I came across a great presentation by Ron Williams, Chairman and CEO of Aetna on innovation and leadership. He made a turnaround at Aetna with new focus on employees and customers and using information technology and fact-based decisions. He spoke at MIT Sloan School of Management. This is a really great session, don’t miss it.

If you only have a few minutes, the first 2/3 of the video is what you should watch. Some key points:

• making the case for change
• transformation through technology in a very short period of time
• 92% of employees take the employee survey (45 minutes)
• key question – is my manager / supervisor practicing the Aetna way (at 83%)
• they had a situation where staff did not admit they worked for Aetna
• employee engagement moved from 48% to 78%
• the are focusing on a high performance organization (expectation, not fear based)
• their performance management system is based on results AND leadership (can’t get results while not developing and leading staff  - if you achieve good results but have poor leadership = no reward!

Source: MIT World