Building a Career and Community: Insights from LIJ Valley Stream's Chris O'Brien

<p>hello everyone this is Cole from the American Journal of healthc care strategy joined by a special guest from northwell Health Chris O'Brien Chris please introduce yourself hi Cole thanks for having me uh I'm Chris O'Brien I'm the associate Executive Director of Finance uh at lij Valley Stream which is a community hospital Under the Umbrella of northwell Health uh I've been in northwell uh my entire career uh going uh now past now 16 years um and it really is just a a great company that uh I Envision hopefully spending the rest of my career [Music] at it's rare nowadays that people say that right that they want to spend their rest of their life with one company so often people are transitioning every two years can I ask why you enjoy working at northwell and you want to stay there yeah you know I mean I know it's kind of a cliche answer but it's really the culture and uh I really knew it from day one I I didn't want to get into health care that's not what I originally set out to get to um but when I did take the job um every Monday Michael ding who's the CEO does an orientation for new employees and when I met him and heard him speak and his inspirational story I was kind of like like wow this is this is for me I I may have stumbled into something really great and so that was almost from day one but the thing that really has led I think outside of just working with really great people throughout was early on in my career uh I got married young and eight months into my marriage my wife was diagnosed with cancer and uh I was a very young person that uh really didn't have a name in the company at all uh and it was just so nice to see how everybody essentially dropped everything for me uh they got me set up with the best oncologist for the type of cancer that my wife had um my wife wanted to continue to work she's gritty uh and Fridays was the day that she could uh have chemo theapy uh the that doctor did not have office hours on Fridays he specifically opened his office on Fridays for her wow which I found incredible uh and then the nurse practitioner who was an angel on Earth really she uh she would check in on my wife on weekends uh to see how she was doing on her own time she' check in on me because at that time I was 26 years old and she wanted to make sure that I was in kind of the right mindset and space uh in order to take care of my life and um from that moment on I I think that there that was there was a sense of loyalty uh that I had to this company because I now I have two beautiful kids my wife's 14 years in remission and I have the life that I could have always wanted and more uh and northwell has definitely been a part of that that is beautiful thank you so much for sharing that story that's really incredible I see why you like you know northwell so much because most organizations you know nowadays they don't treat their employees like family in that way and so that's really beautiful to hear you said that you didn't set out to get into health care what did you set out to to get into originally yeah I mean like most young people you go through a lot of different iterations as to what you want to do but uh right before that um you know I went right from undergrad into grad school and I I went and got an MBA from St John's University um and I wanted to be an investment banker I wanted to be the best investment banker that there ever was uh and in typical kind of O'Brien fashion um the stock market crashed the moment that we were I was coming out of school yeah uh and at that time you know I had been I my wife and I are high school sweethearts I had been dating my wife for nearly 10 years so I wanted to get married I wanted to get engaged get my life going so I just started applying everywhere um and kind of stumbled across this this healthare job uh and thinking all right I'll take the job I'll in the same way that you just said I'll be there for a year or two I'll let the market rebound and then I'm going to be the best investment banker that there ever was but I just knew instantly from being in there that um this was always the place that I was supposed to be and that everything happens for a reason and that that particular um crash uh was a pivotal moment because it led me to where I was supposed to be for the remainder of my career because that was right during 2008 that you were leaving your MBA and finance so that's a a scary time yeah was it challenging to get the role that you got here yeah no you know it's funny um when I was coming out I remember a recruiter meeting with me and saying you're the most unhirable person in the job market you have a master's degree and you have no experience nobody's going to want to hire you because you're G to education shows that you should be demanding a certain amount of money um but you don't have any experience to back up that money um so that's another thing you know going back to your first question that I think really uh makes me very loyal to northwall is that they believed in me before it was fashionable to do so most entry-level jobs it usually says a minimum of three years of experience it's like well if it's an entry-level job how how am I how am I supposed to get those three years of experience and northwell was was the one that believed in me and and was you know what I'm going to take a chance on this guy and and ever since that I've been really trying to repay them W and and why Finance in general what attracted you to wanting to be an investment banker or you know and why have you you've stayed in finance your whole career so what was the reason for that yeah I I mean honestly it was you know more just the idea like the broadness of business I I think was What attracted me to it uh what I do now uh in terms of staying in finance is that I'm not really in finance right I'm in I'm in the the business of saving lives no different than any other clinician it's just through a different lens so I love the finance job through a health care platform uh because it really gives me the opportunity uh to impact people uh at the greatest level uh and I've really tried to