Anne Klibanski on Inclusive Innovation, Mentoring and Following Your Passion

?I consider Anne Klibanski a leading light in the healthcare world. As President and Chief Executive Officer of Mass General Brigham, she leads one of the nation’s most prestigious healthcare systems and the largest private employer in Massachusetts. I’m grateful for her outstanding healthcare contributions and her dedication to developing, mentoring, and sponsoring some of the industry’s next generation of leaders. I recently asked Anne, who has wisdom and wit, about inclusive innovation, leadership—and her career advice to rising stars.??

Sue Siegel:?You believe mentorship is crucial to women’s success and you’ve trained more than 50 postdoctoral fellows, most of them women. What else is needed to help level the playing field for more people in science and health?

Anne Klibanski: Those of us in leadership roles are responsible for supporting the next generation of leaders. There is too much at stake in healthcare and research today, and the issues we face are complex. By helping our successors understand our challenges, we can better prepare them to create and implement solutions for tomorrow.?

We still have so much work to do to ensure that women, people of color, and other historically marginalized communities are equally represented in leadership roles where they have not been included. With diverse leadership and diverse perspective, we will be able to understand, and find the right solutions to, the problems that are here now and those that await us in the future. An inclusive culture is essential to our collective success.??

Mentorship is one way to do this. It requires a commitment in dedication and time from both the mentor and the mentee. Time for mentorship isn’t always easy to come by for leaders and future leaders, but it must be made a priority. Mentorship must be continuous and different people may have different roles in the process. Some may act solely as career mentors, some may help guide through personal challenges, and some may take on the role of sponsor. Having someone who can open doors, make the right introductions, and have the influence within an organization or broader community to help is critical.

Mentoring works best when it is accompanied by institutional support and a culture that celebrates women and people of color, and tangibly demonstrates that they are valued and critical to an organization’s vision and success.?

We also need to invest in programs that help women advance into leadership positions because, unfortunately, the landscape is not changing as fast as it should. Across our industry, men remain significantly more likely to hold these positions.?

One such program at Mass General Brigham is the Claflin Distinguished Scholars, which was established at Massachusetts General Hospital to support opportunities for women to advance into senior positions in academic medicine while raising children. Unfortunately, the reality is that raising a child can still be a significant obstacle to career advancement for women, as most continue to have a disproportionate responsibility and therefore have additional challenges in maintaining and growing their research productivity.

Through the Claflin program, each year a select number of women are awarded $120,000, given over a two-year period. They can use this funding to hire a technician or help support a postdoctoral fellow or a graduate student to further their research and, in turn, their careers. In addition to the importance of the funding itself, the Claflin program sends a message to faculty that this is a priority. Of the more than 140 women who have received this award, many have gone on to leadership roles in our system, nationally and internationally.

SS: Inclusive innovation at Mass General Brigham has received a lot of attention and was the topic of a Harvard case study. What is some of the work you view as most important?

AK: Our Innovation team has developed The Innovation Community Expansion Initiative (ICEI), which focuses on increasing and diversifying the innovator community at Mass General Brigham.??

Our system provides world-class care for our patients, and this care is often informed by the massive number of research projects that scientists and physicians alike are involved in across Mass General Brigham’s institutions. We continually aspire to transform findings from this enormous research base into patient-benefiting outcomes.??

At the same time, to better serve all of our patients, Mass General Brigham is strategically committed to equity in innovation. The ICEI began by looking at ways to increase the number of women and underrepresented minority innovators at work across our system. As we transform our healthcare system, it is important to draw in our faculty members who are not yet using their innovation potential, especially female, underrepresented minority, early career, and clinical faculty.?

Harvard Business School (HBS) professor Katie Coffman, an expert on gender disparity, has been an influential partner for us as we do this work, helping us to understand better some of the cultural and administrative barriers that have precluded the participation of so many up until now. We are focusing our efforts on removing these barriers to innovation through education, mentoring, peer support, and with digital tools that directly seek to address these issues.?

The case study you’re asking about came out of this work, was published at HBS, and is now taught to MBAs and executives. The study provided a platform for us to develop specific programming for the ICEI focused on building the innovator pipeline and providing our diverse and distinguished faculty with the resources they need to succeed, including educational programs and development opportunities.

SS: What do you see as the role of academic medical centers in the future of health and in a world that’s focused on social impact?

AK: The healthcare system is in crisis. Providing the highest level of equitable care is and must be a priority. As we saw during the pandemic, a lack of equity in care provision in delivery systems led to greater morbidity and mortality in underserved communities.?

Lack of access to healthcare is a crisis across the country and globally. Access is an equity issue. Capacity levels are incredibly high. Labor shortages make it difficult to provide needed care. Short-term labor to fill the void is costly, many employees are leaving care delivery systems, and the pipeline for filling these positions is inadequate. The cost of drug supplies, equipment, and severe supply chain shortages continue to increase, and we have the highest level of inflation in 40 years. We must move care into the community and provide more care closer to home and in the home. We must fully embrace digital care delivery. All healthcare systems must invest in improving health for the communities served which includes partnering with communities and government to improve social determinants of health. All this at a time when healthcare systems across the country continue to see expenses far outstrip revenue even as patients cannot afford healthcare.?

