PROUDLY PRESENTS

Dr. James Rohrer
Resident of The USA and 3-DNET® VIP member
Email contact : james.rohrer@exec.org

      

VIDEO INTRODUCTION®

 

 

INTERVIEW WITH 3-DNET®

Listen to sample sound "bites" from the interview:  

Question 1 : Tell me about yourself

My childhood home was a small town in Indiana and I continue to regard myself as a small town person. After serving in the Army as an enlisted man, I obtained my BS in business management from Indiana University, intending to go into hospital administration. I started work in the Veterans Administration, obtaining a MS in Health Planning and Administration during that time, then resigned to attend the doctoral program at the University of Michigan in the School of Public Health. My first academic position was as an assistant professor in health care management at the University of Iowa. UI promoted me to associate professor, made me director of the graduate program, the promoted me to full professor. My graduate students found me to be conscientious, demanding, and helpful to them. We merged the health care management program with the department of preventive medicine to form a College of Public Health, at which time I became a regular faculty member again. A search firm recruited me to start a small research department at Texas Tech in Lubbock. My wife was then hired to be regional chair of the department of psychiatry at the Texas Tech campus in Amarillo, so I recommended the merger of my small group with the department to family and community medicine and followed her to Amarillo, where I am now.

Question:  "Tell me about yourself....?"  

Question 2 : What can you offer to your next employer ?

Experience, creativity, hard work, a strong sense of responsibility, and honest opinions.

Question:  "What can you offer....?"  

Question 3 : What are your strengths ?

I have an unusually good command of the three r's. Many people are better statisticians than I am. Many are better scholars. Many are better writers. However, few can do all three as well as I can. More specifically, I have a good understanding of the medical care business and the ability to distinguish hyperbole from truth. I speak truth to powerful people without anxiety. I enjoy working with physicians. My initiative, creativity, and ability to work independently are very strong. Turned loose to quickly produce an unvarnished, insightful and creative analysis of a situation, few could do better.

Question:  "What are your strengths?"  

Question 4 : What are your accomplishments ?

My life's work has been writing for publication. My book on health planning went to a second edition and was a best seller for the American Public Health Association. My resume contains many more peer reviewed research publications than most academics ever produce.

Question:  "What are your accomplishments?"  

Question 5 : What are your limitations ?

Having worked with MDs my entire career, my natural tendency for rapid decision making has been developed to its maximum. MDs don't have time for long discussions by nature, and now neither do I. Furthermore, I don't defer to authority by pretending to agree with a strategy that is doubtful either ethically or practically. I am very independent, which can be a limitation in some situations. Following the 'party-line' is difficult for me.Despite being very independent, I need a pat on the head now and then and I need respect from my coworkers. .

Question:  "What are your limitations ?"  

Question 6 : How much are you worth ?

How much a person is worth depends on how much they increase revenues or prevent losses. How much an individual can increase revenues or prevent losses depends on the fit between their strengths and the role in which they find themselves. A great salesperson might be useless as a researcher. A great analyst might be useless trying to lead people. In the right role, I could be worth $200,000 per year. However, my personal goal is to have interesting and useful work, for which I would be willing to trade off income.

Question:  "How much are you worth ?"  

Question 7 : What are your ambitions for the future ?

My ambition is to engage in tnteresting work that makes the world a better place; I write that with complete sincerity. I don't care about titles, power or wealth. However, I do want to be respected.

Question:  "What are your ambitions for the future ?"  

Question 8 : How long would it take you start contributing to the firm? 

Once again, it depends on the role. As a trouble-shooter or accountability monitor, I could start finding fixable problems in the first month in any firm, even in an unfamiliar field.

Question:  "How long would it take ... ?"  

Question 9: What is your management style?

I believe in a small set of reasonable and measurable performance indicators, made known at the beginning of the evaluation period. Special circumstances may require exceptions, but otherwise people and work units should be held accountable to those indicators. The applicable performance indicators generally are obvious based on the mission of the work unit.

Philosophically, I probably could be best described as believing in an experimental approach to management. Every action under taken by managers can be seen as an hypothesis. Those actions may achieve the desired objectives or they may not. Perfection is not necessary as long as we learn from our experiments. That requires careful measurement of relevant process and outcome variables and objective interpretation of the data. This does not mean we should collect reams of data that we have no immediate purpose for; we should state our hypothesis in advance and collect information that is relevant to them. Ultimately, this leads to monitoring a dashboard consisting of a limited number of performance indicators against which all management initiatives undertaken by the firm will be compared.