redefine what it means to be a CFO specifically a CFO at a community hospital kind of in a postco world right where utilizing my influence and my platform each and every day to make people's lives better that's what I go into each day for right and you know going back to my wife's experience the reason why I wanted to get specifically in operations is by watching those people that were taking care of my wife like I just found them so on inspiring and I was like I need to share a platform with these people um so yes I'm in the finance role yes I'm the site CFO um but I I really think of myself more just as a leader um and outside of being a dad and a husband I don't want my wife to get upset with me I don't think there's a greater thing that you could be uh in the world uh than being a leader you have the the opportunity to impact people's lives and change the trajectory of them in a very positive way and I take that so seriously you started as an analyst of course right and and so some of the questions I have are you're talking about you know you the leadership that you have now is is you really enjoy that but how did you get to that point was there are challenges you had to overcome going from analyst to manager and now at an executive position oh yeah no absolutely I mean listen I I think when you're an analyst too you know I think part of being a leader you know and I was a young leader um is you don't necessarily have that perspective uh and that and that experience in order to do it so I've always been the same person I've always LED with heart and compassion and I think that you should always lead with your heart may not always get you to the right decision but you'll feel righteous in the process um but what I've I've kind of honed my craft over the years um stop by stop right I think the toughest challenge really was going from a staff level to a leadership position right specifically within the same group that I was in you know like um that's a tough thing to do uh to essentially be a peer of someone and then all of a sudden you're right because it puts you kind of in a tough position right it's either you're going to be the the friendly guy like oh I'm still I'm still the same person right and then you're not doing the job that you're hired to do or you can go the opposite way and get uh you know feel like you're you're being you know uh empowered a little too much right and then you can lose touch uh with the people that helped get you there right so that was a really tough transition to make to go from staff uh into kind of the supervisory uh world uh and then going really from ma that and management and all that into the executive role um there's so many challenges in the executive role one it the the demands for your time are significantly more and just coincidentally as I've become an executive I've also become a father as well right and um my I don't sacrifice my family life for for anything right but I'm also trying to be um a topend executive at the same time so the biggest challenge there really is just finding the you know I try to be every thing to everybody yeah um and sometimes that's that's hard to do and and hard to strike that balance I try my absolute best to be able to do it um but really just that Evolution it's h you know that's the that's what's so great I mean I've literally grown up in this organization there's there's people that like I was a young kid uh and now i' I've grown into almost a middle-aged man at this point in the same organization but I lots of challenges along the way but they've all been good challenges and I feel like each day is me working towards something better uh so hopefully me at 40 is not where I'm at at 50 right and and certainly where I was at 30 is not where I am now I feel like I'm the best version of myself right now a lot of our administrative fellows who are watching this and and early careerist they are going to be soon entering into that phase where they're going from Pier to a lot of time supervisor some of them even very quickly um do you have any tips after going through that experience yourself where you were a young leader leading people who had previously been your peers on how to make that transition yeah you know I think the the natural instinct is you want to be liked right you want to be liked and you want to be loved right um that's that's what we all want we want that in our personal lives we want that in our professional lives but what I learned over time was that it's much more important to be respected uh than to necessarily be liked does then you could be respected and liked at the exact same time U but don't go out of your way to be liked because when you go out of your way to be liked you're potentially not saying the things to people that they need to hear that they don't want to hear um and I think that really that transition for me and where I really started to become a leader was when I started to realize that when I was willing to say things to people that I knew were going to make them better even though they weren't going to be happy with me with me saying them in the moment that's when I knew that I started turning the corner there because the greatest thing that a leader could do really is have the willingness to absorb a personal cost of themselves for the betterment of others and there's been so many times where I think that I've now been able to do that where conversations like that I think um have really turned the corner for some people uh that you know and again in the moment it doesn't feel good uh to say those things and to be constructive and that's a really tough thing to do as a young leader specifically uh when it's within the same group that that when you when you were a peer and then become a leader of those same people that is a very difficult thing so just stay be yourself um but remember respect right be fair be Equitable um but being respected is is much better than being liked that's your greatest path uh to being a really good leader really appreciate you sharing that that good advice hard advice of course but really good how did you ascend so quickly right you you did not take really a slow path even