Here is today’s big idea:  Health systems and hospitals, facing cost structures that are not sustainable, are looking at outsourcing departments and operations that have never before been subject to scrutiny, according to Black Book’s Q2 outsourcing survey.  

The survey’s authors said that by 2022, four short years from today, average hospital costs must be reduced by 24 percent in order to break even.  

This could have an impact on your career so now is the time to pay attention to this important trend.

There is a career transition myth that the size of a job applicant’s network or absent his own, the size of his outplacement consultant’s network, is critical in the process of finding a new job. It is simply not true. 

Candidates win or lose jobs based on their performance in the interviews and most candidates struggle mightily with this aspect of their job search.

The biggest threat Chief Executive Officers face when joining a new organization is the existing culture. Today’s big idea focuses on job transition and how to avoid this common cause for CEO failure.

Culture is an incredibly complex subject. It is the amalgamation of a multiple of things, from values, leadership examples, behaviors and habits. CEOs that ignore the existing culture at a new organization do so at their own peril.

Today's podcast offers three steps to mitigate this risks. 

Managing Your Career through a crisis — it is rarely as bad as most executives in this situation think it is but there are important caveats to that rule.

Short of murder, rape, embezzlement or pedophilia most career missteps are not as devastating as one may want to believe. 

Most career threats are not insurmountable but executives with big egos or a reluctance to admit they made a mistake may need to take a drink of humility before re-entering the job market.

Many job candidates are eliminated at two critical choke points in the executive search process:  the resume review and the face-to-face interview.  We will zero on the latter in today's podcast.

Here is the problem.  Most candidates tend to talk and talk about what they do, and how they do it.  But they fall short in emphasizing the WHY.  Why they do what they do. Herein is where the passion and the memorable part of the interview lives.  

Today’s Big idea focuses on when a job applicant should tell the truth about an issue in his or her background.  It is not as straight forward as you would think.

Reputations get dinged, people get bruised along the way.  Some of the dings and bruises are more serious than others.  Some can affect your career.  The tough question is what and when information on the more serious career issues should be disclosed to a recruiter or the prospective employer.  The answer is… there is no sure answer.

The Big Idea:  In a competitive job market, where there is intense competition for the best jobs, candidates must find a way to differentiate themselves from the competition.

Today I will share with you three steps to improve your performance in an interview.

Today, from Chicago, we will examine the idea of how a senior executive’s ego can be a make or break issue when it comes to having a stellar career, professionally and financially.  Recruiter and career counselor John Self will outline steps to avoid this career setback.

Did you know that getting laid off can be as bad for your health as it is for your pocketbook? Research shows that the trauma of losing one’s job can create some adverse health risks. In this podcast I will cover how not to deny your emotions, but also not let them take control. 

Most executive candidates rarely differentiate themselves from their competition. They use the same predictable resumes and bland performance in interviews.   

Today’s Big Idea:  Telling Your Story more effectively in the job interview.

Storytelling is a special art form.  This is especially true for the job interview.  It is a powerful tool but you must understand its limitations.  There are some questions that are not storytelling qualified, they beg for a straight forward, fact-based response. There are other important questions that are ideally suited to answer in a story format.

Today’s big idea  is about stories and the people who tell them and the power they have.

Story telling is not the exclusive purview of novelists or  writers of children’s books. 

Preachers tell stories from the Bible to exhort their followers to lead a better life.

Teachers tell stories to engage their students in important subjects like history and civics. 

Even corporations and their advertising agencies rely on stories to sell ideas or products. 

And there is a reason story telling is such an important and powerful tool. Research tells us that a good story connects the story teller and the listener in a dramatic way.  The listeners are more likely to remember the message when it is wrapped in a story well told.

Today’s Big Idea on SelfPerspective: one of the most important tools in your job search that will accelerate your quest for success. 

When someone loses their job, regardless of how competent they are in doing the work, it unleashes a rush of emotions, from the anxiety that comes with feeling overwhelmed and a sense of loss, to even crippling insecurity or depression.  Our job is our sense of identity and when we lose that anchor, well it is, to say the least, unsettling.  When you add all of these feelings to the likelihood that an applicant for an executive position is going to have four or five rejections before they get a  “yes”, it is easy to understand why looking for your next job can be an emotional merry-go-round.