In short, I am a no-BS manager who some would call a bean counter. Employees who need a warm and fuzzy or touchy-feely manager should not work for me. This is not to say that I am totally insensitive; I can perceive the emotional stresses people are feeling at work and at home and am willing to accommodate them. However, in the end, results matter most. Of course, employee morale and turnover are important indicators of performance.

Question:  "What is your management style .... ?"  

Question 10: Why do you think you have a good potential to be a manager?

In roles where independent thinking, a critical attitude, and speed are important, I would be an excellent choice.

Question:  "Why do you think you..... ?"  

Question 11: What would you look for in hiring people?

Honesty, courage, a track record of productivity, good writing skills, good computer skills, and the ability to think rapidly.

Question:  "What would you look for hiring .... ?"  

Question 12: As a manager, have you ever had to fire someone?

Yes. I terminated employees while in the VA and I have 'built the file' in preparation for firing a few people since then, but they chose to leave before it was necessary to formally terminate them. This was the best outcome for all concerned.

It is always painful to give a person a poor evaluation. However, if you are forthright about their performance from Day 1, and start a paper trail that cannot be disputed, the termination process can be made less traumatic. Managers make problems for themselves when they fail to give honest critical feedback in writing at every opportunity.

Question:  "As a manager, have you ever..... ?"  

Question 13: What do you see as the most difficult task of being a manager?

Being responsible for results when not in control of the essential levers of influence is a situation that all managers face at some time in their lives. For example, telling a staff person that she or he is responsible for work products without having any real authority over the work team is a recipe for intense stress. Some people face this kind of problem every day and are able to shrug off the failures or sweet-talk people into cooperation. Personally, I think that responsibility and authority should be perfectly matched.

Question:  "What do you see as...... ?"  

Question 14: Describe what you feel is the best work environment?

For me, the best work environment is one with maximum flexibility, high performance standards, and a fast pace. Also, people should be reasonably polite, not engage in back-biting or gossip, respect each other's privacy, and be committed to a common purpose: good performance for the organization.

Question:  "Describe what you feel..... ?"  

Question 15: Looking back how do you describe your past employer?

Texas Tech has been great to me. They have given me unlimited freedom to pursue projects that I thought I could do and that I thought would benefit the organization. I suspect that I have been underutilized, simply because Tech has not needed all my talents. But they never complained that perhaps they were not getting their money's worth. Instead, they have given unlimited running room so that I could drive on toward the goal line.

Question:  "Looking back how do you ..... ?"  

Question 16: What have you done to increase productivity, performance, efficiency, etc..?

My primary goal has been to increase the research productivity of Texas Tech School of Medicine in the form of peer reviewed publications. Since my arrival, Texas Tech has experienced a dramatic increase in publications. My assistant professors and I have put the school on the academic map in a way that was not true before our arrival.

Question:  "What have you done to .... ?"  

Question 17: Whether you are a "computer wizard", how do you respond to the financial side of your responsibilities?

My accounts are relatively simple. I make sure that I don't over spend so as to leave flexibility for later.

Question:  "Whether you are a "computer wizard".... ?"  

Question 18: How many people have you supervised in your recent job?

Three assistant professors and various secretaries and graduate students over the last six years.

Question:  "How many people have you .... ?"  

Question 19: What do you like more, working with figures or words?

Words, based on objective data.

Question:  "What do you like more ..... ?"  

Question 20: How do you think that your subordinates receive you?

Two of the assistant professors I hired regard me as a mentor. One probably thinks I am an idiot.

Question:  "How do you think .... ?"  

Question 21: What do you think of your previous boss?

My current supervisor is a nice person, is very ethical, and is very conscientious. He has supported my initiatives and results have been good.

Previous to him, I worked for the Dean of the Medical School in Lubbock, for whom I have the highest regard. Of the half dozen deans I have worked for, this person has been the most accountable, ethical, and humble by far. He restored the financial foundations of the school in a difficult time and he did so by focusing on core values with a deep commitment to the basics needs of patients and students.

Question:  "What do you think .... ?"  

Question 22: Describe a situation in which your work was criticized?

When I was director of the graduate program in health care management at the University of Iowa my vision called for public accountability of hospitals and a commitment to community benefit. This was anathema to the more traditional professors who were convinced that the profit margin had to take precedence over the community benefit mission, even in a not-for-profit hospital. Essentially, it was a conflict in philosophies, with the business model being against my public health model.