though it's been within the same organization it's been pretty accelerated is there any reasons you think that you have been so successful I appreciate that um honestly what I've learned is you have to be surrounded by good people to achieve great things and I've I'm just so grateful uh for this organization and there's so many people like I wouldn't even want to name them because there's so many people to thank but there's so many people um along the way that have believed in me uh again especially the one at a younger uh end where they believed in me before it was a fashionable thing to do I think it's a little bit more fashionable now um but it really it really goes back to northwell and northwell's culture as a whole which is they will take a chance on an internal person before they go external right and to be in an organization that's you know over 990,000 people deep at this point and their greatest secession strategy always is to go into internal um is another thing that I think makes a lot of people want to have a long career at northwell because there's just so many opportunities um and it's not frowned upon to move into another part of the organization it's actually um not just accepted but uh embraced wow yeah that is very special and and again makes sense why so many people have long tenures there is there anything that you're working on right now that is is really exciting we knew we're postco the economy's been up and down some people are hopeful some people are very pessimistic what is going on at your community hospital now yeah I mean well I mean there's so many things going on right I'm in in the middle of a lot of different uh strategic operational and financial challenges right now but I I I think all challenges are good I think the thing that when you're talking about kind of in a postco world here um and it kind of like aligns with uh the last degree that I got is really embracing what it really means to be a community hospital you know um our our Hospital even though it's a small hospital was in the epicenter of the epicenter of This Global pandemic and those days were tough I'm not going to lie to you but the one consistent thing uh that kept us going was the community support uh it was it was always so uplifting and and um it got us through a lot of a lot of difficult days and nights and and our job you know our job coming out of this and and my executive uh director feels the exact same way was I think what this should show us is we need to look at what it means to be a community hospital differently right the community stuck by US during our tough times now what ails our community and now how are we going to be in a position to help them and I've really really Tred to again like I said redefine what it means to be a site CFO at a community hospital by really putting the people the community um the challenges the the barri the barriers you know we're I'm on the the border of um uh Southeast Queens there's a lot of challenges uh you know for the patient population here and I want to be a part of the solution for that and I'm I'm very proud of a lot of the work uh that we've really that we've done specifically um at the back end of covid and then certainly really over these last two or three years you got recently a masters in healthcare delivery from Dartmouth and that's a unique degree right that's not you know that common can you tell us about what that degree is and then why you got it yeah so uh thanks for bringing that up you know it's another kind of Turning Point um uh for me the Masters in healthcare delivery science from um from Dartmouth was one that was proposed to me by my boss at the time he said that he would pay for me to go do it was a a prestigious uh thing to do he had just done it and I got to be honest with you I didn't want to do it because um it involved it was an 18 at that time it was an 18-month program and six weeks of that was going to take me away from my family and I didn't want to be away from my family even for one night uh let alone six weeks um but ultimately I made the decision because I thought that it was the best thing for my career right uh it certainly was something that I think was helpful around uh growth potential and whatnot the degree itself is really the intersection of kind of Public Health and business it's a very unique degree and although I've come out of that degree uh certainly better off than I was I think I found something even greater than any title change or or monetary change could find which is I found my purp right so that degree really the whole curriculum is built around socioeconomic disparities and Upstream factors and things like that and you know they read well right they right you're like oh that makes sense right like you know and but then I graduated from that program February 1st 2020 uh six weeks later covid was happening we were in the epicenter as I mentioned and now all of the things that I had had been reading about and learning about over those 18 months were bearing themselves out right in front of my face and that was tough to see but then coming out of that it was okay that was the reason why I actually went to get this degree was to have that level of Education to understand that what was happening was not an accident and that I was going to come out of this being a part of the solution and and again like I said when you're a leader it's you have a platform and if you could do something with that platform for better uh then you need to do it and that's I really it was that degree that I think really gave me Clarity uh and it has really led me on this kind this purposeful Journey over the last number of years and I can't imagine doing the role any differently but I would not have been able to do that role without that degree so again the the career growth and all those things those things are nice but really we all desire and I'm sure you feel the same way Cole is is your biggest goal really is to lead a purposeful meaningful career and that degree opened my eyes to something much bigger than I was looking at prior to entering it wow and your boss has that degree as well you said yeah he's the best leader I've ever