CHIME/HIMSS: Healthcare CIOs should build trust in times of rapid change

NEW ORLEANS—Even though healthcare CIOs are facing an era of great technological changes and changes in healthcare, it is essential for them to build trust within their respective organizations to guide their teams to success, according to Stephen M.R. Covey, MBA, during the Q&A portion of his March 3 lecture at the 2013 CIO Forum. The good news, he said, is that trust can be learned.

Covey, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author on leadership and former CEO of Covey Leadership Center, presented the keynote lecture at the CIO Forum, which is hosted by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).

“If you don’t consciously focus on creating trust, you tend to lose trust,” Covey said. “Change can be disruptive to an organization, and can create problems to the status quo. Thus, in times of rapid change, like the policy and technological changes that healthcare is experiencing, more focus is on the CIO and the impact of their role is more important.”  

As a result, he said that this also presents a greater opportunity for CIOs to help bring about a successful transformation in a way that also inspires trust.  “This can become part of a bigger picture of a CIO’s leadership example in demonstrating how you do what you do. In this way, CIOs demonstrate certain behaviors of setting expectations and being transparent, which can build trust.”

Effective performance and transparency can truly build trust, especially in a great change, said Covey. “It’s all about how you do what you do.” Throughout his lecture, Covey spoke to how leaders can learn to instill trust in their employees, and why it's essential for having an effective and successful team.

To demonstrate his point, Covey cited Yale Law Professor Stephen L. Carter, “Civility has two parts: generosity, even when it is costly, and trust, even when there is risk.”