1 THE POSITIVE ORGANIZATION

One day, I was talking with a young surgeon whose academic specialties included evaluating hospital performance. He thinks very deeply about what factors increase or decrease a hospital’s effectiveness, and we were discussing how successful hospitals function. In the middle of our conversation, he paused and then surprised me with a question: “Why do people in finance so often end up as heads of organizations?”

This question caught me off guard, and I improvised some answers. I told him economics is a potent discipline, and people who master it have precise analytic tools. As they move up in their organizations, they learn to rigorously evaluate the allocation of resources in the system. By the time they reach the highest levels of the finance function, they have great skills for controlling an enterprise.

A commonly held belief in business circles is that people in economics and similar analytic disciplines know how to solve important technical problems and how to efficiently utilize resources. Therefore, they can keep things under control.

My friend nodded, but not with enthusiasm. He expressed some reservations about people who base their leadership on control, problem solving, and efficiency. I was not sure what was on his mind. So I asked him to elaborate, and he told me two stories. Each one was about leadership and culture in a hospital setting.