Imagine the classic Recycle, Reduce, Reuse logo. It's a feedback loop. Each activity impacts the preceding and the following activity. I mention this because I could choose any number of places to jump in and outlines what is broken at Healthgrades and it will lead and impact multiple other bad behaviors. But let's start with the most critical piece, the piece that we will continually return to: leadership. There is no escaping the fact that leadership is exceptionally toxic at Healthgrades. Having been in multiple industries and companies, Healthgrades possesses the worst leadership I've seen in my two decades of work.
First, leadership is spineless. Healthgrades has - for years - been led by people who are unwilling to make tough decisions. They are more than happy to collect a large paycheck, but fundamentally do not understand that they earn that paycheck by making discrete choices. It's easy to say yes to everything. It's tough to make bets and say no so you can focus on the organization.
Second, leaders are unable to focus, because the senior leadership team is a confederation of individual kingdoms, with each leader constantly working to expand his or her own fiefdom. This is most clear with one of the current leaders. His mode of operation is to reach into multiple other areas of responsibility - without the authority to do so - and begin to act and move resources at his whim. He has actively worked to create confusion and duplication of resources in his departments so we can undermine the efforts and authority of others in the organization. What is worse is his own departments are on fire, have not been able to deliver on their purpose within the organization, while this leader busies himself with blaming others and expanding his personal Q score.
Yet he has been allowed to do so. And other leaders see this happening, so they begin to adopt the same tactics. Rather than state "I will not be complicit in this farce" these leaders decide to adapt to it. Why? Because of fear. Healthgrades is rules by a persistent, ubiquitous culture of fear. One leader is fearful of another, because he is more connected to the ownership group. Another is fearful of all leaders because she generally doesn't want to get caught in the crossfire. The Sales Leaders are fearful of their own people, because go-forbid they actually ask their sales people to actually come off the golf course to do their jobs!
So the fear manifests itself in multiple ways. Groups/Committees/etc. are brought together to make decisions, but it doesn't matter what anyone says in that meeting. People will agree and then get sabotaged. And when they are sabotaged, that person blames others. And the cycle continues.
You could, and should, expect a leader - who is fully aware of this behavior - to do something about this. He can't. He is a figurehead. An emperor without clothes. There is a shadow leader for Healthgrades, protected by board members and whose personal mandate is hidden to everyone below the senior level.
But here is the issue with this leader: he is not a business leader. He is not ruled by sound business decision making. He cannot converse or make decisions based on a metered, business assessment. He resides in the Atlanta office where senior leaders with offer shifty-eyed endorsements of his 'genius,' fearful that they ever be questioned on their true thoughts about his capabilities. If audience is required with him, it is to make sure he will not become a hindrance, to ensure that he can just be convinced to acquiesce. He neither listens to what is said to him nor to what he really says in response. He puts his faith in his instincts (which are poor and based on lucking into previous success). He is pampered and surrounded by lackeys, groveling for the scraps. And other leaders are too easily satisfied with this arrangement.
There was a glimmer of hope 12-18 months ago. There appeared a reasonable group that had arrived to help build a team approach and take pride in a hard days work. New blood was brought in. The leadership team and the Board appeared to recognize that the old way, the toxic culture, was undermining their own interests.
As of this week, that is revealed to have been false hope. Healthgrades has announced more changes. There has been a leadership reshuffling, and the leaders that were shining a light on the dysfunction AND providing the right solutions, have been escorted out the building. The old guard, the old culture, has won out. The talk of "a new day" and "changing our ways" 12-18 months ago, was more theater. The long tenured leaders were being found out (which has been apparent to the rest of the organization for years) and they circled the wagons. They aren't done picking the last bits of meat off the bones of the company.
I could go on. But then it just starts to become noise. The reviews on Glassdoor are accurate. I didn't trust them. I expected I could be a part of the change. Some things are too far gone.
The summary: stay far away from Healthgrades. I 'survived' the reduction of force announced this week. I'm actively making plans for my own exit.
