Insight ? Stephens Mundy - Strictly Business

Whether he?s teaching a spinning class at 5:15 a.m., being the ?yard guy? for the Arts Center or skiing at Whiteface, Stephens

Mundy lives an active, engaged life that helps him balance his many

responsibilities as president of CVPH Medical Center.

Following are excerpts from SB?s recent interview

with Stephens Mundy.

SB: What important lessons did you learn early

in your career?

SM: I attended a graduate program in Health Administration that had a third year residency requirement. I had a choice as to where to work in that third year. One facility had some

obvious problems that I thought I could help with. The other was a good facility, but I didn?t know if I could keep up. Thankfully I chose the really good one. I learned how to recognize when things work well and I also learned that they don?t get that way naturally. You?ve got to change the things that don?t work well and that usually takes a lot of intestinal fortitude. Don?t be satisfied with some good and some not so good.

Always be focused on how to improve things.

SB: Who was your most influential mentor?

SM: Steven Lindsey, my first boss when I got out of graduate school. The hospital I worked for was part of a large group of

hospitals called the Hospital Corporation of America. They owned 200 hospitals across the country and he was undoubtedly the most successful CEO in the company. I worked at a community hospital that developed services that you would normally see only at a major teaching hospital. It was cutting edge. It was a great place to learn; there was always something going on and more to do. One thing he taught me was to find good people, ask them to do a job and trust them to do it. And he was a master at that. Once someone else was responsible for a task, he didn?t lose sleep over it. He assumed they would do what was necessary.

SB: What was the best piece of advice you ever received?

SM: Listen, listen, listen. This didn?t come naturally to me, but I did learn it eventually. Many times when people expect you to talk, but rather you listen, it can be very powerful. It can be

uncomfortable, it can be thought provoking, it can be off-

putting, but it?s never a bad thing. It?s always a good thing. If you?ve got good people as your senior managers, which I do, you listen to them.

SB: What advice would you offer to someone starting

his or her business career?

SM: Follow your heart thoughtfully. You can?t just follow your heart; it?s too complex a world. You need to move forward in a thoughtful manner. Don?t let your head rule you, but let your head guide you, so you don?t make blind decisions.

SB: What qualities do you believe are necessary for success?

SM: The first thing you?ve got to have is values. If you don?t, I don?t care how hard you work or how smart you are, you won?t

succeed. And you can?t teach them. In addition, you need a

strong sense of self, of balance, in your life. I get asked ?Doesn?t this job just eat you up?? No, I go home. I have a wife. I have children. Balance is very difficult to maintain and you have to expect that it will go out of kilter now and then, but in general covet it to the nth degree. Finally, to be successful you need to be a constant learner.

SB: Tell us about your approach to management

and leadership.

SM: I try to be very inclusive in decision making. I?m perfectly capable of making decisions, but it?s often better to delegate to those most involved in the situation. In my second year of

graduate school I worked on weekends at a teaching hospital as an administrative person, basically helping out with mundane tasks. If someone got shot we?d get the bullet from the OR and give it to the police ? that sort of thing. We were also in charge of the fire brigade. One night there was a fire at the

hospital in the medical respiratory intensive care unit. When I got there the first thing I saw was smoke coming out of the ICU and the security guard falling out of the room. We

evacuated the ICU in 13 minutes and we alerted senior

management. When Peter Wrap, the Chief Operating

Officer of the Medical Center, arrived I asked, ?Do you

want to take over?? He said ?No, you?re doing great, go ahead.? That was a great lesson for me. Let people do the job, stay out of their way and give them the authority to deal with what they need to.?

SB: What are you looking for when you hire?

What questions do you ask?

SM: We hire for skill sets and we hire for fit. We?re looking for people with a good cultural fit and a good personal fit. We have committees that interview people and it?s a pretty involved

process. Depending on the job we?re looking to fill we?ll have the appropriate specialists on the hiring committee to cover

most of the job specifics ? the technical aspects. The first

question I ask is usually ?Why Plattsburgh?? It?s not enough to like the hospital, they also have to like the community. For most jobs we expect people to stay on for years.

We?re an anomaly, we offer a rural, small town lifestyle, with

a big, sophisticated hospital. We?re the third largest sole-

community hospital (defined as no other full service hospital

in a 45 mile radius) in the U.S. Unlike similar facilities elsewhere there are no traffic jams or parking issues here and that?s exactly what some people love. One doctor who works here is in heaven. He judges his success by how big the tires are on

his tractor.

Of course not all employees live here. Some medical

specialties are on call and need to live close by, but others

work 15 12-hour shifts a month and can live elsewhere. We have

a number of doctors working here and living in Montreal,

a couple living in Vermont and even one in Philadelphia.

SB: If you could start your professional career over again, what would you do differently?

SM: I wouldn?t do anything differently, but there are prices you pay for your actions and I would at least understand the price paid by my family for my frequent moves and deal with them better. I?ve worked in Richmond Virginia, Putnam County West Virginia, Parkersburg West Virginia, and Plattsburgh New York. That?s a fair number of moves. I would understand the difficulties better and how to deal with them if I was to start over again.

SB: What are you most proud of professionally?

SM: I love to see people who work with me succeed. Some grow here, some move on to bigger and better things. I love to see them struggle and grow. I am also proud of the people who are inspired to improve their education and really, really put it to good use. We have so many people pursuing degrees of all shapes. Their enthusiasm is infectious!

SB: If you could have dinner and spend an evening with

any well-known person, living or dead, who would you choose and why?

SM: Steve Jobs. He was aggressive. He wanted to design the best products possible. And even though he was selling against his own products, he felt that was the right thing to do. Earlier on he failed and was fired by Apple, but he kept going. You could gain so much by talking to someone like him, hearing about the lessons he learned.

SB: How would you like to be remembered?

SM: I?d like to be remembered as someone who was important to my family and friends rather than for my job. I love and

enjoy my job and I?m very grateful for it, but it doesn?t define

me. I?ll leave work tonight, load up the lawn mower and go cut the grass at the Arts Center (North Country Center for the Arts). I?m the yard guy.

SB: What do you believe the North Country community should do today to insure a prosperous future?

SM: This is something I feel strongly about. I came here

several years after the Air Base closed. I saw that to be successful the community had to do some hard things, whether it was carving-up the Airbase or dealing with the closing?s impact on the schools. Today I think we?re at a similar crossroads. The

Development Corporation led the way in developing Vision 2040, a blueprint of what the community wants to look like in the future. Community development plans offer guidance, but

normally they sit on the shelf and gather dust. However in this case there?s a group of people who have grabbed hold of these initiatives and vowed to keep them alive. People realize that success is up to them, not the politicians and that?s the key.

I?m convinced that these initiatives are some of the most

important things the community should be working on. Whether it?s the arts, fitness, recreation, or green transportation,

everyone should pick a cause and jump in. We?ve already begun

to see increased support. At the Arts Center we had 300 people at ?Jumpin in July? during the

Mayor?s Cup. That?s double what we?ve had before. It?s great to see the collaboration going on and some of the effort

beginning to pay off.

Source: http://www.sbmonthly.com/?p=3044

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