been around in my life um so I trust him a lot so when he told me to go do it even though it meant taking me away from my family I trusted that he knew what was best for me you know it's kind of like you know it's almost kind of like a parent right like you know they know what's best for you even when you don't know what's best for you yet and man I am so grateful and thankful for him to recommend me for that but what a what a unique time to get that degree and then immediately put right into motion uh literally six weeks later well because that's what I'm thinking is is now you have the executive leadership is trained with this model of of healthcare delivery and they're ready to go and then covid hits and what I like is that it seems like at northwell you're not as it seems like you're not siloed right it seems like the leadership team is on the same page yeah no absolutely it I I'm I'm not just saying it because I'm on a podcast and I potentially go over the the waves here but the senior leadership of this health system really practices what they preach right that that doesn't always happen right sometimes you hear things but that doesn't actually translate into anything um it really permeates all the way down from Michael Ding and the the gentleman that I was speaking about his name Steve B um he he's he's the one that really taught me about leadership right he's I I I I try to be my own person right ingrained in the foundational values that my parents instilled in me but if there was a person that I've ever tried to emulate or emulate some of the things that he he does it's him wow um that's great right and and I'll leave you with kind of a final question about those those values um and then I'll you know I'll I'll let you you get the rest of your lunch hour but uh you talk about your family a lot and how important it is for you to be there for them like you said you didn't even want to you know be away for one day let alone that six weeks time you know I'm G to be having uh kids in the coming years you know I I'm married and a lot of our administrative fellows as they go into their full-time careers they're getting married and they're you're you know becoming family people do you have any advice on how you've been able to manage being this you know executive with all these responsibilities and also being so dedicated to your family yeah I I mean this isn't my career it's our career um I look at it that way you know my my children their birth in a lot of ways has actually helped Ascend my career because it was another thing that I think grounded me in purpose it also allowed me it put my head on uh even straighter than I think it was which is they look at me in this kind of grandiose uh super human way um when I drop them to school in the morning um when I'm driving to work I'm just trying to be worthy of the way in which they look at me right and then I'm not really worried about titles or money or anything like that those things will come but just by trying to be true to them it's actually led me H to have a a better career in terms of trying to find that balance you only get that time once right there isn't a person you're not GNA meet uh my parents age or not that's not going to stop you in the grocery store and say oh my god look you know I'm with my kids I'm always a celebrity when I'm with my kids and like oh my baby's 30 my baby's 40 and they they look with just such um disappointment and regret that they that they're not living in that moment uh anymore and listen that's going to happen to all of us one day um but what I'm not going to let happen is let regret come into play as well so I'm going to miss those moments um but I'm also going to have the ability to have cherish those moments because I will have lived them and I won't sacrifice anything um for my f because they all go hand inand right and again it's another thing about northwell nobody's asking you to do that doesn't mean that there's um listen a hospital Administration job is a 247 job uh but there's also the understanding that there's going to be a certain level of flexibility that allows you uh to be right and again the bosses that I've had specifically the last number of them um almost would find it um uh you know antagonistic if I were to tell them that I was missing something of importance related to my children that that that is in and and with the people that are on team that there's no tolerance for that they they are not allowed to miss anything that is important to their children they're not allowed to miss anything that's important to their spouse uh the work is always going to be there uh but the time that you spend with your family uh is not and I would just leave you with this when I was taking this job I had a a mentor who said listen I think you could be the CFO of this company one day he's like I think you're that good right I'm not sure about that right but he goes just remember on your Tombstone it won't say CFO of northwell Health it will say devoted husband loving son amazing father remember that if you remember that you'll be successful and I've always tried to take those words with me and I leave you with those words now uh because those are very very true right um as lucky as I am to be in a company uh that's fostered a community uh that is about growth and cares about uh their employees and they do they nothing uh is better and nothing uh supersedes the love um uh that you get from your family and uh hopefully if there's any message out of this podcast that the fellows that you say are listening to this uh Listen to It's that um you know and hopefully they can have that perspective a little bit earlier than I did well incredible thank you so much Chris for sharing that and thank you for coming on and spending the the half hour with me I couldn't be more appreciative very impactful message especially for me personally so really appreciate your time and I hope we can have you back on again yeah anything you need I love what you're doing here you seem like a wonderful young man anything that I could do to uh to help uh promote this or anything like that you just let me know and I'll be there for you absolutely</p>