Today, our big idea is the need for inspirational communication in a day and age in which the political and social challenges can very easily take you to the dark side.   As a leader you must be prepared to talk about some very uncomfortable truths but the reality is people want and need to be inspired. Inspiration is the salve that helps us deal with all that makes us uncomfortable. It moves us to a belief that we can overcome.

Today, our big idea is the need for inspirational communication in a day and age in which the political and social challenges can very easily take you to the dark side.   As a leader you must be prepared to talk about some very uncomfortable truths but the reality is people want and need to be inspired. Inspiration is the salve that helps us deal with all that makes us uncomfortable. It moves us to a belief that we can overcome.

Today’s Big Idea focuses on the frustrations and pain experienced by executives looking for work, battling an increasingly automated job applicant processing system.  I will offer some suggestions on what you can do to beat the system. 

“It is not the strongest species that survives, not the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change.”    Charles Darwin

Today’s big idea focuses on change and how recent news accounts regarding the big three business coalition may be a tipping point to the long awaited transformational reform of healthcare.  We will look at those issues and four healthcare career paths that I believe will provide talented and skilled executives with career and financial growth opportunities.

In today's podcast we look at two big career management topics:  
First, we will look at the deterioration in the soft skills that candidates bring to the table.  One in three recruiters say there is a measurable decline in the quality of the soft skills.

Second, we will look at how research and advanced preparation for 15 common questions can help you improve your performance.  

In this week's podcast – If willpower, reason and executive functioning skills seem like a recipe for success, why have so many already given up on their New Year’s Resolutions? We will also discuss how you can reframe a point of view to end an argument in the spirit of finding common ground.  

Today’s First Big Idea comes from the Harvard Business Journal  — Five leadership voices every executive must cultivate. Communication is an important leadership skill that deserves more of our attention.

Our second big idea focuses on the age-old debate:  Which executive is more likely to perform better and thus move ahead — the person who puts in the longer hours, or the executive who sticks to a set work schedule with no nights or no weekends?  The answer may surprise you.

Today on Self Perspective, we will focus on the importance of your Personal Positioning Statement (PPS) and how this concept can strengthen your career management and job seeking skills. Then, in Part II, we will look into the power of storytelling and how this art delights, enchants, touches, teaches, inspires motivates and challenges us. And, more importantly, how storytelling can help us remember important events and important lessons of life.

As we begin a new year, it is a time for reflection, not on our jobs or the economic and political machinations that may affect them, but on our values, our ethics — on our very integrity.

In my industry, healthcare, I am always stunned and saddened that a person who made the grueling sacrifice of medical school and residency training, or the promising executive who achieved fellowship status in the American College of Healthcare Executives, could make decisions, or accept decisions from others on high, to engage in fraudulent actions.  If you wan t to know what I think is equitable punishment, then listen.  I think you will agree.

One of the toughest challenges faced in leading a turnaround is striking the right balance between being demanding and tough to ensure that business goals are achieved, and leading in a way that engages the workforce to ensure that individual members of the team excel in performance. 

There are far too many leaders who actually believe that to be successful, you have to be “take-no-prisoners” tough, demanding,  and willing to publicly ridicule an underperforming executive in order to create an example for others.   When challenged about their style these executives typically offer an excuse masquerading as a pillar of integrity — that they owe people something called unvarnished honesty.  What a nice sounding phrase for a publicly demeaning experience in front of colleagues. 

Today’s podcast focuses on two emerging trends that, when combined, will dramatically transform the healthcare industry — from our business model and how we take care of patients, to the impact these changes will have on our careers. 

Here are five things executives in the job market can do to maintain their momentum through the holidays. This may be a dormant time but there is much a job seeker can do to maintain her or his momentum. Do not waste the gift.

Today, our big idea is an intriguing emerging concept in interviewing, a technique that could help you break through the noise and competition from dozens of other candidates to win that job you have always wanted.