front desk clerk, two assistants, one digital photographer, and he himself were able to see as many as100 patients per day, the practice grew. The key, he says, was identifying what the practice needs from the patient, and what the patient needs from the practice, he explains. Those are the two primary transactions that need to take place. Where this ran smoothly, it generated satisfaction –even when the news was bad as far as health was concerned. Over the next three years, the practice grew to four locations and 16 staff, leveraging efficient design and effective implementation. His next role was as VP of a Rehabilitation center in Hawaii. He was hired by the newly appointed CMO to join an organization that ran on fairly old-fashioned values, controlled by a strong leader, "and based on fear,"he explained. As Vice President of Outpatient services, Robert’s strategy for optimizing business processes was to empower managers on-site, thus getting the most out of them. "In the past, they’d been used to following orders,"he explained, "without questioning them. This did not lead to the best decisions being made." It was here that Robert learned a valuable lesson on culture and change management: namely, that powerful stakeholders can throw a spanner in the works by resisting change. At the end of the day, no matter how good the business case looked on paper, individuals who felt threatened by the change were able to mobilize the workforce and effectively lead a mutiny, forcing management to back down. The lesson Robert learned about the power of an unsupportive culture has stayed with him. His next position came about through a previous contact. He took a position with a Florida-based healthcare organization with a brief to "fix"the relationship with an outsourced billing operation, which supplied a 50-site network covering 600 providers. Anyone working within the medical profession will know only too well how incredibly complex billing is. To drive efficiencies through this morass the first step involved a thorough analysis of all processes and personnel to define roles and identify gaps. The next step was to implement automation solutions to deliver a more standardized and reliable flow of data to the accounting group and headquarter. The challenge was made more complex as the outsourced Biller had in turn "double outsourced"to an operation in India. While the experience with this Indian provider was nothing short of excellent, and the advantage of having a processing capability that effectively delivered overnight had an enormous impact, the governance challenges remained. A separate project that leadership wanted to implement involved splitting the outpatient business from the inpatient business, which meant that outpatient billing would transfer to a new organization in Georgia while the inpatient billing remained as was. It was at this juncture that Robert first witnessed the value of certified Black Belt and Six Sigma resources in driving efficient processes, as they supported design for the new set up. One of the areas under review was reporting structure, which was vital to provide transparency over operations. Data transition became a core area for review, as it impacted rebuilding the financial statements. With the company having grown quickly, little thought had been given to how reports and cost were apportioned. This made it nearly impossible to compare the sites’performance against each other. The systems that were subsequently put in place more accurately reflect individual sites’performance. This flurry of activity was driven by the CEO’s desire to sell the company. "No one in their right mind would acquire in organization that didn't offer significant transparency over its business, so the impact and value of transparent reporting was key", says Robert. Robert’s next stop was a women’s care operation in Florida, where he was charged with driving efficiency and modernization through the existing system and updating a new electronic medical record solution. A new office was built for this purpose and Robert was able to leverage his previous experience at the Hawaiian practice to design a space for optimal patient flow, to include: registration, information provision, co-pay, technician services, doctor analysis, and departure. With the doctor resource the most valuable, the priority was to keep a patient’s visit to the minimum time necessary to interpret relevant information. Building a physical path as well as an administrative flow that supports this is vital to the success of a health organization. "There is enough change foisted upon the health system by regulation, without adding to the stress by bottlenecking office visits,"Robert explains. In November, Robert joined Infoedge, a specialist consulting operation based in the United States, where he is leveraging his broad experience to help clients devise optimum service delivery models. The group supports shared services solutions for its client base and immediately recognized in Robert the experience, albeit under the guise of "business improvement". "My boss recognized that though I had acquired the requisite experience and understanding around core shared services concepts throughout my career, I was lacking a formal exposure. So he recommended I sign up for the SSO Pro course,"explains Robert. What was needed was a quick and intense immersion, so for the past three weeks Robert’s full-time job has been SSO Pro. "I spent 6 to 8 hours a day purely invested in the program,"he explains. "I have to say it served me incredibly well and has definitely lit a fire underneath me". "Many of the concepts covered in this course –like process reengineering, outsourcing, talent management, and even risk management –I was already well familiar with. Other areas, like negotiations, had not appeared on my radar but have proved incredibly useful in terms of planning engagements with a counterpart,"he says. "I particularly liked the ‘flip a coin to close the final gap’approach – not one you would usually find in a textbook but refreshingly real,"he laughs. He also appreciated the tips on body language and the ‘vibe’you give out, and tips on how to control and manage that. The sections on project management are perhaps amongst the most useful, he concedes. In particular he remembers a project he had run in a prior role: "I now realize that I set myself up for failure from the start,"he confesses. "The course highlighted clearly what I had done wrong in executing that particular project. I now see that there were gaps in how I motivated others to align to my goals, and in the reporting structure, that could have been better managed. I understand why it failed. If I had the benefit of this learning back then, things would have turned out different, without doubt." [eventpdf] And while he has constructive suggestions on how to improve engagement and additional resource value, he also complements attachments like the RACI model –"simple, yet powerful,"and the enormous support offered by Rochelle Hood, SSON’s coordinator of the program: "Rochelle has sent me a lot of additional information on Six Sigma and Lean. and followed up whenever I had questions. I now have a strong foundation and the tools I have gained over the past month will be an enormous advantage to me within my new role. SSO Pro Student Spotlight Interview What are your three main challenges in the year ahead? To master project management, Lean Six Sigma, and process optimization. How has the SSO Pro course helped you develop some solutions to these challenges? The course has helped me define the optimal project management path, to understand the general benefits of Lean Six Sigma and the keys to identifying the optimal structure of business processes. Have you been able to share some of the tools and templates with your team and/or stakeholders (customers/suppliers) to improve processes? Yes, I’ve constructed a library for them to access some of the attachment materials, which are very valuable as a resource. What was your favorite module? Project Management and Quality Management were the two best. The experts were clear, concise and excellent at explaining the topics and impacting learning. The Project Management Module will continue to be a major influence on how I approach and set up projects. On a lighter note, the Benchmarking module was moderated by someone with a definite sense of humor, and some of the negotiation tips, like flipping a coin to close the gap, provided a dose of reality as well as a laugh. Can you share a specific example of a concept, tool or skill learned in SSO Pro that you’ve directly applied in your organization? RACI charts are fantastic tools that I will always use as a key to project implementation and design. What have you done internally to recognize and celebrate your wonderful accomplishment? I communicated my victory to my boss and family. All are proud – there was much rejoicing! Are there any topics that you feel we should include in the course in going forward? The only notable gap that I perceived was a lack of discussion on how to select the right outsourcing company. What are the main trends or innovations that are affecting service delivery, and that you would like to know more about? When industry/regulatory trends change and it impacts the level of importance of specific tasks, how is this addressed in the outsourcing agreement and SLA’s? What's your feedback on the tests? I didn't appreciate some of the "trick questions"at the time, as it takes 24 hours before you can go back and redo a test. Who could possibly expect "none of the above"as the answer to a question asking about the most significant characteristics for shared services success? Find out how SSO Pro can help you.

A Career In Shared Services, Then And Now: Meet Robert White

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