These professors worked hard to undermine me in an effort to redirect the program back toward traditional hospital management. We merged the program into the College of Public Health despite their anti-public health attitudes. However, I emerged scarred and hopefully wiser: changing the culture of an organization may not be worth the effort. If you need an organization with a completely different culture, sometimes it is better to build a new one from scratch.

Question:  "Describe a situation .... ?"  

Question 23: If I spoke with your boss what he would say about your greatest strength and weaknesses?

He would probably say that I am intelligent, a prolific writer, and require no supervision. He might also say that some folks call me 'difficult to work with', I don't bring in grant money, and I might be overly critical.

Question:  "If I spoke with your boss.... ?"  

Question 24: How can you handle life under pressure and with tough deadlines?

What feels like pressure to some people does not bother others. Being asked to complete a project when I have all the necessary tools and data does not bother me. In fact, I love the challenge. On the other hand, I hate the pressure of deadlines. That is why I always finish my work well in advance of a deadline. I avoid working with people who procrastinate, because that leads to avoidable deadline pressure.

Question:  "How can you handle .... ?"  

Question 25: What do you think you do better: staff work or line work?

Neither: project work is my forte. Line management gets bogged down in routine and staff work lacks the authority to get anything done. Projects result in a clear product in the near future, there is something new to do all of the time, and they can move fast.

Question:  "What do you think.... ?"  

Question 26: In your current position, what problem have you identified that was previously overlooked?

The dean of the medical school in Amarillo, like all deans, 'taxes' the clinical departments to create a flexible spending fund for school-wide purposes. The taxation formula is controversial all over the nation. Amarillo was using a revenue taxation system that essentially forgave department chairs if their expenses were greater than their revenues. I recommended switching to a tax based on expenses, so that they would have an incentive to control their costs.

This was an idea that no one had ever considered. It also was not adopted because the dean did not want to discourage entrepreneurial risk-taking. However, I believe that he benefited from being shown the incentives for waste that were inherent in his tax allocation system. This information caused him to be more alert to possible overspending in the clinical departments and thus enables him to intervene earlier.

Question:  "In your current position .... ?"  

Question 27: If you had a choice of job and a company what would you choose?

The company does not matter, unless it has a reputation for unethical practices. I could be effective for many different companies as trouble-shooter/site-visitor who looks for performance problems and their causes, then makes suggestions for improvement. I also would be good at monitoring health care utilization for a managed care organization and reporting on performance problems for particular hospitals or group practices.

Question:  "If you had a choice of job.... ?"  

Question 28:Do you have any objection to take a psychological test?

No. However, my wife is a psychiatrist and she diagnoses me at frequent intervals. I suspect she has accurately assessed my personality. See question 30 below.

Question:  "Do you have any objection.... ?"

Question 29: Do you consider yourself as a creative person?

Extremely. Many if not most of my publications ended up going in different directions than anyone anticipated. The insights gleaned were unexpected and would not have developed with creativity.

Question:  "Do you consider yourself.... ?"

Question 30: How do you describe your personality?

Introverted, asocial, compulsive, rigid, eccentric and somewhat moralistic. This personality type might be ideal for an auditor of some kind, though it sounds unappealing. Perhaps surprisingly, most people like me; perhaps it is because I have a sense of humor, I am supportive, and I never ask anyone to do something I would not be willing to do myself. Support staff members say they find me intimidating but they like me because I respect their opinions. And I truly do, since people on the front lines usually have very good ideas.

Question:  "How do you describe.... ?"  

Question 31: What is your outside reading you do?

Mystery and suspense novels. My favorites are Len Deighton, John Dunning, Jonathon Gash, and AA Fair (aka Earle Stanley Gardner).

Question:  "What is your outside.... ?"  

Question 32: What are some of your outside activities?

Reading, television, and selling books on the internet.

Question:  "What are some of.... ?"  

Question 33: Are you continuing your education?

I don't need any more degrees, but I count a day as wasted if I don't learn something. Computer technology is advancing at an amazing rate; I have to run to keep up. In addition, new content areas are fascinating. For example, my consultation role with the health department has led me to be involved in food poisoning outbreaks, programs to control sexually transmitted diseases and bioterrorism preparedness, areas that have been new and fun to learn about.

Question:  "Are you continuing your.... ?"

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