Beyond the numbers: Creating a more diverse future for health
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Welcome. You're listening to the McKinsey on Healthcare podcast. If you're looking for insights into the issues that matter most in healthcare right now, you're in the right place. Explore wide-ranging conversations with leaders, problem solvers, innovators, and professionals who are at the heart of healthcare today. I'm Dr. Pooja Kumar, a partner at McKinsey & Company. Let's get started. In today's episode of McKinsey on Healthcare, I speak with Dr. Anne Klebanski, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mass General Brigham, a Boston-based integrated healthcare system. Beyond her leadership of one of the nation's largest healthcare systems, Anne is also recognized internationally for her high-impact research in neuroendocrine disorders and pituitary tumors, and she's been described as a trailblazing woman leader in healthcare.
Welcome, Anne. Thank you very much for having me here today, Pooja. Looking forward to our discussion.
Anne, in 1997, you were the first woman from Mass General's Department of Medicine to earn the rank of full professor at Harvard. You had a respected career as a clinical researcher. Then in 2019, you became the first female chief executive of Partners Healthcare, the state's largest private employer. And you were named one of the top 25 women leaders in healthcare. You are a trailblazer indeed. In 2019, you were quoted as saying, it's important to create a future state where no one will say here is the first woman in any role. How would you describe the progress we've made in this area over the past few years? What still needs to happen to make this a reality?
So I think part of what we're seeing is a definition of progress. What does it mean to be able to say we've made sufficient progress or we are where we want to be? The quote I think that you reference is what I would call an optimal end state. The optimal end state is when we no longer have to say, here is the first woman who's in this position. Here is the first woman who has done that. Here is a trailblazer. It is really thinking about where we need to get to as a final state. And that is looking at everyone, everyone for their talents, for their abilities, for what they have to bring to any position. And that is the ultimate metric. Basically, we need to get beyond the numbers. Numbers are not the final metric.
Numbers are just the beginning. So when we say we have X number of women in this job, We have X number of minorities in this position. We're still counting numbers. But what we haven't done is fundamentally address the culture, the thinking, and the realization of what it really means to create the workforce of the future. So have we made progress? By numbers, absolutely. Have we really looked at what all of the things that we have realized represent, I'll call it the underbelly of all of this? Not really. So we've made progress. Have we made enough progress? Not at all. But we're talking about it. And that's always a first step. That's not an end state.
That's very helpful. And I think well said about the particular issues that have been there for a long while in our society and in the way that we work. You said in an interview with Barnard College that the best legacy is to develop the next generation of leaders and help people find what it is they want to dedicate their life to. How do you practice this belief in your day-to-day work? What advice do you have for physicians seeking leadership positions?
So one of the things that has been, I think, a very important element for me is impact. How much impact do you have in the one person you're seeing, the one patient you're taking care of? How much impact do you have on someone you've mentored? How much impact do you have in a broader concept, whether it's in research, whether it's in clinical, whether it's administration, whether it's in anything that you do? How do you evaluate that? I think many people are very much focused on their legacy in terms of how it is they will be remembered. and I've seen this many times, when people are very much focused on how will they be remembered, that becomes all about them.
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