Today I turned ONE.

Today I turned ONE. ONE year at Dover Park Hospice as the CEO of this gracious, caring, wonderful organization made possible by the people who work in it. Not just work, but live and play and thrive – and cry, and sweat, and bleed.

It is a good milestone for me to reflect on how the year has gone.

The time has not flown, unlike what many people said about 2023. It has not flown for me because so much has happened. Inside these 12 months, I have grown.

…and these are some of the things that I have thought of.

Transforming Care:

We say care, and people think process or policy, but actually it is all about people.

Doctors were made to address the cutting edge of practice and the unknown. We should stay there, studying what is discovered, refining our knowledge of how to beat disease, solving the unknown. That is what we were trained for: service that ties to research that ties to educating all of us to serve at best practice – the holy trinity of healthcare.

Nurses are nurturing agents of care. They should lead the care. We often use the cliché of “nurse-led intervention” but do we really understand this? If we do, what it really means is that the care services are run and headed by nurses, so that doctors can stay on the cutting edge.

Allied health professionals are the secret superpower of population health. The majority of the outcomes that we seek out there are in the hands of not doctors nor nurses, but the multitude of allied health disciplines. Evidence shows that what you eat, how you move, your sleep, your happiness, your connectedness with your internal and external environment, your chosen family and community – all of these do greater good to you than any herb, pill, or surgery in the first instance. And these belong to the realms of allied health.

As a backup plan, nurses and doctors are there to catch you if you fall. And the entire system, including how we structure our financing, human resources, operations, facilities etc must be ready to push you back up like a trampoline.

If we can keep our different people gainfully and meaningfully engaged in this work, in their arenas of strength, then we will have transformed care.

The flipside of this is using doctors for mundane care tasks, using nurses as caregivers, using allied health as appendices.

I believe that we can get out of this, and create a very Singaporean new model.

Leadership:

I have mused on this, more so because I was asking myself “what is my version of leadership?” and I have posted some thoughts on LinkedIn over the year as I did so.

• How can I show that I treasure my people: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/li-lian-liew_should-i-stay-or-go-if-youre-stuck-in-activity-7076383013214826496-P3V_
• I’m not perfect, but I don’t have to be: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/li-lian-liew_just-because-you-sometimes-struggle-with-activity-7093297139065225216-DbYJ
• To me, leadership means this: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/li-lian-liew_i-was-asked-to-describe-leadership-so-i-activity-7110290708061667328-6YjP
• I’m a CEO and I should not top-down everything: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/li-lian-liew_the-myth-of-the-ceo-as-ultimate-decision-activity-7118139234686832640-Pepb
• I’m a leader, and it is ok that people don’t like me: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/li-lian-liew_youre-a-leader-now-not-everyone-is-going-activity-7143600904745672704-424s

In sum, I want to be able to take my hands off the work, and yet it stands and flourishes. This would be what I hope to achieve.

Learning from and working with the Board (my Council):

One of the greatest benefits of being a CEO is the access to a group of profoundly talented and well-respected senior people. With just a phone call, a word here and there, a little poke, some jokes, they can shape and change an organization.

Therefore it is vital to nurture a holistic well-balanced Board that cares about the mission and vision of the organization.

I learnt three things:

• Firstly, I learnt to communicate in more direct and immediate ways. I had to, because of the diversity (good thing!) of my Board’s experience and therefore their viewpoints. In return, they questioned and clarified my stance, and help me gain a 360 perspective of issues.
• Secondly, I spent time with different Board members, and the stories of their experiences were all lessons in leadership, management, strategy and so much more than an MBA could give… especially on days when I felt stupid or demoralised.
• And finally, they allowed me to see who they were as people, and this made me love and respect them even more. They helped me grow as a person, refining my own (perhaps limiting!) beliefs and assumptions, understanding where emotion and passion come from, and how these are positive things that can be channeled as fuel.

The most precious heart of DPH – everyone who works there:

They don’t know how close they are to a dream team. And I haven’t told them. Maybe it is too good to be true, and I pinch myself because this is such an awesome group of people.

What you don’t see is what made them that way. We worked to build psychological safety and collective leadership. We established rituals and symbols, words and pictures, a continuous effort for shared understanding, and promises fulfilled – whether they be disciplinary or celebratory in nature.

As the CEO, trust is the currency that makes it come together. I trust them to care for our patients. They trust me to take care of them while they focus on patients. Our patients and their caregivers trust us to provide dignity, personhood and honour in these last days. Regulators trust us to be safe and well-governed, and we trust them that when we do our best work, they will help us build a good ecosystem.

In closing:

It’s been a real ride this year. And it is looking like another set of adventures in my second year. I may have doubts, and I may be tired at times, but I have found the courage from this first year to keep moving. I am grateful to my team for everything that they are, and I can already see what we can become.