For academic health care systems, we have all these challenges, but others as well. Fundamentally, not-for-profit health care systems do not have shareholders, and our patients are our true shareholders. Therefore, profit, or margin generated by academic systems, must go into funding the academic mission, specifically high-quality complex care, research, and innovation that informs that care, training the next generation, and caring for the communities we serve. These investments in mission define health now and, in the future, and have the potential to change patients’ lives for the better. Investments in research and innovation for example, are critical to ensuring that we remain at the forefront of developing novel therapies, diagnostics, devices and care algorithms.?

The challenges we face are significant and put academic medicine at profound risk as healthcare systems deal with these unprecedented financial headwinds. Mass General Brigham is in a better position than many in research funding; for example, we are the highest recipient of NIH funding in the world and have total sponsored research of around $2.3 billion. Yet, we also need to supplement that funding with an investment of our own funds of nearly 2% of our annual budget, or many research projects will otherwise not be able to move forward. It is essential for healthcare systems to be intentional about supporting research in this way and putting that at risk is putting the health of future generations at risk.??

Above all, we must create a culture that has patients at the center of all we do. Every decision, every investment, and every policy must be for the benefit of inclusive patient care. At Mass General Brigham, our focus on patient care is the cornerstone of our four-part mission and informs and inspires the other three aspects:?research, teaching, community.

SS: How would you describe your leadership style?

AK: As a leader, I am always looking forward. I am optimistic about the opportunities but aware of the challenges. I prioritize listening to people throughout the organization and I enjoy getting people excited about a shared vision. I have been told I am patient with others and like to mull things over to consider multiple perspectives. However, when it’s time to make a decision I lead purposefully and deliberately.?

Throughout my career, I have been the beneficiary of strong working relationships with incredible colleagues who have taught me about patient care, research, and more. I want to be sure that others say the same about me as a colleague, and I think about this in so many of my interactions.??

SS: I love that you were an English major at Barnard and that you did your thesis on the poetry of William Butler Yeats. What inspired your transition to medicine, specifically neuroendocrinology?

AK: I have always loved poetry, how it requires incredible discipline to create a simple, concise piece from many complex thoughts and emotions all in form. It forces introspection and interpretation from many perspectives, something I have relied on throughout my career.?

I was also fascinated by chemistry growing up, and in college, inorganic chemistry.

The periodic table’s simplicity of element organization and interactions was endlessly interesting to me. When I read The Periodic Table by Primo Levi, the connection between human behavior, chemistry, and literature was sealed. As I learned more about the biology of the human body, and especially the brain, in college and in medical school, I was drawn to understanding the connectivity between complex human systems.??

Neuroendocrinology is an especially complex field, as patients live with conditions that can affect the brain, multiple complex hormone systems with carefully orchestrated interactions, multiple organ systems, and human behavior in various ways. A small perturbation in the system can cause major disease, shorten life, and profoundly affect health. Teasing this system apart so that the problem affecting a patient can be identified and treated can have a life-saving effect.

SS: These days I like to tell young executives to pace themselves: Don’t be in such a hurry to scramble up the corporate ladder. What career advice would you like to share with young rising stars??

AK: Do what you are passionate about.??

I’ve told this story before as it has always remained with me. When I was at Barnard, Elizabeth Hardwick, a cofounder of the New York Review of Books, told me that “your profession is not your career.” It has been helpful for me in my own life, and I keep this message in mind when I mentor others too. Although your profession is what you have trained for, your career can be something much greater than that. Find what you are passionate about and follow that path.?

SS: Knowing you, I really appreciate your warmth and humor, Anne. Can you share a few things you enjoy beyond work, for instance, your favorite comedian, your favorite band, your favorite book, your favorite tree?

AK: My favorite poet always was and remains William Butler Yeats. Reading the “Second Coming” during the pandemic just reinforced his relevance. Among my favorite authors are Nikolai Gogol, Jonathan Swift, and Ray Bradbury. I have recently been reading books by Lauren Groff, a very talented young writer. For a television series, Homeland was fantastic, and I have been enjoying The Extraordinary Attorney Woo lately.?

SS: What would you like future generations of leaders to say about your accomplishments??

AK: I would like future generations to see my time leading Mass General Brigham as transformative, including how we shaped clinical care to improve patient outcomes and experience, brought the best of research and innovation forward, and how we created more justice and more equity for the communities we serve.?

Just a few months into my time leading Mass General Brigham, we were faced with caring for patients during a global pandemic. Our system has admirably dealt with exhausting, historic challenges. I’m proud to have led us through this time; but it is our 82,000 employees, and their tireless dedication to our patients, that has allowed us to continue to deliver the world-class care that we are known for.??